Building in public is one of the fastest ways to attract early users, build trust, and stay accountable.
But there is one problem.
The updates you spend months sharing end up scattered across different platforms. Tweets disappear. Milestone posts get buried. Notes stay private. Before long, even you have trouble looking back at how far you've come.
After building publicly myself, these are the tools I've found genuinely useful. Each solves a different problem, and together they make a simple system you can actually stick with.
X
The build-in-public community lives here.
It's the best place for sharing updates, getting feedback, and connecting with other founders.
The downside is that everything disappears. Even great posts become difficult to find after a few days.
X is where people discover your journey.
It isn't where your story lives.
Indie Hackers
Perfect for milestone posts and longer reflections.
The community is thoughtful, founders genuinely engage, and discussions tend to be much deeper than short social posts.
The downside is that it isn't designed for daily updates.
Think of it as your monthly journal.
BuildTrail
Disclosure: I built BuildTrail, so take this recommendation with that context in mind.
After using X, Indie Hackers, and Notion together, I realized my startup journey existed everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Important milestones disappeared into old posts.
Planning stayed inside Notion.
There wasn't one place where someone could understand the journey from start to finish.
That's the problem I built BuildTrail to solve.
It doesn't replace X or Indie Hackers.
It simply gives the journey a permanent home.
Notion
Excellent for planning.
Excellent for documentation.
Not great for public sharing.
Many founders try using Notion as a public roadmap because it's easy to set up, but the experience for visitors isn't ideal.
Beehiiv or Substack
A newsletter becomes valuable once people are already interested in following your journey.
Starting one with zero readers usually creates unnecessary work.
Build the audience first.
Analytics
Whether you use Plausible, Fathom, or Google Analytics doesn't matter as much as simply understanding your users.
Analytics explain what happened.
They don't explain the story behind those numbers.
Loom
One short product demo can often explain more than several paragraphs of text.
I use it for launches and walkthroughs.
Not every update needs a video.
The Stack I'd Recommend
If you're just starting, keep it simple.
- X for conversations and daily updates.
- BuildTrail for documenting your journey in one place.
- Indie Hackers for milestone posts and longer reflections.
- Analytics from day one.
- Loom for launches and product demos.
- A newsletter once you've built an audience.
The simpler your workflow is, the more likely you'll keep using it.
One Final Thought
Most people don't discover your product on day one.
They discover it months later.
When they do, they aren't just interested in what you're building today.
They're curious about how you got there.
If your journey only exists across hundreds of scattered posts, they'll probably never see the full story.
Whatever tools you choose, make sure your journey has a place to live.
Because a journey worth building is also a journey worth remembering.
Read the full article with more detailed comparisons:
https://www.buildtrail.app/blogs/best-build-in-public-tools