u/Due_Gene6257

I’m comparing Supabase and RDS for a small production app and honestly neither feels like an obvious choice.

Supabase looks much easier to get started with, but I don’t really need auth, storage, realtime etc. I mainly need Postgres. once the app grows, the usage based parts of the pricing also seem harder to estimate.

RDS gives more control and I trust AWS for production, but then the bill is split across instance, storage, backups, I/O, networking and HA. it feels like a lot for a relatively normal Postgres workload.

What I actually want is pretty simple:

• always-on managed Postgres
• backups and maintenance handled
• predictable monthly pricing
• good regions in Asia
• standard Postgres so I can move later if required

Would you still pick Supabase or RDS for this, or is there a better middle option I should be looking at?

I don’t hate Postman, but I miss when API clients felt simple.

Open app, send request, save collection, done. Now every API tool seems to want accounts, sync, workspaces, teams, docs, monitors, mock servers, and 20 other things before I even send a GET request.

I’m mostly looking for something that feels fast and does not get in the way. Bonus if it works nicely with Git or local files.

What are people using that still feels lightweight?

I used to like how simple the old setup was. Spin up a Postgres database, connect the app, and not think too much about the database side until the project actually grew.

Now I’m looking for an ElephantSQL alternative that is still managed, reasonably priced, and not packed with extra platform features I don’t really need. Main things I care about are backups, updates handled for me, always-on usage, and predictable pricing.

For people who already migrated, what did you end up choosing and are you happy with it so far?

Most of my early users are outside the US, mainly in Asia, and I am trying to figure out if it actually matters where my postgres database is hosted.

I know I can just use the usual options like Supabase, Railway, Render, or RDS, but a lot of their default regions seem very US or Europe focused depending on the plan.

For people building apps with users in Asia or other non-US regions, what postgres database service are you using? Did moving the database closer to users make a noticeable difference?

For about two years the executive assistant in my business was me, at 11pm, clearing the inbox, moving calendar blocks around and calling back everyone who rang while I was on a job. This year I finally started handing that work to software. Some of it stuck and some of it did not. I dropped a website chat widget early on because the only things it ever caught were spam and people trying to sell me search engine services. Here is the honest rundown of what I found good.

fyxer ai is the one I would keep if I could only keep one. It works inside the email you already use, sorts what genuinely needs you away from what does not, and writes draft replies that sound like you rather than like a robot. It took a week or so of me fixing its drafts before they got good, and now most mornings I am just reading, changing a line and hitting send. Fair warning that it drafts and sorts, it does not go and do things, so you are still the one hitting send on everything.

marblism is the generalist of the bunch and perfect tool for small business. Its assistant covers the inbox side, filtering the junk and drafting replies, meetings and there is a receptionist that answers calls and books people in. It covers both, which is the reason it stuck for me. The email tone took about a week of me marking drafts good or bad before it sounded like me, so read the early ones before they go out.

shortwave is the other strong email one. It is more of a full replacement for your inbox than something that sits alongside it, and the search is unreal. You can ask it what a supplier quoted you back in March and it just finds it. The catch is that it only works with Gmail, so if your business runs on Outlook it is a non starter.

motion is the calendar one people either love or quit in a rage. It takes your job list and your meetings and builds your day for you. When it works it feels like having a chief of staff. But it also reshuffles everything constantly, and I had afternoons where I honestly did not know what I was meant to be working on because it had moved things three times since lunch. Great if you are happy handing over control. Maddening if you are not.

reclaim ai is the calmer version of that same idea. It defends time for the things that always get eaten first, like admin or actually going to the gym, and if someone books over you it quietly finds another slot instead of blowing up your whole week. The free version is genuinely usable, which is rare. The phone app is weak though, which is a bit silly at this point.

rosie is the one to get if the phone is your actual problem. It is a proper receptionist and nothing else, it answers in a voice that does not make people hang up, and it takes messages and books jobs in while you are up a ladder. If missed calls are what is costing you money, a specialist like this will beat any all in one tool, and I would start here before anything else on this list.

lindy is the most capable if you want the assistant to go and do things rather than just suggest them. Booking people in, chasing follow ups, updating your records. It is properly powerful. The price climbs fast once you are actually using it a lot, so keep an eye on the bill.

granola is my favorite meeting notes tool by a distance. No bot joins the call and announces itself, which matters a lot when you are talking to a client or interviewing someone. You jot a few messy fragments during the call and by the time you hang up it has turned them into clean notes with the decisions and the follow ups pulled out. Felt like magic the first ten times.

fathom does the same job and has the most generous free plan of anything here, so it is the easy place to start if you do not want to pay for anything yet. Downside is it sends a visible bot into your meeting, which some clients find odd.

What are you all actually running day to day? And has anyone found anything decent for the back office side, invoices and chasing late payments, because that is still entirely me.

I’m trying to find executive assistant tools other than ChatGPT that are actually useful for admin work.

ChatGPT has been good for writing, summarizing, and cleaning up messy thoughts, but it doesn’t really handle the annoying day to day stuff by itself. I still have to open it, explain the context, copy things into email, update my calendar, remember who needs a follow up, etc.

The main things I want help with are emails, scheduling, meeting notes, reminders, and keeping track of small tasks that slip through the cracks.

Has anyone found something that feels more like a real assistant and less like another tab I need to manage?

I’ve been trying to find a good GUI for running local LLMs and curious what people here are actually using day to day.

I’ve seen people mention LM Studio, AnythingLLM, Open WebUI, LocalChat App, Jan, GPT4All, and a few others, but it’s hard to tell which ones are actually nice to use after the first setup.

Mostly looking for something that feels like a simple chat app for local models. Ideally I want a clean interface, easy model management, offline/local chat, and the ability to chat with PDFs or other local files without needing to mess around in the terminal too much.

For people who have tried a few of these, what GUI did you end up using with and why?

Not talking about big pivots or major strategies, just small changes.

Something simple you tried that ended up improving your workflow, sales, customer experience, or even just made your day-to-day easier.

I feel like these small shifts are often overlooked, but they add up more than we think.

What’s one change you made that had a bigger impact than you expected?