Behind the Build: The Tools That Power Candle Digital

At Candle Digital, we believe in building what matters. Whether it’s a high-impact learning platform or a frictionless client experience, every tool we use plays a role in helping us move fast, think clearly, and deliver results that last.

We’re firm believers in sharing what works. So in this spirit, here are some the key tools we use within our business.

This isn’t just a stack of software. It’s a well-tested, often integrated set of tools. that enables us to work smarter, stay lean, and build transformational digital experiences for experts.

Here’s a look behind the curtain.

Tools That Power Our Business

Slack is our nerve centre. As a remote team, it’s where we think out loud, host our team video calls, share files, and keep work moving-without being always-on.

Asana helps us go deep on project delivery. When timelines, dependencies, and milestones matter, it’s our go-to.

ClickUp gives us the high-level view-from our weekly ‘JFDI’ board to tracking our sales pipeline.

Google Workspace keeps everything simple and accessible, from Docs to Meet to Drive. It’s bloody great value too.

How We Collaborate With Clients

Miro powers our workshops. It’s fast, visual, and makes co-creation with clients feel effortless. Think online whiteboards on steroids.

Google Meet handles our video calls, transcripts, and recordings-no need for third-party tools. No need for a separate Otter or Fathom subscription.

Loom lets us send video walkthroughs without booking another meeting. Perfect for async updates without having to coordinate diaries.

Help Scout handles any client support tickets clearly and efficiently, with full visibility.

How We Engage With Prospective Clients

Mailerlite runs our weekly newsletter and updates. Far, far better than Mailchimp.

Riverside lets us record sharp interviews with clients and experts-content gold for both us and them.

Calendly eliminates diary ping-pong. Prospects can book when it works for them and us. Personally I don’t understand the hate, it saves everyone time!

Infrastructure: The Backbone Behind Every Build

Linode is our hosting provider of choice. It’s fast to deploy, globally distributed, rapidly scalable and developer-friendly.

Uptime Robot monitors platform availability and alerts us the moment something’s offline. If it goes down, we find out fast.

Cloudflare sits in front to optimise speed and security. We also use Cloudflare to manage our domains – avoids those extortionate GoDaddy fees!

Platform Tools: Delivering the Learning Experience

WordPress gives us full control to design learner-first platforms. At it’s heart it’s about great content management, not learn bureaucracy. The flexibility it brings is unparallelled too.

LearnDash brings key LMS features into WordPress that we use to structure learning content and administer users.

BuddyBoss adds community features like profiles and discussion. So important, especially for cohort-based courses.

Training Spark fill functional gaps with custom enhancements, like for managing cohorts.

H5P gives us the ability to add rich, interactive content to our client’s learning experiences.

The eLearning AI PowerPack embeds AI features like virtual tutors directly in the learning experience, without the technical headaches.

Vimeo hosts all client video with the control and quality we need. Still the best solution out there for video.

WordFence & Defender help to harden the security of our WordPress based projects.

Foundation Framework is a frontend framework we often use for the user interface of our projects and provides a solid, lightweight foundation for theme development.

Platform Development: Building Smarter, Faster, Cleaner

Bitbucket provides a secure repository for the code used in our projects. It allows us to track our developments, build sustainably and identify and resolve issues.

PHPStorm is a code editing platform (IDE) that assists us in creating clean, sustainable code in our projects. JetBrains AI Assistant sits within PHPStorm and uses AI to help us write and refactor and document our code.

Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere) powers high-fidelity content where Canva isn’t enough.

WAMP Server allows us to create development versions of project offline for rapid development.

Postman helps us work with APIs, allowing us to test connections to third party platforms.

Google Authenticator allows us to use two factor authentication on the platforms we set up, providing an extra layer of security above username and password.

AI Tools That Power Our Workflows

ChatGPT (Using a Teams license) is the engine behind our strategic thinking. With Custom GPTs trained on our tone, messaging, and personas, it helps us draft, refine, and iterate smarter.

Google Imagen adds powerful, high-quality image generation to our creative workflow. It’s another tool we reach for when we need sharp, AI-driven visuals that look the part.

ElevenLabs generates realistic voiceovers quickly and effectively, and really accurately. Super powerful.

HeyGen helps us create interactive talking-head videos from text. The magic really happens when we combine it with Google Imagen and ElevenLabs – giving us video, voice, and visuals that are deeply aligned and feel fully integrated.

Freepik provides a suite of generative design tools in one place-no platform-jumping needed

Hidden Gems: Small Tools That Make a Big Difference

Voice In (Chrome Extension) allows us to dictate directly into form fields or chat windows. It’s far more reliable than the built-in voice tools in many apps, especially useful when working with ChatGPT.

BuiltWith (Chrome Extension) shows you what tech stack is behind any website. Great for insights, competitive research, or just general curiosity.

WAVE & Silktide accessibility scanners help us audit the platforms we build to ensure they meet the needs of all users, including those with disabilities, and comply with accessibility standards such as WCAG.