Blog
Practitioner notes across four pillars. Browse by category or read the latest below.
AI Coding Tools
Reviews and comparisons of Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf, Antigravity, Copilot, and the rest — from someone actually shipping with them.
LLM Infrastructure
AI gateways, caching, model routing, observability, edge replication. Practitioner deep-dives from building Prism.
LLM FinOps
AI spend management as a discipline. Cost attribution, governance, optimization patterns, Indian tax structure on AI spend.
GEO (AI Search)
How ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overview actually index and cite content. From building Citare.
Stack & Ops
Supabase, Vercel, Cloudflare, Redis, Upstash — the production stack for shipping AI SaaS solo.
Essays
Personal notes, manifestos, lessons learned. Meta-content about the work itself.
All posts
- How I Built Citare V2 in 12 Days After Throwing V1 Away I underestimated Citare badly. V1 shipped in a weekend, satisfied no one, got scrapped. V2 took 12 days, 76k LOC, and is still iterating.
- The Four-Index Reality: Why AI Search Isn't One Thing ChatGPT uses Bing. Gemini uses Google. Claude uses Brave. Perplexity uses its own. Tracking AI visibility means tracking four indexes, not one.
- GEO vs SEO in 2026 — What Google's May Guidance Changed Google said AEO and GEO are 'still SEO.' Half-true. Heres the honest read on what changed on Google, what didnt on the other engines, and what to do.
- Portkey vs Helicone vs LiteLLM vs OpenRouter: Honest Comparison Honest comparison of the 4 leading LLM gateways in 2026, plus where Prism enters as a new credible alternative. Updated for Fusion + edge replication.
- Anthropic Prompt Caching: Real Numbers From 330 Production Calls Real first-party data: Anthropic prompt caching cut Citare's AI bill 25-35% on parsing-heavy workloads. What works, what doesn't, what burned me $20.
- GitHub Copilot Review 2026 — Built For Enterprise, Not Solo Founders Brief-trial GitHub Copilot review from a solo founder who uses Claude Code daily. Honest verdict: enterprise tool. Not for solos. Here's who fits.
- How I Run 3 Production AI SaaS on $5/Month of Hosting My complete 2026 stack — Cloudflare, Supabase, Paddle, Razorpay, Claude — and why hosting costs nothing while AI does. Honest picks from shipping.
- What is LLM FinOps? The Missing Discipline for AI-Era Companies LLM FinOps is the discipline of managing AI/LLM spend like serious infrastructure cost. Three frames — solo builder, engineering org, CFO — explained.
- Windsurf Review 2026 — Not For Solo Founders, Great For Small Teams Honest Windsurf review from a solo founder who tried it briefly: multi-model IDE that's better suited to small teams than to solo agentic-AI builders.
- Hello from rikuq — a practitioner blog for solo AI SaaS founders I'm a non-coder who shipped 3 production AI SaaS solo. rikuq is the practitioner blog of everything I've learned. Here's the intro.
- Antigravity Review (May 2026) — From Daily Driver to Dropped I used Antigravity heavily for months, then dropped it after the May 2026 redesign. Honest review of what worked, what broke, and who should still try it.
- Best AI Coding Tools 2026 — Honest Picks From Shipping 3 SaaS Solo Claude Code, Cursor, Antigravity, Windsurf, Copilot — honest picks from a solo founder shipping 3 production AI SaaS. What I actually use, what I dropped.
- Claude Code Review 2026 — From Zero Code to 3 Live SaaS Honest Claude Code review from a non-coder who shipped 3 production SaaS with it. My $200/mo Max setup, the killer moment, the failures.
- Cursor Review 2026 — Honest 'Not For Me' Take From a VSCode User Why I didn't stick with Cursor — and why that's a recommendation, not a complaint. Honest review from a founder who ships 3 SaaS in VSCode + Claude.
- Cursor vs Claude Code 2026 — You're Probably Asking the Wrong Question Cursor vs Claude Code, honest comparison from someone who shipped 3 SaaS solo on Claude. The framing most reviews miss — and the answer that matters.