5 VPS Tools to Get Your Startup Humming

  We probably don’t need to spend any time convincing you why a VPS is the better choice for your startup over shared hosting with one of the big, impersonal players out there. With a VPS, you get more choice, better speed, and the ability to do whatever work you need to grow your business. Instead, you’re probably wondering about what kind of tools and services you can leverage with your VPS, on top of your existing platform, to make the experience of using your service better—for both you and your customers. Because we recognize that startups are cash-strapped, we’ll focus on software that’s either open source or has a free tier. These aren’t endorsements, but rather places for you to get started.

1. Mattermost/Glitter

It seems like no startup these days goes without some kind of instant messaging-based communication platform like Slack, Campfire, or the equivalents from Google or Microsoft. These are all great options, but prices start to spike once you need additional features, like archiving. Mattermost is one self-hosted option that’s popular among enterprises. According to its developers, it offers all of Slack’s features witout the lock-in. Stay tuned for news from Glitter, a popular free alternative to Slack and others. It’s just been acquired by GitLab , which plans on open sourcing all of Glitter’s codebase. Or, of course, you can go back to IRC.

2. Piwik