19 Developer Tools that keep me productive
Many developers prefer building things from scratch, but sometimes the workload is so huge that using these tools can make the job easier.
There are a range of tools included here, so I’m confident you’ll find one that suits your needs.
I can’t cover everything, but feel free to let me know in the comments if you know of other awesome tools!
Let’s do it.
1. Taipy — Data and AI algorithms into production level web apps.
Normally, when I need an interface for Python, I use Streamlit. However, it isn’t very efficient and has a lot of performance-based problems.
Taipy (open source) on the other hand is the perfect Python library for easy, end-to-end application development, featuring what-if analyses, smart pipeline execution, built-in scheduling, and deployment tools.
To be clear, Taipy is used for creating a GUI interface for Python-based applications and improving data flow management.
The key is performance and Taipy is the perfect choice for that.
While Streamlit is a popular tool, its performance can decline significantly as I told you earlier especially when handling large datasets, making it impractical for production-level use.
Taipy, on the other hand, offers simplicity and ease of use without sacrificing performance.
GIF
Taipy has a lot of integration options and connects effortlessly with leading data platforms.
Get started with the following command.
pip install taipyThe best part is Taipy and all its dependencies are now fully compatible with Python 3.12 so you can work with the most up-to-date tools and libraries while using Taipy for your projects.
You can read the docs.
Another useful thing is that the Taipy team has provided a VSCode extension called Taipy Studio to accelerate the building of Taipy applications.
If you want to read a blog to see codebase structure, you can read Create a Web Interface for your LLM in Python using Taipy by HuggingFace.
It is generally tough to try out new technologies, but Taipy has provided 10+ demo tutorials with code & proper docs for you to follow along. I will discuss some of these projects in detail!
The use cases are amazing, so make sure to check out some of the demo apps.
Taipy also offers a Designer app (a drag and drop low-code editor) in its enterprise version. It’s very useful, and you can watch the demo below to see how it works!
Taipy has 9.2k+ stars on GitHub and is on the v3.1 release so they are constantly improving.
2. Jam — one click bug reports.
I found Jam a few months back, and I’ve used it several times.
Jam is a free Chrome extension (not open source) that you can use to report bugs efficiently. Of course, you can do much more.
Reporting a bug is a lengthy process, and you may end up missing the essential data needed to solve it. That is why developers prefer using Jam.
Watch this video to see how Jam works!
As you can see, the best part is that it captures the console and network logs information which makes it convenient for other developers to look into it.
You will also get an AI debugger, backend tracing, repro steps, and browser info. What more do you need?
I’ve used Jam for a long time, so you will also get a dashboard to see all the jams that you’ve created to date. It’s efficient and works really well.
It also works with a lot of popular tools so you don’t have to change your environment at all.
Don’t use the traditional way, you can simply comment on the Jam and improve the whole process to deal with it without hassle.
3. Flowise — Drag & drop UI to build your customized LLM flow.
Flowise is an open source UI visual tool to build your customized LLM orchestration flow & AI agents.
Get started with the following npm command.
npm install -g flowise
npx flowise start
OR
npx flowise start --FLOWISE_USERNAME=user --FLOWISE_PASSWORD=1234This is how you integrate the API.
import requests
url = "/api/v1/prediction/:id"
def query(payload):
response = requests.post(
url,
json = payload
)
return response.json()
output = query({
question: "hello!"
)}
You can read the docs.
Cloud host is not available so you would have to self-host using these instructions.
Let’s explore some of the use cases:
- Let’s say you have a website (could be a store, an e-commerce site, or a blog), and you want to scrap all the relative links of that website and have LLM answer any question on your website. You can follow this step-by-step tutorial on how to achieve the same.
- You can also create a custom tool that will be able to call a webhook endpoint and pass in the necessary parameters into the webhook body. Follow this guide which will be using Make.com to create the webhook workflow.
There are a lot of other use cases such as building a SQL QnA or interacting with API.
FlowiseAI has 27.5k+ Stars on GitHub and has more than 10k forks so it has a good overall ratio.
4. DevToys — Swiss Army knife for developers.
DevToys helps with daily development tasks like formatting JSON, comparing text, and testing RegExp.
The use case is the same but DevToys gives a bunch of more options and it’s an offline tool which is a plus point.
With this, there is no need to use untrustworthy websites to do simple tasks with your data. With Smart Detection, DevToys can detect the best tool to use for the data copied to the Windows clipboard.
Compact overlay lets you keep the app small and on top of other windows. The best part is that multiple instances of the app can be used at once.
I can say for sure, that a lot of developers never knew about this one.
I’m glad to say that it’s software designed for the Windows ecosystem. Haha!
Some of the tools that they provide are:
Converters
- JSON <> YAML
- Timestamp
- Number Base
- Cron Parser
Encoders / Decoders
- HTML
- URL
- Base64 Text & Image
- GZip
- JWT Decoder
Formatters
- JSON
- SQL
- XML
Generators
- Hash (MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA512)
- UUID 1 and 4
- Lorem Ipsum
- Checksum
Text
- Escape / Unescape
- Inspector & Case Converter
- Regex Tester
- Text Comparer
- XML Validator
- Markdown Preview
Graphic
- Color Blindness Simulator
- Color Picker & Contrast
- PNG / JPEG Compressor
- Image Converter
I don’t know about you, but I’m not missing this one!
You can read on how to run DevToys.
A note regarding the license.
DevToys is using a license that permits redistribution of the app as trialware or shareware without changes. However, the authors Etienne BAUDOUX and BenjaminT would prefer you not. If you believe you have a strong reason to do so, kindly reach out to discuss it with us first.
They have 23.5k+ stars on GitHub and use C#.
5. Linear — tasks management tool.
I’ve tried using tools like Trello or Jira before and I’m saying that linear is definitely worth it. Jira seems a little complex and appropriate for big teams.
Linear is open source and one of the best ways to streamline issues, projects, and product roadmaps. It’s a management tool and we all need it to see what’s going on and what is planned for ahead.
You also get a global command menu that can help you achieve your actions much faster. We all love that as a developer!
They offer a bunch of cool features, such as automatic tracking, which ensures that started issues are added to the current cycle. You’ll also receive warnings for at-risk cycles, which can help predict delays.
You can see the list of 25+ complete features. You can also read about their whole journey.
If you prefer watching a video, you can look at this one which covers most of the basic stuff about linear.
It has a free tier plan for 2 teams, which is more than enough to try things out and see if they are a good fit.
Linear has 650 stars on the main repository and is built using TypeScript.
6. Pieces — Your Workflow Copilot.
Pieces is an AI productivity tool designed to help developers manage the chaos of their workflow through intelligent code snippet management, contextualized copilot interactions, and proactive surfacing of useful materials.
It improves your workflow, and your overall development experience while maintaining the privacy and security of your work with a completely offline approach to AI.
The most recent concept of Live Context just made it next level. You can watch the demo that created the hype!
With this, Pieces Copilot+ can now provide hyper-aware assistance to guide you right back to where you left off.
- Ask it,
What was I working on an hour ago?and let it help you get back into flow. - Ask it,
How can I resolve the issue I got with Cocoa Pods in the terminal in IntelliJ? - or
What did Mack say I should test in the latest release?.
Pieces Copilot can surface the information that you know you have, but can’t remember where.
It seamlessly integrates with your favorite tools to streamline, understand, and elevate your coding processes.
It has a lot more exciting features than what meets the eye.
✅ It can find the materials you need with a lightning-fast search experience that lets you query by natural language, code, tags, and other semantics, depending on your preference. Safe to say “Your Personal Offline Google”.
✅ Pieces upgrades screenshots with OCR & edge-ML to extract code and repair invalid characters. As a result, you get extremely accurate code extraction and deep metadata enrichment.
You can see the complete list of features that is available with Pieces.
You can read the docs and visit the website.
It also allows you to capture coding snippets you can use as a reference when editing existing codes or working on a new project. This is very handy for open source developers.
✅ Save parts of your code in the app.
✅ Easily access saved code snippets.
✅ Paste codes from the Internet.
✅ Share your codes with your team.
They have a bunch of SDK options for Pieces OS client with TypeScript, Kotlin, Python, and Dart.
They’re still new in terms of open source popularity but their community is one of the best that I’ve seen so far. Join them and be part of Pieces!
7. Screenshot to Code — Drop in a screenshot and convert it to clean code.
This open source project is widely popular, but many developers still don’t know about it. This can help you build user interfaces 10x faster.
It’s a simple tool to convert screenshots, mockups, and Figma designs into clean, functional code using AI.
The app has a React/Vite frontend and a FastAPI backend. You will need an OpenAI API key with access to the GPT-4 Vision API or an Anthropic key if you want to use Claude Sonnet, or for experimental video support. You can read the guide to get started.
You can try it live on the hosted version and see the series of demo videos available on the wiki.
They have 52k+ stars on GitHub and support a lot of tech stacks like React, and Vue with decent AI Models such as GPT-4 Vision, Claude 3 Sonnet, and DALL-E 3.
8. Silver Searcher — ultra fast codebase searching tool.
Many open source projects have a large codebase built by developers over the years. It’s obvious that someone cannot understand it all in one go, and that’s where this tool comes in.
The Silver Searcher (open source), often abbreviated as Ag, is a fast and efficient code-searching tool designed for developers who work with large codebases. Built as a replacement for the traditional grep command, Ag leverages parallelism and smart filtering to deliver ultra fast search results.
It started as a clone of Ack, except it’s 5 to 10 times faster. You can read why it’s so fast.
It has a lot of cool features such as:
✅ Multi-threading for faster code bug searches.
✅ Ignores file patterns from your .gitignore, .ignore, and .hgignore to avoid unnecessary searches.
✅ Customizable via command-line options and a downloadable config file.
The good part is that it can be integrated with text editors and IDEs for enhanced search functionality within your preferred workflow.
It works seamlessly on Windows, macOS, and Linux, as per your development environment.
You can read the installation guide.
It has 25.5k+ stars on GitHub with 200+ contributors.
The only problem is that it isn’t maintained anymore because the last commit is from 4 years ago and it has 400+ active issues.
9. Appsmith — Platform to build admin panels, internal tools, and dashboards.
Admin panels and dashboards are some of the common parts of any software idea (in most cases) and I’ve tried to build it from scratch which is a lot of pain with unnecessary hard work.
You would have seen organizations build internal applications such as dashboards, database GUIs, admin panels, approval apps, customer support dashboards, and more to help their teams perform day-to-day operations. As I said, Appsmith is an open-source tool that enables the rapid development of these internal apps.
For starters, watch this YouTube video that explains Appsmith in 100 seconds.
They provide Drag and drop widgets to build UI.
You can use 45+ customizable widgets to create beautiful responsive UI in minutes without writing a single line of HTML/CSS. Find the complete list of widgets.
Appsmith enables writing JavaScript code almost everywhere on the GUI inside widget properties, events listeners, queries, and other settings. Appsmith supports writing single-line code within {{ }} and interprets anything written between the brackets as a JavaScript expression.
/*Filter the data array received from a query*/
{{ QueryName.data.filter((row) => row.id > 5 ) }}
or
{{
storeValue("userID", 42);
console.log(appsmith.store.userID);
showAlert("userID saved");
}}You need to use Immediately Invoked Function Expression (IIFE) to write multiple lines.
For instance, the invalid and valid code.
// invalid code
/*Call a query to fetch the results and filter the data*/
{{
const array = QueryName.data;
const filterArray = array.filter((row) => row.id > 5);
return filterArray;
}}
/* Check the selected option and return the value*/
{{
if (Dropdown.selectedOptionValue === "1") {
return "Option 1";
} else {
return "Option 2";
}
}}
// valid code
/* Call a query and then manipulate its result */
{{
(function() {
const array = QueryName.data;
const filterArray = array.filter((row) => row.id > 5);
return filterArray;
})()
}}
/* Verify the selected option and return the value*/
{{
(function() {
if (Dropdown.selectedOptionValue === "1") {
return "Option 1";
} else {
return "Option 2";
}
})()
}}You can create anything from simple CRUD apps to complicated multi-step workflows with a few simple steps:
- Integrate with a database or API. Appsmith supports the most popular databases and REST APIs.
- Use built-in widgets to build your app layout.
- Express your business logic using queries and JavaScript anywhere in the editor.
- Appsmith supports version control using Git to build apps in collaboration using branches to track and roll back changes. Deploy the app and share it :)
You can read the docs and how to guides such as how you can connect it to Local Datasource or how to integrate with third-party tools.
You can self-host or use the cloud. They also provide 20+ templates so you can quickly get started. Some of the useful ones are:
Appsmith has 31k+ Stars on GitHub with 200+ releases.
10. Autocomplete — IDE-style autocomplete for your existing terminal & shell.
Fig makes the command line easier for individuals and more collaborative for teams.
Their most popular product is Autocomplete. As you type, Fig pops up subcommands, options, and contextually relevant arguments in your existing terminal.
As developers, we sure need this to maximize our daily productivity.
The best part is that you can use Fig’s autocomplete for your own tools too. Here’s how to create private completions:
import { ai } from "@fig/autocomplete-generators"...generators: [
ai({
// the prompt
prompt: "Generate a git commit message", // Send any relevant local context.
message: async ({ executeShellCommand }) => {
return executeShellCommand("git diff")
}, //Turn each newline into a suggestion (can specify instead a `postProcess1 function if more flexibility is required)
splitOn: "\n",
})
]
You can read the fig.io/docs on how to get started.
You can see the below demo to understand how it works!
GIF
They have 24k+ stars on GitHub and are useful for developers who often use shell or terminal.
11. Replexica — AI-powered i18n toolkit for React.
The struggle with localization is real so having AI help with that is definitely a cool concept.
Replexica is an i18n toolkit for React, to ship multi-language apps fast. It doesn’t require extracting text into JSON files and uses AI-powered API for content processing.
It has these two parts:
- Replexica Compiler — an open-source compiler plugin for React.
- Replexica API — an i18n API in the cloud that performs translations using LLMs. (Usage-based, it has a free tier)
Some of the i18n formats supported are:
- JSON-free Replexica compiler format.
- .md files for Markdown content.
- Legacy JSON and YAML-based formats.
They also made an official announcement on DEV when they reached 500 Stars. I was one of the first readers (less than 3 reactions).
They cover a lot of things so you should read We Got 500 Stars What Next by Max.
To give a general idea behind Replexica, here’s the only change that’s needed to the basic Next.js app to make it multi-language.
Get started with the following npm command.
// install
pnpm add replexica @replexica/react @replexica/compiler
// login to Replexica API.
pnpm replexica auth --loginThis is how you can use this.
// next.config.mjs
// Import Replexica Compiler
import replexica from '@replexica/compiler';
/** @type {import('next').NextConfig} */
const nextConfig = {};
// Define Replexica configuration
/** @type {import('@replexica/compiler').ReplexicaConfig} */
const replexicaConfig = {
locale: {
source: 'en',
targets: ['es'],
},
};
// Wrap Next.js config with Replexica Compiler
export default replexica.next(
replexicaConfig,
nextConfig,
);You can read on how to get started and also clearly documented stuff on what is used under the hood.
Replexica Compiler supports Next.js App Router, and Replexica API supports English 🇺🇸 and Spanish 🇪🇸. They are planning to release Next.js Pages Router + French 🇫🇷 language support next!
They have 740+ Stars on GitHub and are built on TypeScript. A project you should keep an eye out for further progress!
12. Mintlify — Documentation that just appears as you build.
We all know how important is to create documentation within our code so that we can understand what’s going on at a later point. But it’s a lengthy process and most of the time we’re just too lazy to do that.
That is where Mintlify as an AI documentation writer can help you to document the code in just 1 second. Wow!
I discovered Mintlify several months ago and I’ve been a fan of that ever since.
They also provide complete docs for any project as we see on most of the company’s website. I’ve seen a lot of companies use it, and even I generated complete docs using my business email which turns out to be very easy and decent. If you want those docs, Mintlify is the solution.
copilotkit docs are also powered by Mintlify
The main use case that we are going to discuss here is generating docs based on the code. As you write code, it will automatically document the code so it’s easier for others to catch up to it.
You can install the VSCode extension or install it on IntelliJ.
You just have to highlight the code or place the cursor on the line you want to document. Then click on the Write Docs button (or hit ⌘ + .)
You can read the docs and the security guidelines.
If you’re more of a tutorial person then you can watch How Mintlify works. It supports more than 10 programming languages and supports a lot of docstring formats like JSDoc, reST, NumPy, and more.
By the way, their website link is writer.mintlify.com; the current one in the repo seems to be wrong.
Mintlify is a handy tool for documenting your code, something every developer should aim to do. It makes it easier for others to understand your code effectively.
It has around 2.5k stars on GitHub, is built on TypeScript, and is loved by many developers.
13. BlockNote — Rich Text Editor that’s block-based (Notion style) and extensible.
It’s often said not to reinvent the wheel unless you’re learning something new.
Blocknote is the open source Block-Based React rich text editor. You can easily add a modern text editing experience to your app.
Blocknote is built on top of Prosemirror and Tiptap.
They have a lot of features as shown below.
You can easily customize the built-in UI Components, or create your custom Blocks, Inline Content, and Styles. If you want to go even further, you can extend the core editor with additional Prosemirror or TipTap plugins.
Other libraries are powerful but often have quite a steep learning curve and require you to customize every single detail of your editor. This can require months of specialized work.
BlockNote instead, offers a great experience with minimal setup, including a ready-made and animated UI.
Get started with the following npm command.
npm install @blocknote/core @blocknote/reactThis is how you can use this. With the useCreateBlockNote hook, we can create a new editor instance, and then use the theBlockNoteView component to render it.
@blocknote/react/style.css is also imported to add default styling for the editor and the Inter font that BlockNote exports (optional).
import "@blocknote/core/fonts/inter.css";
import { BlockNoteView, useCreateBlockNote } from "@blocknote/react";
import "@blocknote/react/style.css";
export default function App() {
// Creates a new editor instance.
const editor = useCreateBlockNote();
// Renders the editor instance using a React component.
return <BlockNoteView editor={editor} />;
}You can read the docs and the ui components that are available.
You should give it a try, especially because it includes a wide range of features like a ‘slash’ menu, smooth animations, and the potential to create a real-time collaboration app.
slash menu
realtime collab
format menu
They have also provided 20+ examples along with the preview and code that you can use to quickly follow up.
Blocknote has 5k+ Stars on GitHub and is used by 1.5k+ developers.
14. DOMPurify — a DOM-only, super-fast, uber-tolerant XSS sanitizer for HTML.
DOMPurify is a DOM-only, super-fast, uber-tolerant XSS sanitizer for HTML, MathML, and SVG. We as developers need it for our apps to keep them secure enough.
DOMPurify sanitizes HTML and prevents XSS attacks.
You can feed DOMPurify with a string full of dirty HTML and it will return a string (unless configured otherwise) with clean HTML.
DOMPurify will strip out everything that contains dangerous HTML and thereby prevent XSS attacks and other nastiness. It’s also damn bloody fast.
They use the technologies the browser provides and turn them into an XSS filter. The faster your browser, the faster DOMPurify will be.
DOMPurify is written in JavaScript and works in all modern browsers (Safari (10+), Opera (15+), Edge, Firefox, and Chrome — as well as almost anything else using Blink, Gecko, or WebKit). It doesn’t break on MSIE or other legacy browsers. It simply does nothing.
Get started with the following npm command.
npm install dompurify
npm install jsdom
// or use the unminified development version
<script type="text/javascript" src="src/purify.js"></script>This is how you can use this.
const createDOMPurify = require('dompurify');
const { JSDOM } = require('jsdom');
const window = new JSDOM('').window;
const DOMPurify = createDOMPurify(window);
const clean = DOMPurify.sanitize('<b>hello there</b>');If you run into problems, please refer to docs. They have documented running it using a script or on the server side.
You can see some of the purification samples and see the live demo.
It’s also very simple to use. DOMPurify was started in February 2014 and, meanwhile, has reached version v3.1.0.
There are many concepts involved, and I’m eager to explore them. Let me know if you have anything exciting related to this.
Another useful alternative I’ve found is validator.js.
They have 12k+ Stars on GitHub, are used by 300k+ developers, and have weekly downloads of 5,475k+ which makes them ultra credible.
15. n8n — workflow automation tool.
n8n is an extendable workflow automation tool. With a fair-code distribution model, n8n will always have visible source code, be available to self-host, and allow you to add your custom functions, logic, and apps.
A tool every developer wants to use. After all, automation is the key to productivity and simplicity.
n8n’s node-based approach makes it highly versatile, enabling you to connect anything to everything.
There are 400+ integration options which is almost insane!
You can see all the options for installation including Docker, npm & self-host.
Get started with the following command.
npx n8nThis command will download everything that’s needed to start n8n. You can then access n8n and start building workflows by opening http://localhost:5678.
Watch this quickstart video on YouTube!
You can read the docs and read this guide to quickly start based on your needs.
They also provide beginner and intermediate courses to follow along easily.
They have 41k+ stars on GitHub and provide two packages for the overall usage.
16. Infisical — secret management platform.
Infisical is the open source secret management platform that teams use to centralize their secrets like API keys, database credentials, and configurations.
They are making secret management more accessible to everyone, not just security teams, and that means redesigning the entire developer experience from the ground up.
Personally, I don’t mind using .env files as I’m not extra cautious. Still, you can read Stop Using .env Files Now! by Gregory to understand.
They provide four SDKs which are for Node.js, Python, Java and .Net. You can self-host or use their cloud.
Get started with the following npm command.
npm install @infisical/sdkThis is how you can use get started (Node.js SDK).
import { InfisicalClient, LogLevel } from "@infisical/sdk";
const client = new InfisicalClient({
clientId: "YOUR_CLIENT_ID",
clientSecret: "YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET",
logLevel: LogLevel.Error
});
const secrets = await client.listSecrets({
environment: "dev",
projectId: "PROJECT_ID",
path: "/foo/bar/",
includeImports: false
});
Infisical also provides a set of tools to automatically prevent secret leaks to git history. This functionality can be set up on the level of Infisical CLI using pre-commit hooks or through direct integration with platforms like GitHub.
You can read the docs and check on how to install the CLI which is the best way to use it.
Infisical can also be used to inject secrets into Kubernetes clusters and automatic deployment so the app is using the latest secrets. A lot of integration options are available.
Do check their license before using the whole source code because they have some enterprise-level code that is protected under MIT Expat but don’t worry, most of the code is free to use.
They have 11k+ stars on GitHub and 125+ releases so they are constantly evolving. Plus the Infiscial CLI is installed more than 5.4M times so it’s very trustworthy.
17. Gitinfluence — AI tool to find the right git command.
As you know, it’s tough to learn each and every git command. It gets complex if the use cases are complex.
That is why Gitinfluence is the AI-driven solution that helps you quickly find the right command. You can save a huge time thanks to this awesome tool.
For instance, this is the response I got after typing what I needed.
It’s as simple as it sounds and very efficient.
It is a very early open source project (next.js) with 55 stars but I’m sure it has a lot of potential to grow.
18. OpenDevin — Code Less, Make More.
This an open source project aiming to replicate Devin, an autonomous AI software engineer who is capable of executing complex engineering tasks and collaborating actively with users on software development projects. This project aspires to replicate, enhance, and innovate upon Devin through the power of the open source community.
Just to let you know, this was way before Devin was introduced.
You can read the installation instructions with requirements.
They use LiteLLM, so you can run OpenDevin with any foundation model, including OpenAI, Claude, and Gemini under the hood.
You can see the demo and contributing guidelines if you’re looking to contribute to OpenDevin.
It has 10.7k+ Stars on GitHub and is growing at a rapid pace.
19. Amplification — backend development platform.
I think we can all agree that setting up the backend and doing it from scratch is hard if we’re going to meet the standards.
I know Appwrite & Supabase is much better in terms of features but every case is unique and this might click rather than those.
Amplication is designed to revolutionize the creation of scalable and secure Node.js applications.
They eliminate repetitive coding tasks and deliver production-ready infrastructure code, meticulously tailored to your specifications and adhering to industry best practices.
Their user-friendly interface fosters seamless integration of APIs, data models, databases, authentication, and authorization.
Built on a flexible, plugin-based architecture, Amplication allows effortless customization of the code and offers a lot of integration options.
You can read the docs and see the list of community plugins that are available.
They have also provided step-by-step tutorials that help you build apps with either Angular or React.
Amplification has 13k+ Stars on GitHub with 170+ releases so they’re constantly evolving.
Whew!
This took me a very very long time to write. I hope you enjoyed it.
I understand that AI tools sometimes are too much but we should use them to make our work easier. I mean that is what we do right, to make lives easier.
I have tried to cover a wide range of tools.
Anyway, let us know what you think and do you plan to use any of these tools in your workflow?
Have a great day! Till next time.
