Our 2020 tools list still has the right categories, but one pick had a major breach, two changed name or price, and one claim about passwords was wrong from the start.
In October 2020 we published 10 Tools Every Freelancer Needs. A tools list is only useful while it's current, so we checked every pick again in 2026.
First, a disclosure we should have made more loudly at the time. The post was written by a guest author from TurnOnVPN, a campaign that promotes VPN use, and one of the ten tools was a VPN. We added a note saying the picks were the author's own and not our endorsement, but it sat at the very bottom. It belongs at the top. (When we checked in 2026, TurnOnVPN's site still loaded, but it did not appear to have been updated since 2021.)
The good news: the categories have held up. Time tracking, project management, a password manager, e-signatures and cloud backups are all still things a freelancer needs. The specific picks are a mixed bag. Here's the list again.
1. Time tracking: Clockify
Still live. Once you work with clients outside platforms that track time for you, you need your own way to bill accurately. That reasoning hasn't changed. We haven't checked current pricing, so look before you commit.
2. Project management: Trello (or Asana)
Trello is still live. The original advice still makes sense: start with something simple and card-based, and move to a heavier tool like Asana if your projects outgrow it.
3. Client communication: Slack
Slack is still a good way to keep a steady line open with clients, but two things changed. Salesforce bought it, in a deal that closed on 21 July 2021 for about $27.7 billion (Wikipedia). And the free plan now only shows the last 90 days of message history, and deletes data older than a year (Slack Help).
For freelancers, that second point matters. If a client decision lives only in an old Slack thread on a free workspace, you may lose sight of it, and after a year it may be gone altogether. Put anything important, like scope, prices and approvals, somewhere you'll still be able to read next year.
4. A VPN
The category still exists, and the original reason still applies if you work on public Wi-Fi in cafés and coworking spaces. We're not naming a provider this time. The original linked to one brand we haven't re-checked, and given who wrote the post, we'd rather you compare options yourself.
5. Anti-malware: Malwarebytes
Still live. Scanning your laptop for malware is as sensible as it was in 2020.
6. Password manager: not LastPass
This is the big one. We called LastPass "the industry-leading password manager". Two years later, in 2022, LastPass was breached and encrypted backups of customers' password vaults were stolen (Wikipedia).
The damage kept coming for years. Vaults protected by weak master passwords have since been cracked, and about $35 million in crypto was stolen through 2025, according to TRM Labs (The Hacker News). The UK's data protection regulator, the ICO, fined LastPass £1.2 million in late 2025 (ICO), and the company settled a US class action for $24.5 million. It's hard to call that "industry-leading" on trust.
What we'd recommend now: still use a password manager. The category is as important as ever. Choose one with a clean security record, and protect it with a long, strong master password. The LastPass case showed that a weak master password is what turns a stolen vault into stolen accounts.
A correction, too. The original said "password managers store your passwords only by hash". That was wrong even in 2020. A hash can't be turned back into the original password, so a password manager couldn't fill in your logins if that's all it kept. Password managers encrypt your vault instead. The breach showed what that means in practice: an encrypted vault, once stolen, is only as safe as the master password that locks it.
7. To-do list: Todoist
Still live. A digital to-do list you can reach from every device is still one of the simplest ways to keep a steady workflow.
8. Cloud storage: Google Drive
Still live, and still the answer to losing a day's work to a crash or a power cut. The original said Docs, Sheets and Slides were "all of them free". We haven't re-checked Google's current pricing or storage limits, so check what you get before you rely on the free tier for client work.
9. E-signatures: HelloSign is now Dropbox Sign
Dropbox bought HelloSign in 2019 and renamed it Dropbox Sign in October 2022. The old hellosign.com address now redirects there (Dropbox's rebrand FAQ, Signaturely). The point of the original tip holds: clients expect you to sign NDAs and contracts quickly, so have an e-signature tool ready.
10. Social media scheduling: Hootsuite, now paid only
We recommended Hootsuite for managing several social accounts and scheduling posts. Hootsuite ended its free plan on 31 March 2023, and every plan is now paid (Cloud Campaign, Costbench). For many solo freelancers that changes the sums. Scheduling is still useful; just compare scheduling tools on price against how much social media actually brings you work.
The scorecard
- Unchanged: Clockify, Trello, Malwarebytes, Todoist and Google Drive are all still running. Check their current prices yourself.
- Changed: Slack (new owner, 90-day history and one-year deletion on free), HelloSign (now Dropbox Sign) and Hootsuite (no free plan).
- Replace: LastPass. Keep the password manager, change the pick.
- Corrected: password managers encrypt, they don't hash.
The lesson we take from rereading this one: a tools list ages faster than almost anything else we publish. The categories are the lasting part. Pick tools that fit them, and check the picks every year or so.
Written 3 November 2026 from the research behind the archive's 2026 updates (checked 30 September, re-verified 3 November 2026). Sources are linked in the text.