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Stack for Indie Hacker

Indie Hacker stack 2026

Ship fast, sell faster, run lean.

The indie hacker stack favors managed services over infra babysitting. Every pick here is something one developer can run on a Saturday and not worry about on Monday.

Editor

Cursor

Fastest path to a working AI-native editor with multi-file edits.

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Claude Code

Terminal-first agent that handles long, hairy refactors solo.

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VS Code + Copilot

Familiar baseline if you are migrating an existing codebase.

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AI Agent

Claude Code (subagents)

Built-in subagents and skills cover most indie workflows.

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OpenAI Agents SDK

Lightweight SDK when you want to embed agents inside your product.

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Database

Neon

Serverless Postgres with branching that fits a side project budget.

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Convex

Reactive DB plus server functions, no schema migrations to babysit.

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Deploy

Vercel

Zero-config Next.js deploys with previews on every PR.

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Coolify on Hetzner

Self-host once you outgrow free tiers without re-platforming.

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Observability

Sentry

Errors, traces, and replays in one place with a generous free tier.

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PostHog

Product analytics, feature flags, and session replay bundled.

Payments

Stripe

Default for one-off and subscription payments with great DX.

Lemon Squeezy

Merchant of record handles VAT and tax for global indie sales.

From the DD app suite

DD Academy

Courses and structured learning paths for AI-native developers.

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