AiCensus.

§ Recipe

Indie hacker starter pack.

You are one person with one evening a day. Every tool here earns its monthly cost or its learning curve. This is what I'd tell my past self to install on day one.

IndieFreeOpen source

  1. IDE

    01
    Cursor

    Cursor

    The AI-first code editor — indexes your entire codebase for context-aware development.

    Coding & Development
    Freemium
    4.9

    The one non-negotiable spend. If you'll only pay for one tool all year, make it this one — it's the compounding productivity bet.

  2. Thinking partner

    02
    Claude

    Claude

    Anthropic's thoughtful AI assistant — built for safety, depth, and nuanced reasoning.

    Chatbots & Assistants
    Freemium
    4.8

    Debug the idea, not just the code. Claude is a senior engineer, PM, and copywriter on call for $20/mo. Rubber duck with opinions.

  3. UI shortcut

    03
    v0

    v0

    Vercel's AI UI generator — create polished React + Tailwind components from natural language.

    Coding & Development
    Freemium
    4.4

    Skips the part of building a product that doesn't differentiate you — the layout. Hand it to V0, ship faster.

  4. Research

    04
    Perplexity

    Perplexity

    The AI-powered answer engine — search the web and get cited, trustworthy answers instantly.

    Research & Search
    Freemium
    4.6

    Market research, library comparisons, pricing benchmarks, SEO research. Replaces three hours of googling with a five-minute conversation and sources you can verify.

  5. Local models

    05
    Ollama

    Ollama

    Run LLMs locally with one command — the easiest way to get AI running on your machine.

    Local & Open Source AI
    Open source
    4.7

    For the privacy-sensitive, rate-limit-sensitive, or just-cheap-sensitive workloads. Run Llama 3.1 or Qwen locally — free inference that survives API outages.

  6. Launcher

    06
    Raycast

    Raycast

    AI-powered launcher for Mac — Spotlight replacement with built-in AI, snippets, and automations.

    Productivity
    Freemium
    4.5

    Not strictly AI, but the glue. Raycast's AI quick-access plus command palette shaves minutes off every context switch — and indie hacking is all context switches.