← Kris Hofer

Tools. Apps. Gear.

I often get asked about what I use day to day. This is everything right now.

Last updated: 12th Feb 2026

Workspace

Apple Studio Display

Height adjustable, though it's never been adjusted. Next time I'd go cheaper and sit it on a stand.

Herman Miller Chair

Worth every cent when you sit all day.

Desky Standing Desk

Electronic sit-stand. I switch between sitting and standing throughout the day.

Desky Standing Pad

Makes the standing part actually sustainable.

Desky Desk Mat

Keeps things clean and tidy.

Walking Pad

So good for moving during a long day when it's too hot or raining outside.

Devices

MacBook Air M3 13"

Ultra portable and more than enough power for 90% of people. I'm starting to hit the ceiling running virtual macOS instances and multiple agents alongside containers — I'll be upgrading to the MacBook Pro M5 when it drops.

iPhone 16 Pro

My daily driver. Camera is incredible.

iPad Pro M1

Rarely reach for it these days, but nice for reading.

AirPods Pro 3

Small, great battery, travel with me everywhere.

Input

Apple Magic Keyboard with Touch ID

Simple, reliable, and Touch ID is great for quick authentication.

Apple Magic Trackpad

I've never been able to go back to a mouse.

Browser

Chrome

My daily driver.

Safari, Edge & Firefox

I test in all three daily. Our end-users use all these browsers, so it's important to experience what they do.

Coding

VS Code

My go-to editor. Fast, reliable, and the extension ecosystem is unmatched.

iTerm

My terminal of choice on macOS.

Oh My Zsh

Install once, never think about it again.

LazyGit

Terminal-based Git UI. Faster than anything else for navigating commits and branches.

Claude Code

AI in the terminal. Genuinely accelerating how fast I ship, with the right guardrails in place.

OrbStack

Docker on macOS. Lightweight, fast, and replaced Docker Desktop entirely.

Apps

macOS Passwords

Personal and family password management. Simple, native, syncs across devices.

1Password

Business password management.

Notion

Where everything lives. Notes, docs, planning, knowledge base.

Linear

Issue tracking that is beautiful to use.

Balsamiq

Quick and dirty wireframes. Perfect for getting ideas out before writing code.

Slack

For better or worse, where work communication happens.

Raycast

Spotlight replacement that keeps getting better. Clipboard history, snippets, window management — all in one.

Email & Cloud

Google Workspace

Business email and collaboration.

iCloud / Apple One

Personal and family. Music, Photos, TV, email, storage. I pay for the Apple One family plan — super simple and it just works.

Services

Cloudflare

DNS, CDN, WAF, edge, Pages, R2 buckets, and most of my domains. The developer experience is second to none, at a very reasonable price.

PlanetScale

Managed Postgres on bare metal — performance and developer experience is top notch.

Resend

Primary transactional email. Clean API, great developer experience.

Postmark

Secondary transactional email for redundancy. Rock solid deliverability, although a noticeable drop in support since they are no longer founder led. On the hunt for an alternative backup.

BetterStack

Logging and observability. Clear dashboards, easy setup.

GitHub

Version control, CI/CD via GitHub Actions, and where all my code lives.

Auth0 / Clerk

Authentication and identity management.

Sentry

Error tracking. Catches things before users report them.

Docker

Containerisation across all environments.

Terraform

Infrastructure-as-code with state stored on Cloudflare R2.

GoDaddy

Only for TLDs not yet supported by Cloudflare.

Health & Fitness

Apple Watch Ultra

Sleep tracking, fitness tracking, and daily activity. Everything in one place.

Eight Sleep

Temperature-controlled mattress cover. Genuinely improved my sleep quality.

TheraGun Mini

Goes almost everywhere with me. Perfect for recovery after surfing or cycling.

Blue Light Blocking Glasses

Really helps with sleep when you're on your devices late at night.

Manta Sleep Mask

Consistent sleep experience anywhere.

Travel

HumidiFLYER

Looks ridiculous, works brilliantly. Arrive feeling human after a long flight.

Flighty

Great for tracking your flights, especially across multiple airlines.

American Express Platinum Card

If you actually use the travel benefits — lounge access, hotel status, travel credit — it pays for itself and completely changes the experience.

Reading

The Economist

Physical subscription. I spend a huge amount of time in front of screens — really nice to hold something physical.

Apple Books

Either my iPhone, Mac, or iPad — whatever I have near me.