I don't have a team. I don't have a budget. I have a phone with a broken camera, a laptop, and about two hours a day between college and everything else I'm trying to build.
So when people ask what "AI stack" I use to run Xizoa, write code, and put out content — the honest answer is: five free tools, used stubbornly, every single day. No premium subscriptions. No "buy my course" tools. Just things that actually earn their place in my workflow.
Here's the real list — not a roundup I googled, but what's open on my screen right now.
1. GitHub Copilot (via VS Code)
I'm not a trained developer. I'm a B.Sc. Math student who taught himself to build websites by doing it badly first. Copilot is the difference between staring at a blank file for twenty minutes and actually shipping something.
How I actually use it: * Autocompleting repetitive HTML/CSS blocks when I'm building out pages for Xizoa * Suggesting fixes when my vanilla JS breaks and I can't immediately see why * Writing boilerplate for Python automation scripts (sitemap generation, RSS feeds) so I can focus on the logic that actually matters
Honest limitation: It doesn't understand my project the way I do. It'll confidently suggest something that breaks my existing structure. I've learned to read every suggestion like a rough draft, not a final answer.
Free tier: GitHub Student Developer Pack gets you Copilot free — even without a college-issued academic email. If your college doesn't have one (mine doesn't), a clear enrollment document from your student portal works too.
2. Google AI Studio
This is where I test ideas before they become anything real. No API bills, no complicated setup — just a place to throw a prompt and see if it holds up.
How I actually use it: * Drafting and stress-testing content ideas before I commit to writing them * Prototyping prompts I later wire into automation (n8n workflows, my site's chatbot logic) * Quick research passes when I need a second opinion on a technical approach
Honest limitation: It's a sandbox, not a finished product. Everything that comes out of it needs editing in my own voice — otherwise it reads like AI wrote it, which defeats the entire point of documenting my journey.
3. n8n
Automation was the unlock that let one person (me) run a blog, a chatbot, and multiple social channels without losing my mind. n8n is free to self-host, and once it's running, it just... works in the background.
How I actually use it: * Connecting pieces of my content pipeline so one action triggers the next * Reducing the manual, repetitive steps that used to eat my evenings * Testing small automations before deciding if they're worth keeping permanently
Honest limitation: The learning curve is real. My first few workflows failed silently for days before I figured out why. If you're not willing to debug, this tool will frustrate you more than it helps.
4. Cloudflare Pages + Workers
Not an "AI tool" in the flashy sense, but it's the free infrastructure that makes everything else possible. Xizoa is hosted here, my chatbot's backend runs here, push notifications go out from here — all on the free tier.
How I actually use it: * Hosting Xizoa's static site directly from GitHub, so every push auto-deploys * Running a lightweight Worker for backend logic (auth, API proxying) without paying for a server * Serving push notifications and small custom scripts at the edge
Honest limitation: You need to be comfortable with some technical setup — this isn't drag-and-drop. But once it's configured, it's genuinely free and genuinely reliable.
5. Claude
I use Claude as a thinking partner, not a ghostwriter. Every article, script, and README I put out still goes through my own hands — but the first draft of structure often starts here.
How I actually use it: * Working through project architecture before I start building (like this article, honestly) * Getting direct, unfiltered feedback on ideas instead of generic encouragement * Turning one idea into multiple formats — Short, Reel, article, newsletter — without starting from zero each time
Honest limitation: If you let it write in "AI voice," your content stops sounding like you. I edit hard. What I publish should sound like a guy documenting his journey — not a tool pretending to be an expert.
The Pattern, Not the Tools
None of these five things are impressive on their own. What matters is that they're free, they compound, and they let one person with a broken phone camera and a full course load still ship consistently.
I'm not recommending these because they're the "best" tools on the market. I'm recommending them because I use them every day, they cost nothing, and they're part of how I'm building Xizoa and this whole journey in public — one honest piece of content at a time.
If you're starting with zero budget too, start here. Not because it's optimal — because it's proven, at least for me, right now.
This is post-worthy documentation from the AuroraPriyanshu build-in-public journey — no fake expertise, just what's actually working.
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