Think fast
Thoughts and ideas on how to build tools, automate workflows and speed-up the workplace.
Top 6 Open-Source AI Agent Platforms for 2025
There’s a huge amount of hype around AI agents. Every day, we hear new reasons why they’re going to transform just about all aspects of daily life. But, practical information about how to make this a reality is less forthcoming. The biggest question here is, how can we build agentic solutions of our own? Today, we’re exploring an important subset of this by checking out the market for open-source agent builders.
Ronan McQuillan
Apr 23, 2025
Top 7 Open-Source IT Ticketing Systems for 2025
Ticketing is absolutely fundamental to how IT teams interact with their service users across the organization. But, they come in a variety of forms, with many vastly different platforms on the market. At one end of the spectrum, we have very basic tools that allow users to submit simple requests. At the other, we have highly customizable solutions with more advanced capabilities for integrating with our wider ITSM stack. Today, we’re looking at one cluster of options by checking out the top open-source IT ticketing systems.
Ronan McQuillan
Apr 19, 2025
What are AI Agentic Workflows? + Use Cases & Examples
Agentic AI is one of the hottest topics in IT, digital transformation, and automation right now. It promises to revolutionize almost all aspects of work, including replacing human colleagues within business processes. But there’s a lot of confusion out there, too. Today, we’re cutting through the noise to present a full account of what AI agentic workflows are, how they work, and where they’re used. By the end, you’ll have a full working knowledge of the growing role of agentic AI within business workflows, as well as how this can be used for your more specific internal use cases.
Ronan McQuillan
Apr 17, 2025
Top 10 Retool Alternatives & Competitors for 2025
Retool is one of the biggest players in the low-code space. However, that doesn’t mean it’s the right choice for every business. Today, we’re checking out some of the top Retool alternatives from across the market. And it’s a crowded market nowadays. However, there’s huge variation between different options - across their pricing, features, target personas, use cases, and more. Today, we’re covering the following: What is Retool? Why would you look for an alternative to Retool?
Ronan McQuillan
Mar 30, 2025
Top 5 Problem Management Software Tools
Problem management is one of the fundamental ITSM processes, aimed at identifying the root causes of recurring issues and incidents. The goal is to increase the resilience, reliability, and cost-effectiveness of our wider IT estate and service portfolio. The challenge is that problem management is highly interrelated with a host of other processes. So, consolidating all of the data we need, let alone making sense of it, can be hugely difficult.
Ronan McQuillan
Mar 28, 2025
5 Ivanti Alternatives & Competitors for 2025
For almost a decade, Ivanti has been one of the key players in the ITSM software market. Offering extensive capabilities for a range of service management, ITAM, endpoint management, security, and other tasks, it’s a great fit for enterprise teams with complex IT environments. However, this is a crowded and increasingly fast-moving space. Indeed, there are multiple vendors offering service management platforms targeted at more granular use cases, target personas, and market segments.
Ronan McQuillan
Mar 26, 2025
Jira Service Management vs Zendesk
Jira and Zendesk are two of the biggest players in the world of support and service management software. Each offers a modern, primarily cloud-based platform for handling a range of service request workflows. Despite having a lot of common functionality, they also occupy very different corners of the market. Today, we’re diving deep into what makes each platform tick, their relative strengths and weaknesses, and which use cases they’re best suited to.
Ronan McQuillan
Mar 25, 2025
Illuminating the Shadows: How to Manage and Mitigate Shadow IT
Shadow IT isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s been in organizations for years, surfacing whenever employees can’t find (or don’t trust) official channels to get the tools they need. And as digital transformation accelerates, those unofficial pathways multiply. According to Qualys’ State of Cloud and SaaS Security Report , 28% of organizations experienced a cloud or SaaS-related breach in the last year, with over a third of those hit multiple times within 12 months.
Jamie Birss
Mar 24, 2025