Less hype. Better software decisions.
An independent software research publication for freelancers and small teams, under a collective editorial identity. The Plain Stack is primarily operated using AI-assisted research and automation. Conclusions and recommendations are generated from structured evidence under fixed editorial rules. 59 records: verified dated pricing, documented limitations and an evidence level on every claim.
The Plain Stack keeps 59 records of software used by freelancers and small teams, and the comparisons built on them. Behind the collective editorial identity, it is owned and run by one person under the pseudonym Richy, with most of the reading, writing and checking done by AI under fixed editorial rules.
How the site works
- How a record is made
- The price is read on the vendor's own pricing page with the monthly view selected, from France, and dated. For most records we keep a screenshot of that page. What the vendor says about its product is attributed to the vendor, not repeated as fact.
- What we do not claim
- We do not present hands-on tests we have not run: a record says when nothing was tested by us. Dollars and euros are never converted into each other.
- How the site earns money
- Some links to vendors pay a commission, marked as partner links next to the button. Display ads and how they use cookies are described on the privacy page. Neither changes a verdict or the order of the picks.
- When we are wrong
- Mistakes and price changes are logged on the corrections page and in the research log, with the date. To report one, write to contact@theplainstack.com.
What we do
We separate verifiable facts from editorial judgement and show the date behind every price.
What we refuse
A claim we cannot back stays unmade. Where a statement comes from a vendor's own documentation and has not been independently checked, it is attributed to the vendor and says so.
Who operates the publication
The publication is owned and run by Richy, who sets these rules and is accountable for what appears. That is a different claim from “a human writes and approves every conclusion”, and this site will not make the second one.