What tools do you use to pre-launch your products?

Get initial customers willing to test your product and build it with you for the early stage before public launch is super important for the overall quality of the product.

I have noticed more and more people doing it with prelaunch landing pages. However, I like building out the landing pages on my own(I don't want to use any builders for design), How would I go about email capture and email updates? (I'm looking for something simple. Not MailChimp).

How do you do it? What do you like about the tool you use? What's not so good about it?
I would love any feedback you can give.