Some of the most useful nuggets of information I come across in blogs and podcasts are mentions of tools and services used by other people to better run their software businesses. So I have put together my own list of useful tools and services to run a software business.
Feel free to recommend your own favourites in the comments below. Please include your relationship to the tool/service (e.g. customer, user, employee or owner). You can also comment below about your experiences (positive or negative) with any of the tools and services listed. Anonymous comments will be treated with suspicion and may be deleted
Successful Software 
Bug Tracking – JIRA – https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/ – Excellent fully featured and configurable bug tracker. Provides add-ons to SCRUM, KanBan and other AGILE tools. Very cheap for small users (own installation, not hosted).
UML – Enterprise Architect – http://sparxsystems.com.au/ – Allows full design of software from requirements capture down to skeleton code generation (and code reverse engineering). Low price for single user
A Thumbs up from me for Beyond Compare (a file/folder comparison tool) as well
I did an interview with one of their developers a few years ago:
https://successfulsoftware.net/2009/02/01/interview-with-craig-peterson-of-beyond-compare/
Source Code/Version Control – I’m a SVN person, so TortoiseSVN – http://tortoisesvn.net/ – is a great Windows Explorer add-on. It provides an SVN server as well. You’ll need an SVN client (eg http://www.sliksvn.com/en/download) if you want command line SVN though – eg for scripting or integration with other apps. Tortoise do TortoiseCVS for a very similar CVS Windows Explorer add in. Sadly no port for linux or Mac :(
Accountancy Software – FreeAgentCentral – http://www.freeagent.com – excellent cloud based accounting and daily bookkeeping software. Online submission of VAT, Corp tax and PAYE returns.Prior to RTI, the Payroll part was rather basic, so I’ve preferred to use Payroo – http://www.payroo.com – for a fully featured and free (for under 10 users) :) payroll solution
IDE (general) – Eclipse – http://www.eclipse.org/ – a great IDE which provides all that you’d expect – syntax checking & colouring, keyword completion, refactoring, in-tool building & debugging. Out of the box it supports Java, but there are many plugins available for Python, C++/C, Web languages etc. It plays nicely with various Source Control packages, and provides icon markup in the file explorer
Olly, thanks. I have added some of those. I am avoiding version control tools and IDEs, as most people already have a strong preference on these.
Website monitoring – https://www.serverdensity.com – I’m the founder
Team Password Manager: http://teampasswordmanager.com, in the passwords section.
It’s a web based password manager for groups, self hosted. I’m the founder.
1password in the password section! https://agilebits.com/onepassword . The password manager I use. I could not live with it.
*I could not live “without” it.
Hey Andy, would you consider replacing Paint.net with my RealWorld Paint? Its free, portable, works on all Windows (no .net framework required), opens and saves .pdn files, but also GIMP’s and Photoshop’s files (better than any other free software) and more advanced Paint.net users are usually amazed when the see it for the first time – the drawing tools are way more powerful, there are vector layers and layer styles and the UI is still relatively simple.
For helpdesk software, I suggest adding zendesk. Prices start from 29/mo
For installer software, I recommend NSIS (nsis.sourceforge.net), it is open source.
An extra possibility for the list. I bought Helpinator (http://www.helpinator.com/index.html) a few days ago. I’m nearly at the end of my help project and it’s worked extremely well. I can’t compare to H&M (never used it) but it’s at least quite a lot cheaper ($150).
Thank you for the great recommendations for software, also appreciate all the suggestions that the other commentators are leaving.
https://www.pocketvau.lt in the passwords section, please. I’m the founder. We’re a cloud based password manager for companies that makes sharing sensitive data between groups of people easy.