Your developer toolkit is your superpower. Here are the essentials. 🛠️
📝 Documentation & Note-Taking
1. Notion All-in-one workspace for notes, docs, and project management. Perfect for technical documentation.
2. Obsidian Linked note-taking with graph view. Great for building knowledge networks.
3. README.so Generate beautiful README files with templates and live preview.
🔍 Search & Discovery
4. DevDocs Offline documentation for 100+ technologies. Essential reference tool.
5. Can I Use Browser compatibility tables for web technologies. Frontend developer's bible.
6. Bundlephobia Analyze npm package size impact before adding to your project.
🎨 Design & Prototyping
7. Figma Collaborative design tool. Essential for UI/UX collaboration.
8. Excalidraw Hand-drawn style diagrams and sketches. Perfect for system architecture.
9. Draw.io (now diagrams.net) Professional diagrams and flowcharts. Free and powerful.
⚡ API Development
10. Insomnia Beautiful REST and GraphQL client. Better UX than Postman.
11. Hoppscotch Lightweight, web-based API testing. No installation required.
12. JSON Formatter Format, validate, and beautify JSON data instantly.
📊 Monitoring & Analytics
13. Uptime Robot Free website monitoring. Get alerts when your site goes down.
14. Google PageSpeed Insights Analyze and optimize website performance.
15. GTmetrix Detailed website performance analysis and recommendations.
🛡️ Security & Testing
16. Have I Been Pwned Check if your email has been in data breaches.
17. SSL Labs Test Analyze SSL/TLS configuration of your websites.
18. OWASP ZAP Free security testing proxy for web applications.
🎯 Code Quality
19. SonarCloud Free code quality analysis for open source projects.
20. CodeClimate Automated code review and technical debt management.
21. Snyk Find and fix vulnerabilities in dependencies.
🚀 Deployment & DevOps
22. Netlify Free hosting for static sites with CI/CD and serverless functions.
23. Vercel Optimal for Next.js and React deployments. Edge network included.
24. Railway Simple cloud deployment for full-stack applications.
25. GitHub Actions Free CI/CD for GitHub repositories. Automate everything.
Bonus Web Tools:
🎨 Color Tools • Coolors.co - Color palette generator • Contrast Ratio - Accessibility checker
📱 Responsive Testing • Responsive Design Checker • Browser Stack (for cross-browser testing)
🔤 Typography • Google Fonts • Font Squirrel (free fonts)
📊 Performance • WebPageTest • Lighthouse CI
Pro Tips:
🔖 Bookmark Organization Create folders: Daily Tools, Learning Resources, Emergency Fixes
⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts Learn shortcuts for your most-used tools. Time saved compounds.
🔄 Tool Evaluation Review your toolkit quarterly. Remove unused tools, try new ones.
📱 Mobile Apps Many tools have mobile apps for on-the-go reference.
The Toolkit Mindset: • Tools should solve problems, not create them • Master a few tools rather than knowing many superficially • Free doesn't mean worse (many open source tools are excellent) • The best tool is the one your team actually uses
Remember: Tools are multipliers. A great developer with the right tools is unstoppable.
What's your most valuable tool? 🎯