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DHH's 3-App Anti-Productivity Stack

The Basecamp founder and Ruby on Rails creator runs his entire life on just 3 apps - all built by his own company. These are the DHH tools he uses to manage Basecamp, race professionally, and maintain work-life balance while rejecting the entire productivity app industry.

Updated 26 March 2026

What David Heinemeier Hansson uses

Who is David Heinemeier Hansson?

  • Created Ruby on Rails in 2004. Co-founded Basecamp (formerly 37signals). Professional racing driver competing in World Endurance Championship. DHH doesn't really fit into normal categories.
  • Ruby on Rails changed web development forever. Before Rails, building web apps meant writing tons of boilerplate code. Rails gave developers a framework that just worked out of the box. Twitter, GitHub, Shopify, Airbnb - all built on Rails in their early days.
  • Basecamp started in 2004 as a project management tool for his web design agency. Turned into a full company when the tool became more valuable than the agency itself. By 2025, Basecamp runs profitably with a small team while most competitors are burning VC money and adding features nobody asked for.
  • The racing career is legitimately impressive. Started in 2012. Competed at Le Mans multiple times. Won his class at Sebring. Races factory-backed Porsches in WEC while still running a software company. Most people can't balance one demanding career, let alone two.
  • DHH is known for having strong opinions about everything - remote work, venture capital, productivity culture, tech industry trends. Unlike most people with strong opinions, he actually builds products that match his philosophy. The DHH tools below are all 37signals products because he genuinely thinks third-party apps are unnecessary complications.
  • HEY Email launched in 2020 after DHH spent years complaining about how broken email is. Not just Gmail with better design. A completely different approach to handling email.
  • The Screener is the killer feature. First time someone emails you, they have to get through the screener. If you don't let them in, their emails never reach your inbox. It's like a bouncer for your email - cold pitches and spam just disappear.
  • Reply Later and Set Aside create separate spaces for emails that need action versus emails that are just FYI. The Imbox (yeah, with an I) only shows new stuff that needs attention. Everything else gets automatically filed without cluttering your view.
  • DHH uses HEY for everything - business deals, personal correspondence, racing logistics. He's mentioned on the Rework podcast that the Screener alone blocks 80% of incoming email. When you're getting hundreds of cold pitches weekly, that filtering is stupidly valuable.
  • The pricing is $99/year. No free tier, no freemium BS. Pay for the product or don't use it. Classic DHH philosophy - make something worth paying for instead of selling user data to advertisers.
HEY Calendar logo

HEY Calendar

Calendar app with a fresh scheduling approach

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  • HEY Calendar launched in 2024 after years of DHH ranting about calendar apps on Twitter. Like HEY Email, it's not just Google Calendar with better UI. It's a different philosophy about how calendars should work.
  • No automatic adding of calendar invites to your schedule. People can send invites, but they don't just appear on your calendar cluttering things up. You decide what gets added. Seems obvious, but most calendar apps treat incoming invites like they're mandatory.
  • DHH's calendar has to balance Basecamp work, racing commitments (testing days, race weekends, travel), and personal time. The app keeps everything organized without becoming a second job to maintain.
  • Integration with HEY Email means calendar invites get handled through the Screener too. Random people can't just spam your calendar with meeting requests. That boundary between work and everything else actually gets enforced by the tools.
Basecamp logo

Basecamp

Project management with a simplified interface

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  • Basecamp runs the entire 37signals company. Every project, every discussion, every decision happens in Basecamp. No Slack, no Asana, no Notion. Just Basecamp.
  • This is dogfooding at its most extreme. When you use your own product for everything, you feel every bug and missing feature immediately. No pretending something works when it doesn't. The incentive to fix problems is way higher when they're your problems too.
  • DHH also uses Basecamp personally. Home renovation projects, racing logistics, trip planning - all in Basecamp. Most people separate work and personal tools. He just uses one tool that works for everything.
  • The company has about 70 employees as of 2025. Fully remote since forever (they literally wrote the book Remote in 2013). Basecamp handles all coordination without the meeting hell and always-on chat culture that plagues most remote companies.
  • Message boards instead of chat. To-do lists instead of complex project boards. Files and documents all in one place. Hill charts for seeing project progress. It's opinionated software built by people who have strong opinions about how work should happen.
  • Using only your own products sounds limiting until you realize DHH built those products specifically to avoid needing anything else. The minimalist stack isn't about restriction. It's about building exactly what you need and nothing more.

Frequently Asked Questions About David Heinemeier Hansson's Stack

What email app does DHH use?

HEY Email, which he co-created. The Screener blocks cold emails by default - first-time senders have to get approved before reaching the inbox. Reply Later and Set Aside keep things organized. He's mentioned the Screener alone blocks 80% of incoming email. It's $99/year with no free tier, classic DHH philosophy about paid products versus selling user data.

What productivity tools does DHH use?

Just three apps, all built by his company: HEY Email, HEY Calendar, and Basecamp. That's it. No task managers, no note apps, no Slack. He thinks most productivity software creates problems that shouldn't exist. When the guy who literally built project management software only uses his own 3 tools, that's telling you something about productivity app bloat.

Does DHH use Basecamp for personal stuff?

Yeah, everything. Home renovations, racing logistics, trip planning - all in Basecamp. Most people split work and personal tools. DHH just uses one tool that works for both. The ultimate dogfooding is using your own product for literally everything and feeling every bug personally.

Why doesn't DHH use Slack or Microsoft Teams?

He thinks always-on chat is toxic for remote work. Basecamp uses message boards instead - async by default, no expectation of instant replies. The company has 70 employees fully remote without the meeting hell that kills most distributed teams. His book Remote from 2013 explains the whole philosophy.

What is HEY Calendar?

Calendar app launched by 37signals in 2024. Like HEY Email, it's opinionated about how calendars should work. Calendar invites don't automatically add to your schedule - you decide what gets on there. Integrates with HEY Email so the Screener blocks random meeting spam. DHH uses it for juggling Basecamp work and his WEC racing schedule.

What makes DHH's tech stack different?

The DHH tools are intentionally minimal - only 3 apps, all built by his own company. No third-party integrations, no productivity system juggling. HEY Email, HEY Calendar, Basecamp. That's the entire stack. Most tech founders use dozens of tools. DHH built exactly what he needed and stopped there. When you run a profitable company and race professionally using just 3 apps, clearly something's working.

Official Resources

David Heinemeier Hansson's XDavid Heinemeier Hansson's Official WebsiteDavid Heinemeier Hansson's Instagram

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