Design — professional stack.
For each requirement below, pick the option that fits your build — recommended first, then free and cheaper alternatives — or skip what your project doesn't need. Tap the info icon next to any requirement to see why it matters.
Game Design Document Hosting
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsGoogle Docs: Free 15GB shared w/ Drive; Notion: Free = 10 guests, unlimited pages. Plus $10/user/mo billed annually ($12 monthly), Business $18/user/mo. Confluence: Free 10 users, Standard $6.05/user/mo, Premium $11.55/user/mo. Overage: AI add-on $8/user/mo.
Prototyping Tool Hosting (UI Mockups & Systems)
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsFigma: Free 3 files, Starter $15/editor/mo (ann), Organization $45/editor/mo. Penpot: Free self-host unlimited, Cloud Free 1 team. Miro Free 3 boards, Starter $10/user/mo, Business $20/user/mo. Overage $2 per extra editor day.
Version Control for Design Docs
Where your source code lives and is collaborated on. Non-negotiable for any team or serious project.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitHub Free: unlimited public/private repos, 500MB Packages, 2000 Actions min/mo. Team $4/user/mo, Enterprise $21/user/mo. GitLab Free: 5 users/group limit. Overage: Actions $0.008/min, Storage $0.25/GB-mo.
Asset Storage for Design Prototypes
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsS3 Standard $0.023/GB-mo first 50TB, PUT $0.005/1k, GET $0.0004/1k. Free tier 5GB for 12mo. Drive Free 15GB, $6/user/mo Starter 30GB. R2: Free 10GB storage, $0.015/GB-mo + free egress. Overage egress $0.09/GB on S3.
Diagramming / Game Loop Flowchart Tool
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsdiagrams.net: Free unlimited self-hosted. Miro: Free 3 boards, Starter $10/user/mo, Business $20/user/mo, Enterprise $35+/user/mo. Lucidchart Free 3 docs/60 shapes, Individual $9/mo, Team $10/user/mo. Overage: Guest $3/day.
Feedback Collection & Voting Platform
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsGoogle Forms Free unlimited. Canny: Free 25 tracked users, Starter $99/mo (100 tracked users), Growth $299/mo (1k tracked). UserVoice Discovery $799/mo start. Overage: $0.12 per extra tracked user, +$25/mo per admin.
Analytics for Design Validation (Game Analytics)
Understands your users and supports them. Drives product decisions and retention.Pricing & free-tier limitsGameAnalytics: Free 10M events/mo, unlimited titles. Standard $450/mo @ 50M events. PostHog: Free 1M events/mo, then $0.248 per 1k events ($248 per 1M over). Mixpanel Free 1M events, Growth $28k/yr @ 2.5M MTU. Overage $0.28 per 1000 events.
Playtest Management Platform
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsDiscord Forms Free. PlaytestCloud Free 5 playtests/mo (5 players each), Lite $199/mo = 20 playtests, Pro $599/mo = 60 playtests + filters. UserTesting Essential $30k/yr (unlimited seats, 120 credits), Advanced $60k/yr. Overage: $30/playtest player on PlaytestCloud.
Knowledge Base / Wiki Hosting for Lore & Systems
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitBook Free: 1 space, unlimited public docs; Pro $40/mo per seat. BookStack: Free self-host. Notion Wiki included in Notion pricing $10/user/mo. Confluence Premium $11.55/user/mo. Overage $5k/yr for 10k external viewers.
Task & Sprint Management for Design Iteration
The visual and experience layer of your product. Good design drives conversion and trust.Pricing & free-tier limitsLinear Free 250 issues, 10 members. Standard $8/user/mo, Business $14. Jira Free 10 users, Standard $7.91/user/mo, Premium $13.53. Trello Free 10 boards, Standard $5/user/mo. Overage: Storage $10 per 100GB.
Whiteboard & Brainstorming Platform
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsFigJam Free Starter with 3 boards. FigJam Pro $5/editor/mo. Miro Free 3 boards, Starter $10/user/mo, Enterprise $35/user/mo. Mural Free 3 murals, Starter $9.99/user/mo. Overage $5 per external editor/day.
CI/CD for Prototypes (Build & Deploy)
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitHub Actions Free 2k min/mo (private), public unlimited. Team = 3k mins. Hosted $0.008/min Linux, $0.016 Windows, $0.08 MacOS. CircleCI Free 6k credits/mo (1k min). Cloud $15/mo. Overage $0.0008 per credit (≈$0.006/min).
Feature Flags for Mechanics Testing
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsUnleash: Free self-host unlimited. Flagsmith Free 3k requests/day. LaunchDarkly: Free 1k MAU + 1k service connections. Pro $10k/yr start for 10k MAU ($8.30/1k MAU over). Growth $0.18 per MAU over. SDK overage $10 per 1k connections.
Telemetry Storage for Playtest Data
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsS3 $0.023/GB-mo, Athena $5/TB scanned. Supabase Free 1GB storage, Pro $25/mo 100GB. B2 $0.006/GB-mo storage, $0.01/GB download (free via Cloudflare). Snowflake $2-4 per credit (1 credit = 1 node hr). Overage S3 scan $5/TB.
Video Hosting for Playtest Recordings
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsLoom Free 25 videos/user, 5min limit. Starter $12.50/user/mo 4hr unlimited. Mux: $0.05/min encoding, $0.005/min streaming. Free 1000 min credits +$20 mo. Stream $5/1k min stored, $1/1k min viewed. Vimeo Starter $20/mo 100GB. Overage $20 per 50GB.
User Research & Survey Tool
Interactive assessments, quizzes, or forms that capture structured input from users.Pricing & free-tier limitsGoogle Forms Free unlimited. Tally Free 100 resp/mo, Pro $29/mo unlimited. Typeform Free 10 resp/mo, Basic $25/mo 100 resp, Plus $50/mo 1000 resp. Qualtrics $1,500/yr Research Core, $5k+ XM. Overage Typeform $0.10/response, $0.20 for logic jumps.
Session Replay for Playtests
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsPostHog: Free 15k recordings/mo, then $0.005 per recording ($5 per 1k). LogRocket Free 1k sessions/mo, Pro $99/mo 10k sessions. FullStory Business $199/mo 5k sessions, Enterprise $25k/yr+ unlimited. Overage $0.10 per extra full session.
Secrets Management for Playtest Builds
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsDoppler Free 5 users/50 secrets. Team $8/user/mo unlimited secrets. Infisical Free self-host unlimited, Cloud $19/mo team. Vault HCP $0.03/hr ($22.5/mo) + $0.03 per 10k transactions. AWS Secrets Manager $0.40/secret/mo + $0.05/10k calls. Free 20 secrets.
Backup & Archival for Design Assets
Copies of your data so a bug, hack, or outage doesn’t become permanent loss. Cheap insurance every serious project needs.Pricing & free-tier limitsBackblaze B2 Free 10GB, $0.006/GB-mo. $0.01/GB download. S3 Glacier Instant $0.004/GB, Deep Archive $0.00099/GB-mo. Veeam $13/month per workload. Overage $0.006/GB + $0 restore (first daily).
A/B Testing Platform (Gameplay)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsGrowthBook Free self-host unlimited, Cloud Free 20k experiment events. PostHog Free 1M events incl experiments. Optimizely Rollouts Free 1k MAU, Growth $39k/yr (50k MAU incl), $2k per extra 10k MAU. Overage MAU $0.20.
Heatmap Analytics for Level Design
Understands your users and supports them. Drives product decisions and retention.Pricing & free-tier limitsClarity Free unlimited sessions. Hotjar Free 35 sessions/day, Plus $32/mo 100 sessions/day, Business $80/mo 500 sessions/day. ContentSquare $30k/yr start (100k sessions/mo). Overage Hotjar $0.15 per extra session over quota.
Remote Config Service for Tuning
Stores API keys and credentials safely, separate from your code. Leaking secrets is one of the most common breaches.Pricing & free-tier limitsFirebase Remote Config Free unlimited fetches (part of Firebase). ConfigCat Free 10k config calls/day, Pro $39/mo 5M calls, Business $139/mo. AppConfig Free 1M config requests then $0.0000002 per req + $0.00008 per Unit-Hr. Overage $0.02 per 10k calls on ConfigCat.
Experimentation Event Streaming
Lets external services notify you of events in real time. Core to integrating payments, KYC, and third-party workflows.Pricing & free-tier limitsRudderStack OS Free unlimited. Cloud Free 500k events/mo, Growth $250/mo @ 2.5M events. Segment Free 1k MTU, Team $120/mo @ 10k MTU + $42 per 1k extra MTU, Business $20k/yr. Kinesis $0.015 per 1M PUT units + $0.023/GB-mo.
Data Warehouse for Gameplay Metrics
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsBigQuery Free 10GB storage + 1TB queries/mo. On-demand $6.25/TB scanned, Standard Storage $0.02/GB-mo. MotherDuck Free 10GB. ClickHouse Cloud Starter $29/mo 100GB storage + $0.15 per compute hr. Snowflake $2-4/credit, dbt Cloud $100/mo dev plan. Overage query $0.00625/GB.
Error Tracking for Prototypes
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsSentry Free 5k errors/mo, 1k replays. Team $26/mo 50k errors, Business $80/mo 100k errors. GlitchTip Free self-host. DataDog RUM $1.50 per 1k sessions. Overage Sentry $0.00042 per error ($0.42 per 1k), $0.0003 per replay.
Notification Service for Playtest Invites
Reaches users on their phone via SMS or push. Useful for verification codes and re-engagement; watch the per-message cost.Pricing & free-tier limitsSendGrid Free 100 emails/day forever, Essentials $19.95/mo 50k emails ($0.30/1k over). Mailgun Free 1k/mo 3mo trial, Flex $15/mo 10k. Customer.io Free 5k profiles, Essentials $200/mo 10k profiles + $0.02 per msg over. Twilio SMS $0.0075 per msg US.
Container Registry for Prototype Builds
The visual and experience layer of your product. Good design drives conversion and trust.Pricing & free-tier limitsGHCR Free 2GB storage + 4GB transfer (500MB private). Team improves to 2GB. Paid $0.25/GB storage + $0.50/GB transfer. Docker Hub Free 1 private repo, Pro $5/mo unlimited. ECR $0.10/GB-mo storage + $0.09/GB transfer, free 500MB under Free Tier. Overage $0.40/GB egress.
Audit Logs for Design Changes
Controls who can do what inside your admin tooling. Limits blast radius if an account is compromised.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitHub Free org audit 90 days. Enterprise Cloud audit 1yr streaming $21/user/mo. Logtail Free 1GB/mo 3 days, Pro $24/mo 7GB 30d. Datadog Log Mgmt Ingest $0.10/GB, 15mo retention $1.70 per million log events. Overage log ingest $0.12/GB.
Search & Indexing for Design Docs
Lets users find things fast. A slow or missing search directly costs engagement and conversions.Pricing & free-tier limitsMeilisearch Free self-host unlimited. Cloud Starter $30/mo 100k docs. Algolia Free 10k search req/mo, Grow $250/mo 100k req + 1M records. Elastic Cloud $95/mo deployment (2GB). Overage Algolia $0.50 per 1k search req over, $0.60 per 1k records.
API Gateway for Prototype Backend Calls
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Workers Free 100k req/day, $5/mo + $0.30/million req, first 10M incl. Kong OSS Free self-host. AWS API GW HTTP $1.00/million reqs, REST $3.50/million + WAF $5/mo + $1/rule. Overage $0.30 per million on Workers after 10M.
How this professional design checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a professional design build typically needs. Pick one of the four researched options — recommended, free, cheaper or paid — add your own with "Other", or skip the requirement if your project doesn't need it. Nothing is mandatory; the plan on the right tracks what you've decided so nothing gets forgotten.
Your picks are saved in this browser automatically, so you can come back anytime. Options are researched per build level and refreshed as vendors change their plans — always verify details on the provider's page before committing.