Curated directory · 66 tools

The tools async teams actually use.

A hand-checked shelf of software for remote engineers, indie hackers and freelancers — async collaboration, time zones, developer utilities, content, social metadata and AI. No sponsored slots, no sign-up, no trackers.

66 tools 6 categories 4 Pikkola originals Reviewed 9 Nov 2026

66 tools

Loom

loom.com

Record a short video instead of booking another meeting.

Async Collaboration Freemium Web · macOS +3

Notion

notion.so

Docs, wikis and project boards inside one workspace.

Async Collaboration Freemium Web · macOS +3

Linear

linear.app

Issue tracking fast enough that people actually keep it updated.

Async Collaboration Freemium Web · macOS +3

Slack

slack.com

Team chat with searchable history, huddles and channels that outlive a project.

Async Collaboration Freemium Web · macOS +3

Miro

miro.com

A whiteboard a distributed team can genuinely share and come back to.

Async Collaboration Freemium Web · macOS +3

Figma

figma.com

Design, comment and hand off in the same live file.

Async Collaboration Freemium Web · macOS +1

Fathom

fathom.video

Records and summarises your calls so nobody has to take notes.

Async Collaboration Freemium Web · macOS

Grain

grain.com

Turns a long call into short clips you can paste into Slack.

Async Collaboration Freemium Web

Twist

twist.com

Threaded, async discussions instead of a chat that keeps interrupting.

Async Collaboration Freemium Web · macOS +3

Tuple

tuple.app

Low-latency screen sharing built for pairing rather than presenting.

Async Collaboration Paid macOS · Windows

Pikkola Time

time.pikkola.com

Compare working hours across cities and get scored meeting slots instead of a grid of clocks.

Time & Scheduling Free Pikkola Certified Web

World Time Buddy

worldtimebuddy.com

Stack city clocks and read the overlap at a glance.

Time & Scheduling Freemium Web · iOS +1

Calendly

calendly.com

A booking link that ends the email back-and-forth.

Time & Scheduling Freemium Web

Cal.com

cal.com

Open-source scheduling you can host yourself and shape to your own flow.

Time & Scheduling Freemium Web

Clockwise

getclockwise.com

Moves flexible meetings around to buy back blocks of focus time.

Time & Scheduling Free Web · Extension

Reclaim.ai

reclaim.ai

Defends your calendar against meeting creep and task slippage.

Time & Scheduling Freemium Web

Motion

usemotion.com

Auto-schedules tasks and meetings around your real deadlines.

Time & Scheduling Paid Web · iOS +1

SavvyCal

savvycal.com

Booking links that show your availability without exposing your whole week.

Time & Scheduling Freemium Web

Toggl Track

toggl.com

One-click time tracking for the work you actually bill.

Time & Scheduling Freemium Web · macOS +4

Pomofocus

pomofocus.io

A no-signup Pomodoro timer that stays out of the way.

Time & Scheduling Free Web

Pikkola Diff

diff.pikkola.com

Compare text or code in the browser with word-level highlighting; nothing is uploaded.

Code & Dev Utilities Free Pikkola Certified Web

Ray.so

ray.so

Turn a snippet into a clean code image worth posting.

Code & Dev Utilities Free Web

Carbon

carbon.now.sh

Create shareable screenshots of your source with proper syntax colour.

Code & Dev Utilities Free Web

Regex101

regex101.com

Build, test and get a line-by-line explanation of a regular expression.

Code & Dev Utilities Freemium Web

JSON Crack

jsoncrack.com

See JSON as a graph you can navigate instead of a wall of braces.

Code & Dev Utilities Freemium Web

Excalidraw

excalidraw.com

Hand-drawn diagrams for architecture and flows, fast enough to think with.

Code & Dev Utilities Freemium Web

Hoppscotch

hoppscotch.io

A lightweight API client that opens in a tab, not an installer.

Code & Dev Utilities Freemium Web

Bruno

usebruno.com

Offline-first API client that keeps collections as plain files in your repo.

Code & Dev Utilities Freemium macOS · Windows +1

DevDocs

devdocs.io

Every API reference you need, in one searchable, offline-capable place.

Code & Dev Utilities Free Web

IT Tools

it-tools.tech

Sixty small developer utilities — hashes, encoders, converters — on one page.

Code & Dev Utilities Free Web

Crontab.guru

crontab.guru

Turns a cron expression into a plain-English sentence.

Code & Dev Utilities Free Web

ExplainShell

explainshell.com

Breaks a shell command down flag by flag, with the man page behind each one.

Code & Dev Utilities Free Web

Pikkola Rank

rank.pikkola.com

Pre-flight check for Korean blog drafts: length, repetition, risky claims and an SEO score.

Content & SEO Free Pikkola Certified Web

Google Search Console

search.google.com

The only first-party source for how Google crawls, indexes and ranks your site.

Content & SEO Free Web

Free crawl, backlink and keyword data for sites you can verify.

Content & SEO Free Web

Hemingway Editor

hemingwayapp.com

Flags the sentences that are too long, too passive or too clever.

Content & SEO Freemium Web

Grammarly

grammarly.com

Grammar and tone checking that follows you across every text box.

Content & SEO Freemium Web · Extension +2

Surfer SEO

surfer.com

A content editor scored against the pages already ranking for the term.

Content & SEO Paid Web

Screaming Frog

screamingfrog.co.uk

Desktop crawler for titles, links and redirects; the free tier covers 500 URLs.

Content & SEO Freemium macOS · Windows

Ubersuggest

neilpatel.com

Keyword volumes and content ideas without sitting through a sales call.

Content & SEO Freemium Web · Extension

AlsoAsked

alsoasked.com

Maps the follow-up questions people search after the first one.

Content & SEO Freemium Web

TinyPNG

tinypng.com

Shrinks images without a quality loss you can see.

Content & SEO Freemium Web

Pikkola Meta

meta.pikkola.com

See a link card on Google, X, Slack, Discord and KakaoTalk before you publish it.

Social & Metadata Free Pikkola Certified Web

OpenGraph.xyz

opengraph.xyz

Paste any URL and see its Open Graph card rendered.

Social & Metadata Free Web

MetaTags.io

metatags.io

Preview and generate meta tags for Google, X, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Social & Metadata Free Web

Vercel OG Playground

og-playground.vercel.app

Design dynamic OG images in code and see the result on every change.

Social & Metadata Free Web

Social Share Preview

socialsharepreview.com

One URL, every social card, side by side for comparison.

Social & Metadata Free Web

Typefully

typefully.com

Write, schedule and measure posts for X and LinkedIn in one editor.

Social & Metadata Freemium Web

Buffer

buffer.com

Queue the same post across every network without re-uploading it five times.

Social & Metadata Freemium Web · iOS +1

Canva

canva.com

Social images that look designed, without waiting for a designer.

Social & Metadata Freemium Web · iOS +1

Unsplash

unsplash.com

Free photography for the posts that need a real image, not a gradient.

Social & Metadata Freemium Web

Bannerbear

bannerbear.com

Generate branded social images from a template through an API.

Social & Metadata Freemium Web · API

ChatGPT

chatgpt.com

The general-purpose assistant most teams reach for first.

AI Productivity & LLMs Freemium Web · macOS +2

Claude

claude.ai

Long-context writing and code review that keeps the thread of a project.

AI Productivity & LLMs Freemium Web · macOS +2

Perplexity

perplexity.ai

Answers with sources you can open and check yourself.

AI Productivity & LLMs Freemium Web · iOS +1

Gemini

gemini.google.com

Google's assistant, wired into Docs, Gmail and Search results.

AI Productivity & LLMs Freemium Web · iOS +1

Cursor

cursor.com

An editor built around asking the model about your own repository.

AI Productivity & LLMs Freemium macOS · Windows +1

GitHub Copilot

github.com

Inline completions and a coding agent that lives inside GitHub.

AI Productivity & LLMs Freemium Web · Extension +1

Bolt.new

bolt.new

Prompt a full-stack app and deploy it without leaving the browser.

AI Productivity & LLMs Freemium Web

v0

v0.app

Generate React and Tailwind interfaces from a description.

AI Productivity & LLMs Freemium Web

Replit

replit.com

A cloud IDE with hosting and an agent that can run the app it writes.

AI Productivity & LLMs Freemium Web · iOS

Windsurf

windsurf.com

An agentic IDE that keeps a working map of your codebase.

AI Productivity & LLMs Freemium macOS · Windows +1

Ollama

ollama.com

Run open models on your own machine with a single command.

AI Productivity & LLMs Free macOS · Windows +2

Hugging Face

huggingface.co

Models, datasets and demos for everything open in machine learning.

AI Productivity & LLMs Freemium Web · API

NotebookLM

notebooklm.google.com

Grounded answers and audio overviews built only from your own sources.

AI Productivity & LLMs Free Web

ElevenLabs

elevenlabs.io

Natural text-to-speech and voice cloning for demos and narration.

AI Productivity & LLMs Freemium Web · API

A directory has to be maintained, or it becomes a list of dead links.

Pikkola Tools is built and checked by Pikkola Lab, a small independent studio. We started it because the useful part of a “best tools” list is never the ranking — it is knowing whether the free tier is enough, whether the thing still works, and what it costs once you invite a second person.

Each entry names the pricing model and the platforms it actually runs on. Entries are re-checked monthly; if a tool changes its free tier or shuts down, it is corrected or removed rather than left to rot.

Hand-checked, not scraped

Every card was written after opening the product, not generated from a description.

No paid placement

Nobody can buy a spot or a badge. If affiliate links are ever added, they will be marked on the card.

Quiet by design

Static pages, no cookies, no analytics scripts, no account. Your saved list lives in your browser.

Questions about the directory

What is Pikkola Tools?

A curated directory of 66 tools for people who work remotely or build small software products: async collaboration, time zones and scheduling, developer utilities, content and SEO, social metadata, and AI. Every entry lists its pricing model and the platforms it runs on, and links straight to the product.

How are tools selected?

Two rules: we have used the tool ourselves, or we have tested the free tier we describe. Beyond that we favour tools that work without an account, keep your data in your browser where possible, and charge in a way a solo developer can afford. There are no paid slots, and no tool can buy a review.

What does “Pikkola Certified” mean?

It marks a tool built by Pikkola Lab itself — Pikkola Time, Diff, Rank and Meta. We badge them so you can tell first-party products apart from the rest of the shelf, not because they are better than the tools around them.

Do I need an account to use this site?

No. There is no sign-up, no cookie banner and no analytics script. Search, filters and bookmarks all run in your browser; the saved list is kept in local storage on your device and never sent to a server.

How is the directory funded?

By the $5 field guides linked on this page, and by the other free tools Pikkola Lab builds. Placements are not for sale. If affiliate links are added later, the card will say so before you click.

A tool is missing or out of date. Can I tell you?

Yes — email [email protected] with the name and a link. Corrections about pricing, platform support or a shutdown are the most useful messages we get, and they are usually fixed within a few days.