Tools of the Trade is a curated list of software development tools and services compiled from Hacker News discussions.
The project addresses the problem of discovering which tools and hosted services developers should adopt for their workflows. It originated from a 2010 Hacker News thread where Joshua Schachter asked what SaaS and hosted solutions people use instead of self-hosting infrastructure components like version control, mail, and mailing lists. The approach works by collecting recommendations and tools mentioned across multiple Hacker News discussions, supplemented with data from AngelList and Quora, then organizing them into a structured list that includes both self-hosted and hosted services.
The list serves developers and teams evaluating their technology stack who want to see what tools the broader Hacker News community considers valuable. It suits anyone building services who needs to decide between hosting solutions themselves or adopting existing platforms. The project explicitly welcomes community contributions through pull requests, positioning itself as a living document rather than a static snapshot.
The project maintains an open contribution model where the community can submit additions and updates. The list has evolved across multiple iterations, starting from the original 2010 thread and expanding through subsequent community discussions in 2013 and beyond to reflect the changing landscape of available tools and services.
