Research

Research tools are for researching competitors and target customers — the kind of work every indie hacker eventually hits and would rather not build from scratch. 7 tools are listed here, each picked and written up individually rather than pulled from an affiliate feed. BuiltWith is usually the first one people try: reveals exactly what tech stack a competitor's site runs on, handy for sizing up the build, not just the pitch. Crunchbase takes a different angle — the fastest way to check who funded a competitor, how much, and whether they're actually still alive. And G2 is worth a look too: real user reviews on B2B software, useful for sizing up competitors or picking your own stack without trusting vendor claims. Every listing below includes the actual tradeoff, not marketing copy, so you can pick based on what you're building instead of what ranks highest in a sponsored roundup elsewhere.