The Best Web Development Tools To Level Up Your Stack

1.6 billion. That’s a big number. 

It’s also how many helpful results Google offers in response to a search for “web development tool”.

The sheer number and range of tools available for web development is staggering.

What most of us are looking for are developer tools that you can use to optimize your workflow and improve performance, and they may be any piece of software or programming language that helps you perform better. 

Web development tools can be invaluable during discovery, planning, and even the execution stage. There are various front-end and back-end technologies that developers can use to simplify their work. 

Others, such as frameworks, libraries, and certain code editors, can also improve performance.

In this post, we’re going to discuss some of the most popular web development tools that you can use to level up your stack. 

But before we start, let’s talk about what a web development stack is. 

What Is a Web Development Stack?

A web development stack is a collection of software tools used to create a web application. The stack typically includes a programming language, a database, a web server, and a web framework. 

Of course, this is generally a flexible description, and you can create different stacks based on your requirements. For instance, one of the popular web development stacks is the LAMP stack. It is short for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Here’s how it works:

• Linux is the operating system that powers the server on which a website or web application is hosted. 
• Apache is the web server software that serves files to visitors’ browsers. 
• MySQL is the database management system that stores data used by a website or web application. 
• PHP is the programming language used to build a website or web application. 

How Web Development Tools Can Streamline Your Workflow

The right web development tools can significantly impact on your workflow, especially if you use agile project frameworks like Scrum. 

The tools you use can do the heavy lifting for you, automating repetitive tasks and freeing you up to focus on more high-impact work. Tools such as JSFiddle, for example, can help you share code snippets with your team as one sprint comes to a close, helping you prepare for the next one. 

Here are just some of the benefits that web development tools offer:

Improved Productivity

Web development tools can help you be more productive by automating repetitive tasks. For example, if you’re constantly formatting code or updating CSS stylesheets, you can use specific tools. This will free up your time to focus on more important tasks.

Better Collaboration

Another benefit of web development tools is improved collaboration. If you’re working in a team, web development tools can help everyone stay on the same page by sharing task lists, code snippets, and more. 

Increased Efficiency

In addition to improved productivity and collaboration, web development tools can help you work more efficiently. For example, many IDEs (integrated development environments) now offer features such as code completion and real-time error checking. This means you can spend less time debugging your code and more time coding. 

How to Choose the Right Development Stack For Your Project

This is a relatively subjective question since every developer has their own preferences. Here are a few key factors that can help you choose the right development stack for your project.

1. Define Your Project’s Requirements

The first step in choosing a development stack is to define your project’s requirements. What does your project need to do? What features does it need to have? Answering these questions will help you narrow down the technology options available. 

2. Consider Your Team’s Skill Set

Once you’ve defined your project’s requirements, you must consider your team’s skill set. What technologies are they comfortable working with? It doesn’t make sense to choose a stack that includes technologies your team is unfamiliar with; they’ll just spend more time trying to learn the new technology than actually developing the application. 

3. Determine Which Technologies Work Well Together

Not all technologies play well together. For example, if you’re using a relational database (such as MySQL), you’ll want to use a web development framework that supports model-view-controller (MVC) architecture (such as Laravel). If you’re using a non-relational database (like MongoDB), you can use any number of MVC frameworks (including Laravel). 

4. Consider Your Hosting Environment 

Your hosting environment – i.e., where your application will be hosted – can also influence your choice of development stack. For example, if you’re planning on hosting your application on a Linux server, you’ll want to use technologies that can run on Linux (such as Apache, PHP, and MySQL). 

If you’re planning on hosting your application on a Windows server instead, you’ll want to use technologies that can run on Windows (such as IIS, ASP.NET, and SQL Server). 

Alternatively, you can also consider serverless hosting. Serverless hosting can reduce costs and increase scalability by only charging for actual usage and automatically scaling resources. It can also simplify development and reduce maintenance by abstracting away server management. This lets developers focus on writing code and deploying features rather than managing servers.

Web Development Tools to Use in 2023

Here are the most popular web development tools to use in 2023.

Text Editors

VS Code

VS Code is a popular, open-source code editor that is particularly well-suited for web development. It features an intuitive, easy-to-use interface, and comes with a wide array of built-in tools and extensions for debugging, linting, and optimizing code.

One of the biggest benefits of using VS Code for web development is its wide range of extensions, which can help streamline your workflow and improve productivity. It is also available on all major platforms like Windows, Mac, and Linux, and it’s lightweight and fast.

JetBrains IDE

JetBrains IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) is a suite of developer tools widely used for web development. They include IDEs for several programming languages, such as IntelliJ IDEA for Java, PhpStorm for PHP, and WebStorm for JavaScript. JetBrains IDEs are known for their powerful code editing and debugging capabilities, as well as their ease of use and customization.

One of the advantages of using a JetBrains IDE is its advanced code navigation, refactoring, and code suggestion capabilities. They also provide smart Code completion and error prevention. They are widely used by many professional software developers and are continuously updated to support the latest development trends and technologies.

Sublime Text

Sublime Text is one of the most loved text editors of its time. It has many features that make it easier for developers to write code, including syntax highlighting and autocomplete. Additionally, Sublime Text can be customized to the developer’s preferences, making it an extremely versatile tool.

Lapce

Lapce is a relatively new, open-source code editor written in Rust that aims to provide fast performance by utilizing native GUI and GPU rendering. It has a unique feature called Code Lens, which combines folding, minimap, and code outline functionality to make navigating and understanding your code easier.

Additionally, it has a remote development feature that allows you to connect to a remote machine via SSH, which enables you to work on a remote workspace with the same experience as a local one. However, since it’s a relatively new and custom code editor, its popularity and user base may not be as large as more established editors like VS Code or JetBrains IDEs.

Neovim

Neovim is a free, open-source text editor designed to be a drop-in replacement for Vim. It is a fork of Vim, which aims to address some of the original editor’s shortcomings and provide a better user experience. It has a modular architecture and a new, more powerful plugin system.

It features a built-in terminal emulator, support for multiple cursors, and a built-in LSP(Language Server Protocol) client. It also has support for asynchronous job control, which allows for faster background tasks such as code completion and syntax checking. Neovim is popular among Vim users looking for more advanced functionalities and better performance.

We would recommend you to use Neovim only if you are working on a machine that does not have a desktop environment as it requires you to have a good understanding of command line interfaces.

Front-End Development Frameworks

React

React is many things – a library, a framework, and more. But at its heart, React is all about making web development faster and easier. It’s a JavaScript-based UI development library commonly used for web development. There are numerous extensions available that can be used for architecture support too, such as Flux. You can use it with libraries like Tamagui to ship cross-platform React apps faster.

Svelte

Svelte is a popular, open-source JavaScript framework for building web applications. It uses a unique approach to building user interfaces by compiling your code at build time rather than using runtime libraries. This allows for faster performance and smaller bundle sizes.

One of the biggest benefits of using Svelte is that it provides a simple and easy-to-learn syntax, making it a great choice for developers new to building web applications. Additionally, it does not require any additional tools like a virtual DOM, making it lightweight and fast; it also uses a reactive programming paradigm. Svelte also provides a powerful set of developer tools, such as a rich set of directives and a built-in animation library, that makes creating complex, interactive user interfaces easy.

Vue.js

Vue.js is another fantastic JavaScript framework popular amongst UI/UX designers. It’s incredibly easy to use, and closely resembles several CSS frameworks. It offers support for JSX declarations, though many prefer using Vue.js outside of JavaScript, thanks to its support for conventional web technologies. 

Note: We’re big supporters of Vue.js and use it at RunCloud.

Vue.js makes it easy to collaborate on large projects. It is fast, lightweight, and can be easily integrated with existing tools and libraries making it a popular choice for developers with all skill levels. Vue.js is a great addition to any web developer’s toolkit and it should not be a surprise that we at RunCloud use Vue.js ourselves to build our platform. 

Tailwind CSS

Tailwind CSS is a front-end CSS framework designed to help developers create applications. It offers utility classes, allowing developers to control the layout, spacing, typography, shadows, and spacing, all without ever leaving their HTML environment. 

Tailwind CSS offers various benefits. For instance, you generally won’t have to write as much CSS since you can style classes using HTML only. This ensures that your CSS files remain small, and you won’t have to worry about things breaking if you make widespread changes to your site. 

Bulma

Just like Tailwind CSS, Bulma lets you focus on the HTML, giving you utility classes to work with. Bulma is built using Flexbox, and is highly customizable. 

Since it’s CSS only, you won’t need to worry about JavaScript. It’s an open-source, simplistic framework that lets you trim your code and introduce more productivity in your workflow.

Programming Languages

PHP

PHP is a popular scripting language widely used for developing web applications. PHP code can be embedded into HTML code, or it can be used in conjunction with various web template systems, web content management systems, and web frameworks. 

PHP code is usually processed by a PHP interpreter implemented as a module in the web server or as a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) executable. 

The web server combines the results of the interpreted and executed PHP code, which may be any type of data (e.g., Images, XML), with the generated web page. 

PHP has been widely ported, and can be deployed on most web servers on almost every operating system and platform, free of charge.

Python

Python is an incredibly popular programming language that uses dynamic semantics. Python has been around for 30 years and continues to be one of the most popular programming languages in the world because it is powerful yet easy to learn and use. 

It is also versatile enough to be used in various applications such as web development, scientific computing, data analysis, artificial intelligence, and more.

Elixir

Elixir is a modern functional language that provides an excellent toolkit for building scalable, reliable applications. Elixir runs on the BEAM virtual machine, the same virtual machine that Erlang uses.

Elixir is also a very productive language. That’s because it was designed with developer productivity in mind. For example, Elixir has excellent support for metaprogramming. Metaprogramming is a way of writing code that generates code.

TypeScript

TypeScript is a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript. It introduces support for common programming constructs such as classes and modules, and an optional type system that can help catch errors at compile time. 

Since TypeScript is not a stand alone programming language, it can not be used directly in the browsers – we need to transpile TypeScript code to JavaScript before it can be executed in a browser. One great thing about this is that it will not impact the bundle size of the final Javascript code as all the extra TypeScript code is removed during the compilation. 

Ruby

Ruby is a programming language created in the mid-1990s by Japanese programmer Yukihiro Matsumoto. It is based on Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, and Ada. It is an interpreted, high-level, general-purpose programming language. 

Since its release more than 27 years ago, Ruby has undergone many iterations, and is widely renowned for being highly productive and simple to use. It treats even conventional data types as objects, making it highly versatile and portable. 

Rust

Rust is a modern, open-source programming language, and it was crowned as the most-loved programming language in 2022. It is designed to be safe, concurrent, and fast. One of the biggest benefits of using Rust is its emphasis on safety, which helps to prevent common programming errors such as null or dangling pointer references. It offers a strong concurrency model based on message passing, which makes it easy to write concurrent and parallel code that is both efficient and performant for web services.

Rust is also designed to be highly expressive and readable, with a low learning curve. It is suitable for various applications, including systems programming, web assembly, game development, blockchain, and embedded systems. If this sounds interesting, the Android team at Google has created a Rust course that provides you with the material to quickly learn Rust.

Back-end Development Tools

Django

Django is a Python-based web framework that enables you to quickly create efficient web applications. Django was created to meet the fast-moving requirements of newsroom websites. It has since evolved into a powerful tool capable of powering some of the largest websites in the world.

The format is fairly straightforward, and if you’re used to creating server-side web apps using Python, Django will be a great choice. It works quite well with other languages, such as JavaScript.

NodeJS

NodeJS is a JavaScript runtime environment that allows software developers to create server-side applications. In layman’s terms, this means that NodeJS can be used to create applications that can be accessed via a web browser. 

NodeJS is popular because it is relatively easy to learn and can be used to create fast and scalable applications.

Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails is a web application framework in the Ruby programming language. It is designed to make developing web applications easier by abstracting away much of the boilerplate code that is often required.

Ruby on Rails is commonly used as a server-side scripting language on many websites. It’s a popular choice for websites that rely on third-party services and integrations, such as cloud file storage.

Deno

Deno is a JavaScript runtime built with Rust programming language, and is an alternative to Node.js. It has built-in support for TypeScript, a powerful type system for JavaScript, and built-in libraries for HTTP and WebSocket. Deno is also more secure by default because it doesn’t require a package manager, which can introduce vulnerabilities.

Additionally, Deno’s standard library is considered more extensive and better designed than Node.js, making it easier to build complex web applications. It also is designed to run with a minimalistic setup, with no need for config files; it also has built-in test runners, formatting, and linting. All of these features make Deno a useful tool for web development.

Bun

Bun is a modern JavaScript runtime, like Node or Deno, that aims to bring performance and complexity enhancements to web development, with an emphasis on starting fast, high performance, and being a great tool. It is built on the JavaScriptCore engine and written in Rust, which gives it a performance boost and low-level control over memory.

Bun has built-in support for TypeScript, JSX, and npm package manager, and it was designed as a drop-in replacement for existing JavaScript/TypeScript projects, with the aim of running most JavaScript code outside of browsers; it natively implements hundreds of Node.js and web APIs, including fs, path, Buffer and more.

Databases

MySQL

MySQL is a database management system (DBMS) that runs as a server providing multi-user access to various databases. It is an open-source project that is available under the GPL license and is developed, distributed, and supported by Oracle Corporation. 

MySQL has become a leading database choice for web applications used by high-traffic websites. Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube all use MySQL.

MongoDB

MongoDB is a document database. It stores data in JSON-like format making it easy for JavaScript developers to use. Moreover, it has an index on every field in a collection which makes data retrieval quick and easy. The use of dynamic schemas makes data integration in MongoDB quite simple.  

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is a powerful, free, and open-source relational database management system. It has more than 15 years of active development and a proven architecture that has earned it a strong reputation for reliability, data integrity, and correctness. 

Redis

Redis is an open-source, in-memory data structure store that can be used as a database, cache, and message broker. It supports various data structures and has built-in support for replication and partitioning, making it a powerful tool for building highly available and scalable systems.

Redis is known for its speed, as it stores all data in memory, and it has the option for persistence on disk to avoid data loss. It supports Lua scripting for atomic operations on the data, making it popularly used in caching, real-time analytics, and leaderboards, session storage, full-text search, and autocomplete.

Libraries

Partytown

Partytown is a library that aims to speed up websites by relocating resource-intensive scripts, such as analytics and ads, into a web worker. By moving these third-party scripts off of the main thread, Partytown frees up resources for the primary web app execution and improves overall performance. 

Partytown allows developers to sandbox third-party scripts, isolate long-running tasks, reduce layout thrashing, and throttle scripts’ access to the main thread. This means that web developers can continue to use third-party scripts without experiencing a significant performance hit. Partytown is currently in beta and is maintained by Builder.io.

D3.js

D3.js is a JavaScript library for creating data-driven documents, which means it’s used for manipulating and displaying data on a web page using HTML, CSS, and SVG. It’s designed to work seamlessly with web standards and doesn’t rely on any specific framework or library. Therefore, it doesn’t need specific libraries to be relocated in a web worker to improve performance.

D3.js is a very powerful and flexible library that can be used to create a wide range of visualizations, and provides a powerful API that makes it possible to create complex visualizations with just a few lines of code.

Day.js

Day.js is a lightweight JavaScript date library that provides a simple and modern API for manipulating dates. It’s designed to be fast and easy to use, and it offers a similar API to Moment.js, a more popular but heavier library. It does not require specific libraries to be relocated in web workers for performance improvements. By default, it uses the native Date object, and it’s very lightweight.

Lodash

Lodash is a JavaScript utility library that provides a wide range of functions for manipulating and manipulating objects, arrays, and strings. It’s designed to be lightweight, fast, and easy to use, and it provides a lot of functionality that’s not available in the JavaScript standard library. This allows developers to streamline their workflows and simplify math operations and other programming tasks.

Bootstrap

Bootstrap is a free and open-source front-end web framework for designing websites and web applications. It contains HTML and CSS-based design templates for typography, forms, buttons, navigation, and other interface components, as well as optional JavaScript extensions. 

Bootstrap is the most popular HTML, CSS, and JavaScript framework for developing responsive, mobile-first websites. 

Material-UI

For those who don’t know, Material-UI is designed in line with Google’s design language – Material Design. It’s a popular component library that you can import in React, and use the HTML tags to customize your site. 

Material-UI also includes a selection of themes, both paid and free, so there are plenty of design choices available too. If your primary development is for websites or apps that follow the Material Design philosophy, this might be a great component library for you to check out.

CSS Processor

SASS

SASS (Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets) is a powerful style sheet language that enables you to write cleaner, more maintainable CSS code. It’s incredibly popular amongst front-end developers. 

SASS is written in Ruby, and was first launched in 2006. Since then, it has amassed a vibrant, active community of developers, with detailed guides and resources available for those who’re interested in learning it.

LESS

LESS (Leaner Style Sheets) is a CSS preprocessor that allows you to write cleaner and more manageable code. It can run on both the client or server side. 

In general, LESS is just a language extension for CSS, including a few more features, such as mixins, variable substitutions, operations, and combining functions. 

Stylus

Stylus is a dynamic stylesheet preprocessor language that’s compiled in Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). The design of Stylus was heavily influenced by LESS and SASS. 

Stylus launched in 2010, and was created for the Node.js ecosystem. While it’s a popular choice for Node.js developers, it doesn’t command the same share as LESS or SASS. 

Package Managers and Task Runners

Grunt

Grunt is a task runner that helps you automate your workflow. It’s versatile and easy to use, making it a popular choice for web developers. Grunt can help you with several things, such as minifying code, compiling CoffeeScript files, and linting code. 

npm

npm is a popular package manager that’s used with JavaScript. It’s the default package manager for Node.js, and includes a CLI, an online registry of packages.  

It is free to use and widely considered as the largest software registry in the world, with open-source developers using it to share software. 

Bower

Bower is a package manager for the web. It lets you install and manage front-end dependencies for your projects. 

In order for Bower to work, you will need to first install Node.js, npm, and Git. It’s a command-line utility that’s fully optimized for the front-end. 

Bower helps simplify workflows by finding and installing packages from the web, downloading and saving them in a manifest file. 

Site Speed Tester

Chrome Developer Tools

Google Chrome Developer Tools are a set of web development tools built into the Google Chrome browser. They allow you to examine, edit, and debug web pages on the fly. 

You can use Chrome DevTools for basic web development tasks such as debugging errors and inspecting page elements. You can open the developer tools menu by pressing F12 key on your keyboard, right clicking a page and selecting “inspect” or using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+i.

Google PageSpeed Insights

Google PageSpeed Insights is a tool that helps you measure the performance of your website and identify opportunities to improve it. It measures page load time, compression, images, and other factors that affect page speed.

Pingdom

Pingdom is a website monitoring service that watches your website’s uptime and performance. They’ll send you an email or SMS notification if something goes wrong, so you can fix it before your customers start to complain.

Pingdom offers automated website status checking using a global network of data centers. It checks if your website is down and instantly sends a notification. Thanks to its massive network, it can check the status of a website from more than 100 locations every minute!

Git Services and Clients

GitHub 

GitHub is a web-based hosting service for software development projects that use the Git revision control system. GitHub also provides access to a social networking site for developers. 

GitHub Client is a desktop application for Windows, Mac, and Linux desktops that allows you to manage your repositories, collaborate on code with others and install things like Git from the command line.

GitLab

GitLab is a web-based Git repository manager with issue tracking and code review features. It is similar to GitHub, Bitbucket, and VSTS, but GitLab offers a few features that are unique to it, such as allowing for greater collaboration between team members. 

Note: We’re big supporters of GitLab and use it at RunCloud.

GitLab is open-source, offering a collaborative environment for DevOps teams to work on different projects. It was first launched in 2014 and has since become an incredibly popular alternative to GitHub. 

While it’s available for free, you will have to consider upgrading to a subscription service to access all of GitLab’s features.

JetBrains Space

JetBrains Space is a comprehensive software development platform that integrates with JetBrains IDEs, making it easy for software teams to build, deliver, and manage their projects. It features tools for Git hosting, code review, CI/CD pipelines, package management, and cloud development environments, among others.

It also includes a range of team collaboration tools, such as document storage, issue tracking, and chat functionality. It is designed to minimize distractions and allow developers to work remotely, making it a great solution for software development teams. It can store artifacts in package repositories, extend and customize via APIs, connect to external services, automate workflows using webhooks, integrate with JetBrains IDEs, and more.

Sourcetree

Sourcetree is a popular Git management tool that makes working with source code files much easier. It helps developers get a visual representation of their repositories, making it easier for them to sift through data.

Sourcetree is popular since it offers a GUI, allowing developers to manage their repositories more effectively. You can see information on branches or commits with just a click, and you can even review specific changesets, stashes, and even clone remote repositories. 

Collaboration Tools

Slack

Slack is a communication tool used by software developers and other professionals that allows for real-time messaging, file sharing, and more. Its popularity comes from its ease of use and the numerous integrations it has with other apps. 

Slack makes it easy for remote teams to collaborate through a centralized platform, allowing them to connect their work apps, create dedicated channels for each project or topic, and communicate through an accessible, streamlined messaging platform that’s also incredibly secure. 

Trello

Trello is a project management system that helps you organize your to-dos, projects, and ideas. It’s simple to use, yet very powerful. Trello can be used for both personal and team projects. 

You can create boards, lists, and cards, and add members to your boards. Boards can be shared with others or kept private. Cards can be assigned to specific members and dated. You can also add files, links, notes, and due dates to cards. 

Web Servers

Apache

Apache is a web server software that enables websites to be hosted on a single computer. It’s the most popular web server in the world and is used by millions of websites. In addition to its popularity as a web server, Apache also has a wide range of other features that make it an attractive choice for developers.

NGINX

NGINX is a web server used by many high-traffic websites such as WordPress, Dropbox, and GitHub. It is known for its stability, flexibility, and performance. NGINX excels at serving static files and can handle large loads of traffic very easily.

Caddy

Caddy is a web server that you can use to host your websites. It’s different from other web servers because it is designed to be easy to use and configure. What makes Caddy really stand out is its built-in support for automation and security features such as HTTPS and SSL certification.

Serverless Platforms

AWS Amplify 

AWS Amplify is a set of tools and services for building scalable mobile and web applications. It includes libraries for building user interfaces, back-end services, and authentication. It can be used along with App Composer, a visual application builder that allows developers to build web applications with little or no coding.

Together, these two can create and manage the back-end services needed by the application, such as authentication, storage, and APIs. By using Amplify and App Composer together, developers can quickly and easily build and deploy web applications that are scalable and secure.

Firebase

Firebase is a mobile and web development platform developed by Google. It provides a set of tools and services for building, deploying, and scaling applications. It offers features like real-time databases, authentication, hosting, cloud functions, and more.

It can be used along with Rowy to have more control over the back-end services and also be able to add more features that Firebase doesn’t provide. Rowy enables developers to create, manage and scale their back-end services with no-code or low-code. It uses a visual interface that can be used to interact with databases, authentication services, and more. 

Pocketbase

PocketBase is a platform that allows developers to create and manage a back-end for their mobile and web applications with no-code or low-code. It offers features such as database management, user authentication, and data storage.

By using PocketBase, developers can easily create and manage their back-end services, and focus on building the front-end of their applications. It is a platform that provides an easy and simple way to handle the back-end infrastructure without having to write any back-end code, and that can speed up the development process and make it easy for even non-technical people to build and manage their app’s back-end.

Supabase

Supabase is an open-source Firebase alternative, providing real-time databases, authentication, and hosting through a simple API. It allows developers to build web and mobile apps using the technology they are already familiar with, such as PostgreSQL and GraphQL.

With Supabase, you can create, manage and scale your back-end services with ease. It provides a simple and seamless integration with the web/mobile application allowing for easy access to the back-end services, with a user-friendly console for management and maintenance. 

Cloudflare Workers 

Cloudflare Workers is a platform that allows developers to write and run JavaScript code on Cloudflare’s edge network, allowing for the creation of serverless functions and edge logic. These scripts can be used to manipulate incoming and outgoing HTTP requests, perform caching, and more.

It can build, deploy and run code without provisioning or managing servers; it also allows for low-latency and high-performance computing at the edge of Cloudflare’s global network. It also provides a platform for creating and deploying custom logic on a global scale, which can be used to handle everything from serverless functions to route-based logic.

Captcha

Cloudflare Turnstile

Cloudflare Turnstile is an alternative to traditional CAPTCHA that provides a more user-friendly and privacy-respectful way to verify users.

You can simply call an API and replace CAPTCHA on your sites. The aim of Turnstile is to choose non-intrusive browser challenges based on client behavior and telemetry, replacing the traditional frustrating CAPTCHA system, which was created with a poor UX. And also to minimize data collection and ask other third parties like device manufacturers, who already have the data that would help validate a device.

API testing

Httpie

HTTPie is a command line HTTP client for interacting with web services. It is designed to be easy to use and intuitive, allowing developers to easily make HTTP requests and see the responses.

It supports various features like JSON, forms, and authentication, making it a versatile tool for testing and interacting with APIs.

It also provides an AI-assisted feature that can process requests in natural languages, similar to typing a search query in a browser’s address bar. One could tell HTTPie to “fetch repo details of httpie/desktop”, and even use a different language like Spanish. 

Postman

Postman is a popular tool for API development, which allows developers to test and interact with web services using various request methods like GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, and more. It provides a user-friendly interface for creating and sending requests, with support for various authentication methods and the ability to save and organize collections of requests.

It also supports a wide range of data formats such as JSON, XML, and more, and can also automatically generate code snippets in multiple programming languages that can be used to replicate the requests in an application. It speeds up the testing and debugging process.

Insomnia

Insomnia is a cross-platform REST client available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It allows developers to make and test HTTP requests, as well as save and organize them for later use. One of its main features is the ability to create requests using a user-friendly interface rather than manually typing in the request details.

It allows you to test and debug APIs. It also supports request templating, environment variables, and importing and exporting the requests.

Hoppscotch 

Hoppscotch is a web-based API testing and development tool that allows developers to easily make and test HTTP requests and view the responses they receive. It has a user-friendly interface that helps developers quickly create and test requests without having to manually type in the details.

It also allows users to save, organize and share requests. Hoppscotch support multiple authentication methods and also allows to define variables and environment. You can also use Hoppscotch to test RESTful and GraphQL APIs, and it also provides request history; you can check your previous requests too.

Traffic capture and analysis

Burp Suite

Burp Suite is a powerful web application security testing tool that allows developers to perform various tasks related to web security, such as penetration testing, vulnerability scanning, and web application testing.

It can be used to intercept, inspect and modify HTTP/HTTPS requests and responses between a web application and a browser. This allows developers to identify and fix security issues, such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and other vulnerabilities. It also automates the testing process and integrates with other security tools. Additionally, it can be used to perform manual testing and assess the security of web applications.

Wireshark

Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer that can be used to inspect network traffic and troubleshoot issues in web development. It allows developers to view the low-level details of network communication, such as the headers and payloads of packets, and can help them understand how their web applications are interacting with the network.

Wireshark can also be used to identify issues such as bottlenecks, security vulnerabilities, and compatibility problems. Hence, it is a powerful tool that can be used to optimize the performance and security of web applications.

JSON Viewer

After you get the results from the API, you need to visualize them.

JSON Hero

JSON Hero is a tool that helps developers work with JSON data. It allows developers to view and edit JSON data in a more user-friendly format, making it easier to understand and work with. JSON Hero also provides features such as JSON validation, syntax highlighting, and conversion to/from other data formats such as XML and CSV.

It can also allow developers to merge, diff, and format JSON data, which allows them to manage and manipulate JSON files quickly and effectively. JSON Hero can be very helpful when working on web development projects that involve a lot of JSON data.

JSON CRACK

JSON Crack is a tool for analyzing and visualizing JSON data. It allows users to easily load and explore their JSON data, and provides features such as search, download, live editing, and validation to make working with JSON data more efficient.

The tool also allows users to embed the JSON Crack app into their website using an iframe, and use it to view and analyze JSON data directly on the website. JSON Crack is an open-source project and actively encourages contributions from the community.

Image optimization

Squoosh

Squoosh is a web-based image compression tool that allows developers to optimize images for web use by compressing them to reduce their file size without degrading the quality of the image.

This can improve the performance of a website by reducing the time it takes for images to load. It supports a wide range of image formats and includes various compression options, making it a versatile tool for web developers to use in their workflow.

ShortPixel

ShortPixel is an image optimization plugin and API service that can be integrated into a web development workflow to automatically optimize images as they are uploaded to a website. This helps reduce the file size of images without significantly degrading their quality, improving the website’s performance by decreasing load times.

ShortPixel supports a wide range of image formats and can optimize images in bulk, making it a convenient tool for developers to improve website performance.

Documentation and references

MDN Web Docs

MDN Web Docs is a comprehensive resource for web developers, providing documentation and guides on web technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and web APIs. It serves as a reference for developers to look up information on specific web technologies, as well as a learning resource for those new to web development.

It provides in-depth explanations of how different technologies work, along with interactive examples and code snippets to help developers understand and implement them in their projects. It is the go-to place for the developer community for web standards and best practices.

caniuse

caniuse is a web-based tool that provides information on browser support for different web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It allows developers to check which features are supported in which browsers, including specific versions.

This helps developers to make sure that their website or web application works correctly across different web browsers and devices. It is widely used by web developers to check what features they can use safely, and what to do for users who have to use older browsers or different devices.

Coding assistant

GitHub Copilot

GitHub Copilot is an AI-powered code completion tool that is integrated into GitHub, which can help developers write code faster and with fewer errors. It provides context-aware suggestions for code completion, and can also recommend changes to code in real-time as it is being written.

It helps developers to focus on the problem they are trying to solve rather than getting bogged down in the details of code syntax, making it an efficient tool for writing, editing, and understanding code. Additionally, it also can provide explanations of code and suggestions for refactoring and performance improvements, making it a valuable tool for web developers.

AWS Code Whisperer

AWS Code Whisperer is an AI-powered tool developed by Amazon, which can be used to automatically improve the security, performance, and maintainability of code. It does this by using machine learning models to analyze code and provide developers with suggestions for how to improve it.

For example, it can scan for vulnerabilities and recommend fixes, find performance bottlenecks and recommend improvements, and suggest code refactorings to make it more maintainable.

It integrates with developers’ IDEs, code repos, and build systems; it can also analyze the code as it is written and provide real-time feedback to developers. It can be used with multiple programming languages and it’s integrated with other AWS services like AWS CodeCommit, AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodeDeploy, and more.

Tabnine

Tabnine is an AI code assistant that can help with web development by providing suggestions and auto-completing code. It can also assist with debugging and refactoring.

By using machine learning techniques, it can learn from a developer’s coding style and improve its suggestions over time. It can also save developers time by quickly generating boilerplate or repetitive code. Additionally, it can also assist with identifying and fixing errors, allowing developers to focus on more complex tasks.

Server Management

RunCloud

RunCloud is an incredibly useful tool for web developers as it allows them to quickly and easily deploy, manage and monitor their web applications. It provides a comprehensive suite of tools that make it easy to manage servers, databases, storage, and other infrastructure components.

It offers various features such as automated backups, application monitoring, and more. Web developers can use it to streamline their workflow and ensure their applications are secure and running efficiently, making it an ideal choice for web developers.

After Action Report — Which Web Development Tools Do You Use?

These are just some of the many web development tools that you can integrate into your workflow and improve your operations. 

If you’re tired of managing your own servers – you might want to check out RunCloud (yep, that’s us!). RunCloud is built for developers that want to focus on shipping great work, not on managing their infrastructure. Painless server configuration, so you don’t need to spend hours figuring it out – get started with RunCloud today & get up and running in minutes.

Do you have any others that you’d want to add to this list? Let us know in the comments below, or join the conversation by sending us a Tweet!