We Used to Build Software. Now We Review It.
Lifli started in 2003 as a Mac software development company based in the early blogging era — when desktop apps ruled, RSS was the future, and Apple was about to change everything.
Our flagship product was iBlog — one of the first desktop blogging applications for macOS. At the time, publishing to the web from your Mac required technical knowledge most people didn’t have. iBlog changed that. It let anyone write, design, and publish a blog directly from their desktop, in their own language, without touching a line of code.
iBlog was downloaded by thousands of Mac users across seven languages — English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Chinese. It was listed on CNET Downloads and Softonic, covered by Wired when Apple launched iWeb in January 2006, discussed on MacRumors and Slashdot, and used by computer science professors at the University of Tokyo and Pace University to publish academic research online.
We were in the room when Mac software meant something.
Why We Stopped Building and Started Reviewing
The software landscape shifted. Apple’s own tools matured. The web moved fast. We made the decision to step back from development — but we never lost the knowledge of what makes software genuinely good.
Twenty years of building, shipping, and supporting software gives you a perspective that most reviewers don’t have. We know what a clean codebase feels like as a user. We know when an interface is hiding complexity instead of solving it. We know the difference between a feature list and a product that actually works.
That’s what Lifli brings to every review.
What We Review and How
We focus on Mac software, developer tools, and SaaS products — the categories we know best from 20+ years in the space. Every product we review is tested hands-on by our team. We buy our own licenses. We don’t accept payment for positive coverage. We don’t let affiliate relationships influence our scores.
Our scoring system rates software across five dimensions:
- Features — Does it do what it claims, and does it do it well?
- Ease of Use — Can a real person use it without reading the manual?
- Value — Is the price justified by what you get?
- Performance — Is it fast, stable, and reliable on modern hardware?
- Support — When things go wrong, is the company there?
Scores are given out of 10 and are never rounded up to make a product look better than it is. An 8.5 means it’s excellent with real limitations. A 10 doesn’t exist — no software is perfect.
You can read our full methodology at Review Methodology →
Affiliate Links and How We Handle Them
Some links on Lifli are affiliate links. If you click and buy, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. This is how we keep the lights on and the reviews free.
Our rule is simple: we never recommend a product we wouldn’t use ourselves, and we never recommend something just because the affiliate commission is high. If a free tool is better than a paid one, we say so. If a product we earn commission on has a serious flaw, we write about it.
Full details at Affiliate Disclosure →
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Get in Touch
Have a software product you’d like us to review? A correction to an existing article? Or just want to say hello to someone who remembers when iBlog was the best Mac blogging app on the planet?