Who writes this
Roberto Oliveira. One person, named, and the only one who writes here.
That is worth saying out loud, because most pages answering “is this worth it?” are written by nobody in particular — an agency byline, a rotating freelancer, or no name at all. A byline that resolves to a real person with a checkable record is the difference between a review and an advertisement in a review’s clothes.
What I actually do
I have spent 25 years in IT infrastructure and security — since I was 18. For more than a decade I have been responsible for the infrastructure and security of a company’s systems: the servers, the identities, the patching, the backups, the incident at 2 a.m. It is work where being confidently wrong has consequences, and where “it looked fine in the demo” is not a defence.
That is also how I review products. Check it against the primary source. Run it long enough to reach the part the demo never shows. Then say plainly whether it holds up.
Education: BSc in Computer Science; Technologist degree in Computer Networks.
Certifications: LPIC-2 · LPIC-1 · SUSE Certified Administrator · MCSA: Windows Server 2008 · CompTIA A+
Two other things I run
Leitura Singular — a Portuguese-language publication on finance and technology, written for people who live off their own work rather than off selling products. House rule: primary source over press release, dated number over adjective, public correction of my own errors.
MicroForge — an indie microSaaS workshop building tools for technical professionals that generic software ignores. No investors, no easy promises, formulas cited and auditable.
Same standard in all three. In all of them: I show you the bill.
Worth or Skip is not a translation
Not one article, not one section, not one paragraph is carried over from my Portuguese site. Different market, different products, different research, written from scratch in English.
I am stating that publicly because it is a commitment I intend to be held to — and because a site that recycles another site’s content in a second language is doing something I would call out if someone else did it.
Why this site exists
The real buying question is almost never “what is the best X”. It is narrower and more personal: given what I already have, and what I actually need it for, is this specific thing worth my money?
The search results for that question are dominated by pages that structurally cannot say no. A site that earns a commission on every recommendation and has never published a negative verdict has already told you what it is.
So this one publishes SKIP, including on products that pay well. That is the whole proposition. Everything else here is layout.
How I pay for it
Affiliate commissions. Some links here earn money when you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. That is disclosed at the top of every page carrying such a link, and explained in full on the Affiliate Disclosure page.
The commission does not touch the verdict, and the thing that keeps that true is not my good character. It is structural: the “Who it’s NOT for” section is mandatory in every review, the disclosure is printed by the template rather than remembered by me, and products with live, well-paying programmes still get stamped SKIP. That last one is checkable, and you should check it.
I do not live off commissions. That is precisely why I can say, without flinching, when something is not worth buying.
What I am not
I am not a lawyer, an accountant, or a licensed financial adviser. Twenty-five years in infrastructure and security does not substitute for any of those titles, and where a decision needs one, the review says so and says when to go and get one.
What I am is an editor with a technical background who reads the documentation, cross-checks the vendor’s claims against primary sources, dates everything, and writes it in plain English.
Corrections
I will get things wrong. When I do, I want it fixed and I want the fix to be visible.
Reviews carry a last checked date, and material corrections are noted in the page rather than quietly edited out. A review that has silently flipped its verdict is one you cannot trust in either direction. If you find an error, tell me: Contact.