Think fast
Thoughts and ideas on how to build tools, automate workflows and speed-up the workplace.
5 Open-Source Zapier Alternatives for 2025
Zapier is one of the best-known automation tools on the market today. Offering a highly visual experience for connecting a wide range of external platforms, it powers all sorts of workflows in countless organizations. However, despite its popularity, Zapier isn’t suitable for all use cases. Today, we’re examining one of the most important segments of the workflow automation market by checking out some of the top open-source Zapier alternatives. Along the way, we’ll check out some of the key decision points when selecting an integration and automation platform, as well as outlining the most prominent open-source vendors in this space.
Ronan McQuillan
May 15, 2025
6 Self-Hosted & Local LLMs
With fast-advancing technology, running AI models locally is no longer the preserve of massive enterprises or researchers. Today, smaller businesses and even hobbyists are also leveraging self-hosted LLMs within development projects. Thanks to advances in model quantization, local runtimes and runners, and smaller yet highly capable models, it’s increasingly viable to run LLMs in cloud containers or even consumer hardware. But, of course, this introduces a range of challenges. One of the biggest is choosing the right model for our needs.
Ronan McQuillan
May 14, 2025
6 Moveworks Alternatives & Competitors for 2025
More and more businesses are leveraging AI within mission-critical internal workflows. This includes a range of internal services across IT, finance, HR, operations, and other departments. To meet this need, a range of vendors have come to the fore, offering streamlined tools for implementing LLM-powered processes. Today, we’re exploring one practical angle on this by checking out some of the top Moveworks alternatives that are currently available on the market.
Ronan McQuillan
May 12, 2025
What are NLP Applications? + 5 Real-World Examples
Natural language processing is revolutionizing the way humans interact with software tools. Not only that, the increasing prevalence of AI is opening up the door to a huge range of transformative use cases that would be almost impossible with traditional automation tools. Of course, this isn’t news. We constantly hear how AI is reshaping just about all aspects of how businesses operate. Today, we’re thinking about this in more practical terms by checking out some of the most prevalent NLP applications that you can build and deploy right now.
Ronan McQuillan
May 9, 2025
10 Open-Source LLMs
AI is becoming an integral part of more and more software projects. However, building effective, production-ready solutions relies on having the right model to power our application. Naturally, this requires us to determine which model is best positioned to meet our technical requirements. Depending on our needs, this will either mean embedding the model in our app, or calling out to an external model via its API or MCP server.
Ronan McQuillan
May 7, 2025
Top 6 LangChain Alternatives & Competitors
It’s well known that AI is reshaping almost all industries, with businesses scrambling to adopt working solutions. To meet this demand, a number of tools have come to market, aiming to streamline the development of AI-powered systems. LangChain is at the forefront of this, as one of the biggest names in the agentic AI space. However, like any other software tool, this has its own distinct focus, target personas, and ideal use cases.
Ronan McQuillan
May 2, 2025
What are Enterprise Chatbots? In-Depth Guide
Enterprise chatbots are fast becoming a critical part of successful digital transformation strategies in large organizations. Service portfolios are more complex than ever, cutting across a huge variety of internal departments, processes, and tooling. At the same time, there’s a more urgent need than ever to establish efficient workflows without compromising on security. Today, we’re exploring one option for dealing with these competing challenges by diving deep into how enterprise chatbots offer a scalable solution for streamlining access to services.
Ronan McQuillan
May 1, 2025
What are Digital Workers? + Examples
Digital workers are a concept that’s been around for quite some time now. But, in recent years they’ve sprung back to the fore, taking on a whole new meaning in the context of the AI revolution. The idea of replacing human activities with computerized systems isn’t new. What is changing, though, is the kind of work that can be handled without requiring a real-life human being. Of course, this also represents a huge opportunity for early adopters.
Ronan McQuillan
Apr 29, 2025