Helm
Helm is a native Mac and iOS app for managing your App Store releases without the usual pain. It replaces the slow, clunky App Store Connect interface with something fast, clean, and built for focus. You can handle everything from builds to screenshots to release notes – all in one place, and actually enjoy doing it.
Get to know Helm
Who’s behind Helm?
Hey, I’m Hidde van der Ploeg - designer and developer, and the maker of Helm. I’ve been building apps for over 15 years now. I started out in design school, got into app design when the iPhone came out, and taught myself how to design for mobile. Back then, not many people were doing it yet, so I quickly got pulled into a bunch of startup projects and ended up working at an agency building apps for all kinds of companies.
Along the way, I kept having ideas I wanted to build myself, but I always needed an engineer to help bring them to life. That part was frustrating. So I thought, how hard can it be? And I taught myself how to code too. Since then, I’ve made a lot of apps. Some stuck around, some didn’t. Helm is probably my ninth. I think five or six are still live on the App Store.
These days, I do both design and development. I like working fast, riding the momentum of a new idea, but I’m also not afraid to kill something if it’s not working. Helm came out of that same mindset: something I needed, something that didn’t exist the way I wanted it to. So I built it. Not long after, I teamed up with Pol – a good friend and a great engineer I also work with on NowPlaying. He helped take Helm to the next level, and we’ve been building it together ever since.
What’s Helm and what’s so cool about it?
Helm is a native Mac app that makes working with App Store Connect way less painful. Helm started out of pure frustration. As someone managing multiple indie apps, I found myself spending way too much time inside App Store Connect. And every time, it just felt broken, slow, awkward, way more complicated than it needed to be. I wasn’t alone in that. Most devs I know feel the same.
I tried a few of the existing alternatives. Gave feedback. Waited. But nothing really changed. So at some point I thought: fine, I’ll build it myself. I put together a quick proof of concept, just to see if it could work. I already knew the App Store Connect API was a tough one. So I reached out to Pol and we decided to build it together.
From the beginning, we had a simple goal: make the tool we wished existed. Native, fast, clean. Something that actually made sense. There are so many tiny interactions in App Store Connect that are just… wrong. We’ve been fixing them, one by one.
We launched Helm in June 2023 after six long weeks stuck in App Review. And even though we’re still early, the response has been really overwhelming in the best way. More than 8,000 developers are using it now, and we keep hearing from people who say it’s exactly what they needed. That’s been the best part.
We’re still taking it slow. There’s a long list of features people ask for - in-app purchases being a big one, but we try to build things properly, not just fast. We recently launched our iOS app and added full support for In-App Events, both of which had been high on the list. Helm isn’t about checking boxes. It’s about building something that actually feels good to use. Something we’re proud to put our names on.
Tool Stack of Helm
What’s under Helm’s hood? Which technologies were used and why did you chose them?
Helm is built with a pretty minimal stack on purpose. The entire app is written in SwiftUI, which made it much easier to build for macOS, especially since this was the first full Mac app I launched myself. Technically, designing for Mac is different than for iPhone, but under the hood, a lot of the structure is similar, which helped speed things up.
For bug reports, we use a Swift package called Diagnostics by WeTransfer. It helps generate HTML reports and gives us some insight into what went wrong, especially with edge cases we can’t always reproduce. That’s important for Helm, since many bugs only show up when working with live apps through App Store Connect.
Some of our AI features, like translations, are powered by OpenAI, but we run everything securely through AI Proxy so our API key isn’t exposed inside the app.
Until recently, we collected most feedback through a Tally form, which worked well and landed everything neatly in our inbox. But recently we added a proper in-app feedback flow, built on top of Supabase. You can now report bugs directly from Help, even right after an error pops up. It’s made things a lot easier, both for users and for us.
Do you use any other tools to run the business?
We try to keep things lean and focused. For handling support, we use Spark to share an inbox between the two of us, and we track tasks and feature requests in Linear, doing a handoff every Friday to keep things clean.
The website is built with Astro and styled using Tailwind, hosted on Vercel. No React, no over-complication, just fast and flexible.
What’s your personal stack? Which apps do you and your team love?
I keep my personal setup pretty minimal. For task management, I live inside Linear and Things – those two run my day. My browser of choice is Safari, which I guess counts as slightly exotic these days. For design, I still use Sketch, and for note-taking I bounce between Apple Notes and Craft. Quick thoughts usually go into Notes. If I’m writing something longer or more structured, I’ll switch to Craft.
I also use Raindrop to save design inspiration, mostly visual stuff I like, even if it’s not app-related. It’s a great place to store ideas I might want to come back to later.
Nothing too fancy. Just solid, focused tools that help me stay in flow.
Anything else you’d like to share?
We’ve been quietly shipping some big updates. The iOS version of Helm is now live, and launching it around WWDC was a lot of fun, especially with the little passport stamp challenge we ran during the week. It was a playful way to celebrate, and seeing people get into it was a real highlight.
It’s still just the two of us building Helm, but the response so far has been incredible. The community’s been super warm, and we can’t wait to keep pushing things forward. One feature at a time.
Now, discover Helm for yourself
Huge thanks to Hidde for sharing the story behind Helm and the details on the building blocks that make it such a fantastic replacement for App Store Connect. Now test it out yourself and see if it's a great fit for you.