"A developer's filter for choosing software (so you stop drowning in tools)" published

Moritz Meidl — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 02:49:01 +0000

Every developer I know has the same problem: there are too many tools. New frameworks, new SaaS products, new "this will change your workflow" apps drop every single week. Decision fatigue is real, and the cost of picking wrong isn't just money — it's the weeks you spend migrating off something that didn't fit.

After making this mistake more times than I'd like to admit, I've settled on a lightweight filter I run before adopting anything new. It takes about ten minutes and has saved me from a lot of regret.

1. Name the actual problem first, not the tool

The most common failure mode is starting from the tool. You see a slick demo, get excited, and then go looking for a problem it can solve. Reverse it.

Write one sentence: "Today, X is painful because Y." If you can't finish that sentence, you don't have a problem worth solving with new software — you have a shiny-object craving. That's fine, but be honest about which one it is.

2. Separate "must-have" from "nice-to-have" before you look at features

Feature lists are designed to make every product look essential. Your defense is to decide your criteria before you read any marketing page.

I keep it to three buckets:

Dealbreakers — if it's missing this, I'm out (e.g. self-hosting, an API, SSO, GDPR compliance).
Strong wants — heavily weighted, but I'd compromise.
Nice-to-haves — tiebreakers only.

Anything that doesn't clear the dealbreakers gets eliminated immediately, no matter how good the demo looked.

3. Use a neutral comparison source, not the vendor's own site

A vendor's website will never tell you what their product is bad at. To get an honest side-by-side, you need a source that isn't run by any single vendor.

For SaaS and business tools I tend to start on an independent comparison platform like softwaresucher.de, which lets you filter products by concrete criteria and category instead of sifting through individual marketing pages. The point isn't the specific site — it's the principle: get your shortlist from somewhere neutral, then go to the vendor pages for the details.

4. Check the exit before you check the onboarding

Everyone obsesses over how easy a tool is to start. Almost nobody checks how easy it is to leave. That asymmetry is exactly how you end up locked in.

Before adopting anything that will hold your data, ask: Can I export everything in an open format? Is there an API? How painful is migration if this company gets acquired or shuts down? A tool with a clean exit is a tool you can adopt with far less fear.

5. Run a real test, not the happy-path demo

Demos are choreographed. Your actual workflow is not. Before committing, spend 30 minutes pushing a realistic scenario through the tool — your messy data, your edge cases, your weird integration. The friction you hit in that half hour tells you more than any review.

A quick template

Here's the whole thing as a checklist you can paste into a notes file:

Problem (one sentence): ________
Dealbreakers: ________
Strong wants: ________
Shortlist (from a neutral source): ________
Exit check (export / API / migration): ________
30-min real-data test result: ________

That's it. No spreadsheet with 40 weighted columns — those tend to manufacture false precision anyway. Five honest questions filter out the vast majority of bad fits.

Takeaway

Tool overwhelm isn't a knowledge problem; it's a decision problem. You don't need to evaluate every option — you need a fast, repeatable filter that kills bad fits early and reserves your real attention for the two or three that clear the bar. Start from your problem, decide your dealbreakers before you read any marketing, shortlist from a neutral source, and never adopt anything you can't easily leave.

What does your own evaluation process look like? I'm always curious how other devs cut through the noise — drop it in the comments.

DEV Community: Moritz Meidl