Cool free hosted tools for your Ruby webapp
Some of these are obvious (i.e. get exceptional, hoptoad), many of these aren't Ruby-specific, but I thought it might be nice to put all these in one place, at least for my sake.
Exception tracking
Get Exceptional limit: 1 app
Hoptoad limit: 1 project, 2 users
Bug tracking:
there's github, of course, if you're already using that...
16bugs limit: 1 project
I'm not including full hosting platforms, like Google Code here, but you could use those, too
One-off emails (i.e. signup)
Sendgrid limit: 200 emails/day
GMail allows 500 emails/day, but doesn't offer all the doodads that Sendgrid does
Mailing list (i.e. newsletter)
Mailchimp limit: 500 subscribers, 3000 emails total a month
Customer Support
SnapABug limit: 10 reports/day
uservoice limit: 100 unique users/month
GetSatisfaction limit: 0 official reps, not hosted on your url
Analytics
There's a ton of options in this space, but I use:
Google Analytics limit: no limits, because it's The Goog
Clicky limit: 1 website, 3000 hits/day
Metrics, Monitoring
New Relic limit: no troubleshooting, optimization, etc
Tripwire (Alpha, no immediate signup) for tracking validation errors. limits not specified
User Avatar Hosting
Gravatar limit: none
Authentication
OpenID
RPX limit: up to 6 providers, instead of 12
Time tracking/invoicing
Harvest limit: 2 projects, 4 clients, 1 user
Help desk thing
Just kidding, couldn't find any free hosted help desk apps
Anything else I'm missing that every webapp needs?
Update 10/5/2010: added Tripwire
October 5th, 2010 - 07:36
Great list! There were a few that I hadn’t heard about before.
Would you mind adding Tripwire (http://www.tripwireapp.com) to the list? We’re still in private alpha but hope to open to the public soon. Tripwire aggregates your Rails app’s validation errors to help designers/developers identify UX issues and users’ pain points.
I’d probably categorize Tripwire under Metrics/Monitoring.
October 5th, 2010 - 09:15
Sure, though with a disclaimer that it’s Alpha and as there’s no visible business/pricing plan it may not have a free option when it launches…
October 5th, 2010 - 09:24
The exact details haven’t been decided yet, but there will be a free option. Thanks!