💾 Developer Tools & Resources

A curated list of essential developer tools and platforms for software engineers, designers, and data scientists.

🖥️ Development Environments

Tools for writing and editing code, ranging from lightweight editors to full IDEs and AI-enhanced platforms.

IDEs & Code Editors

• Visual Studio Code – Lightweight, extensible editor with powerful integrations.
• Notepad++ – Free Windows text/code editor with syntax highlighting.
• JetBrains IDEs – Professional IDEs including IntelliJ, WebStorm, and PyCharm.
• Visual Studio – Full-featured IDE for Windows/macOS with robust support for .NET and C++.
• Eclipse – Open-source IDE primarily used for Java, with plugin support for additional languages and tooling.

AI Tools

• GitHub Copilot – AI-powered code completion in your editor.
• Cursor – AI-enhanced code editor for productivity and refactoring.
• Replit – Browser-based IDE with collaborative and AI features.

🔄 APIs & Testing

Resources to discover, test, and generate APIs efficiently.

API Testing & Debugging Tools

• Postman – GUI-based tool for testing, documenting, and sharing RESTful APIs with support for collections, variables, and environments.
• cURL – Command-line tool for transferring data using various network protocols (great for quick API testing via terminal).

Public API Hubs & Directories

• RapidAPI – The world’s largest API marketplace to discover, connect, and manage thousands of APIs.
• API Hub by Postman – A searchable directory of public APIs published and tested by the Postman community.
• Public APIs – A massive GitHub repo listing free public APIs categorized by topic.
• API List – Fun and useful public APIs categorized by subject (movies, games, food, etc.).

API Generators

• DreamFactory – Auto-generates REST APIs from SQL or NoSQL databases with built-in security and role-based access.
• LoopBack – Extensible Node.js framework for building APIs quickly from models, with strong TypeScript support.
• Xmysql – Generate a REST API from a MySQL database instantly without writing code.
• Sandman2 – Instantly turn any legacy database into a RESTful API using Python.
• API Generators List (GitHub) – Curated list of open-source tools for auto-generating APIs.

🧰 DevOps & Infrastructure

Core tools to build, deploy, and manage applications in scalable environments.

Backend Tools

• Docker – Container platform for building and deploying applications.
• Kubernetes – Container orchestration platform for scalable deployments.
• Redis – In-memory database for caching, queues, and fast data access.
• PostgreSQL – Advanced, open-source relational database.
• SQLite – Self-contained, serverless SQL database engine used in embedded and lightweight applications.
• GraphQL – Query language and runtime for APIs.

Hosting Platforms

• Vercel – Fast frontend hosting and serverless backend deployment.
• Netlify – Git-based deployment for JAMstack and static sites.
• DigitalOcean – Cloud hosting with simple UI and predictable pricing.
• Heroku – PaaS that simplifies backend deployments and scaling.
• AWS – Full-featured cloud platform with global infrastructure.

Monitoring & Logging Tools

• LogRocket – Frontend monitoring with session replay, error tracking, and performance analytics.
• Sentry – Real-time error tracking and performance monitoring across your stack.
• New Relic – Full-stack observability platform for application performance monitoring.
• Grafana – Open-source visualization and alerting platform for metrics and logs.

📊 Machine Learning & Data Science

Frameworks, platforms, and tools used for machine learning, AI experimentation, and data science.

Notebooks & Experimentation

• Jupyter Notebook – Open-source web application for creating and sharing documents containing live code, equations, visualizations, and narrative text.
• Google Colab – Free Jupyter notebook environment from Google that runs in the cloud with GPU/TPU support.

Competitions & Datasets

• Kaggle – Online platform for data science competitions, datasets, notebooks, and collaborative ML projects.
• Papers with Code – Resource for finding ML research papers along with code implementations and benchmarks.

Experiment Tracking & Lifecycle

• Weights & Biases – Tool for experiment tracking, dataset versioning, and model performance visualization.
• MLflow – Open-source platform for managing the ML lifecycle, including experimentation, reproducibility, and deployment.

Pretrained Models & APIs

• Hugging Face – Hub for pre-trained models and datasets, especially in natural language processing (NLP).

🔐 Security & Reliability

Essential tools for protecting your web apps, securing infrastructure, and ensuring system uptime.

Network & Application Security

• Cloudflare – DDoS protection, CDN, SSL/TLS, WAF, and security analytics for web apps.
• SSL Labs – SSL Server Test to evaluate your HTTPS configuration and certificate strength.
• NordLayer – Business VPN and secure remote access for hybrid teams.

Code & DevSecOps

• Aikido Security – Code-to-cloud vulnerability scanning and developer-centric security tools.

Threat Detection & Monitoring

• Teramind – Insider threat detection, user behavior analytics, and monitoring.
• Log360 – SIEM solution for log management, auditing, and compliance.

Endpoint & Infrastructure Management

• Endpoint Central – Unified endpoint management with patching, asset tracking, and remote control.

📦 Build & Test

Utilities for managing dependencies, testing applications, and documenting APIs.

Package Managers & Dependency Tools

• npm – Node.js package manager and largest ecosystem of open-source libraries.
• Yarn – Fast, reliable, and secure alternative to npm with better caching and workspaces support.
• pnpm – Efficient, disk-saving package manager with strict dependency resolution.

Testing Frameworks & Tools

• Jest – Delightful JavaScript testing framework with snapshot testing and easy setup.
• Mocha – Flexible test framework for Node.js with rich plugin support.
• Cypress – Fast, reliable end-to-end testing for web apps with time-travel debugging.
• Playwright – Headless browser testing tool with multi-browser support by Microsoft.

API Specification & Documentation Tools

• Swagger UI – Interactive browser-based tool for exploring and testing OpenAPI-compliant REST APIs.
• Swagger Editor – Online YAML/JSON editor for designing and validating OpenAPI definitions.
• OpenAPI Spec – Standardized specification for building RESTful APIs that can be visualized and tested automatically.

🧠 Writing & Project Documentation

Documentation tools to support writing, structuring, and publishing project materials.

• Docusaurus – Static site generator for project documentation, built by Meta.
• Markdown Guide – Comprehensive reference for writing markdown, including GitHub-flavored syntax.
• Typora – Minimal markdown editor with real-time preview and export options.

✏️ Wireframing & Prototyping

Design tools for sketching, prototyping, and communicating interface and flow ideas.

Code-Enabled UI Design Platforms

• Framer – Interactive design platform with support for custom React components and real-time prototyping.
• UXPin – UI/UX tool that allows you to use real HTML, CSS, and JS logic, including interactive states and variables.
• Figma – Provides developer-friendly code inspection (CSS/Swift/XML) and supports code-export plugins like Anima.
• Penpot – Open-source UI design platform with CSS code inspection and developer handoff tools.

Design-Focused UI Tools

• Adobe XD – Vector-based design tool with prototype sharing and basic CSS snippets for handoff.
• Sketch – macOS-based UI design tool with export and dev handoff via plugins like Zeplin or Avocode.

Low-Fidelity Wireframing Tools

• Balsamiq – Low-fidelity wireframing tool that helps teams sketch out UI ideas quickly.
• Whimsical – Fast and intuitive tool for wireframes, flowcharts, and sticky notes.

Flowchart & Diagramming Tools

• draw.io (diagrams.net) – Free tool for creating flowcharts, mockups, UML, and technical diagrams.
• Lucidchart – Visual workspace for collaborative diagramming, wireframing, and process modeling.
• Mermaid Live Editor – Generate flowcharts and sequence diagrams from markdown-style text.
• PlantUML – Write UML diagrams as code with support for flowcharts, class diagrams, and sequence diagrams.
• DrawSQL – Design and collaborate on database entity relationship diagrams (ERDs) online.

Pseudocode & Logic Visualization

• Code2Flow – Convert pseudocode or structured logic into readable flowcharts instantly.
• Flowgorithm – Visual tool for creating flowcharts that also generates pseudocode or code in various languages.
• PseudoEditor – Web-based pseudocode editor with syntax highlighting and logic visualization.

Slide-Based Prototyping

• PowerPoint / Google Slides – Commonly used for simple mockups or click-through prototypes.

🎨 Design Resources

Design and UI assets to support interface development, visual design, and front-end creativity.

Frontend Dev Tools

• cdnjs – Free CDN for open-source JS/CSS libraries.
• Browsersync – Sync your browser sessions during local dev.
• CodePen – Live editor for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript demos.
• JSFiddle – Collaborative web code editor for testing snippets.

Stock Photos & Videos

• Unsplash – Beautiful, high-quality free stock images.
• Pexels – Free stock photography and videos.
• Pixabay – Library of free images, videos, and music.
• FreeImages – Stock image archive for commercial use.
• Stockio – Fonts, icons, images, and videos for free use.

Illustrations & Vectors

• Lukasz Adam Illustrations – Open license vector art and illustrations.
• unDraw – Open-source illustrations for web and mobile.
• Awesome Images – Curated image and illustration resource list.

Graphic & Layout Tools

• Canva – Drag-and-drop graphic design tool with templates for social media, marketing, and more.

Patterns & Textures

• Subtle Patterns – Seamless background textures and patterns.

Pixel Art

• Piskel – Online pixel art and animated sprite editor.