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description: Preferred tools to use for specific purposes
---

# Preferred tools

We prefer using specific tools for specific purposes over a free-for-all of tools. Exceptions can usually be made when justified.

* Less overhead of learning how to use different tools that accomplish the same task
* Less surprises when something isn't quite like another tool we've used for something similar
* Quick way to find the best tool, or a known decent tool, rather than having to figure out whether a new thing we're trying is sufficient
* We may have an non-profit organisation discount arranged with a specific supplier. Setting this up takes time and effort and doesn't usually make sense for multiple equivalent suppliers.

This doesn't mean we shouldn't try new or alternative things, but we should consider the impact on the organisation and a project when trying new things and treat it as an experiment. It carries risk, and we don't try all new things at the same time, but rather just one new thing at a time.

We don't necessarily need to actively move things to the preferred thing, but we should try to use the preferred options with new instances or when it's convenient as part of significant changes to existing instances.

## Productivity

<table data-header-hidden><thead><tr><th width="179">Task</th><th width="150">Preferred tool</th><th>Pros</th><th>Cons</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Task</td><td>Preferred tool</td><td>Pros</td><td>Cons</td></tr><tr><td>Non-public documents, slideshows, spreadsheets</td><td>Google Docs</td><td>Change tracking, import/export common formats; OpenUp templates available</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Documentation</td><td>GitBook</td><td><ul><li>Easy to use</li><li>Looks good</li><li>Free team workspaces for open source and non profit</li><li>Github integration to sync data making migration and backups feasible</li></ul></td><td>Moving content from one page to another is surprisingly hard</td></tr><tr><td>Password management</td><td>Bitwarden</td><td><ul><li>Well-priced</li><li>Open Source</li><li>NPO discount</li><li>Respected by security community</li><li>Flexible/powerful permissions management even in the Teams subscription level</li></ul></td><td><ul><li>No way to let users see that an account exists to discover service accounts without them technically having access to the password. (Not sure any other password manager other than passwordstore.org can do this)</li></ul></td></tr></tbody></table>

## Service accounts

The following service accounts are available. See which unit they belong to to get access.

| Service name | Used for                | Unit  |
| ------------ | ----------------------- | ----- |
| Buffer       | Social media management | comms |
|              |                         |       |
|              |                         |       |

## See also

* [Preferred tech stack](../tech/preferred-tech-stack)
