Developer tools have become an important part of our everyday work in the tech industry. The open source community has been active and extremely innovative, creating advanced tools that are both cost-effective and efficient. More and more IT people choose to use open source software development tools more than some other commercial ones. Open source tools include frameworks which simplifies your development process.
For developers and devops, open source software gives them the opportunity to use ready-made solutions that they can customize to their needs. Since it’s common for people to use multiple programming languages and tools simultaneously, having a large selection of open-source projects to choose from is beneficial.
This article is intended for software developers who want to learn about best open source tools. Also, it will be helpful for software developers who have already been working on open source for many years and want to use tools that are offered only in open source. Maybe also there are ready-made solutions that you can use without spending your time on developing them. In this article we will try to summarize the most important open source technologies.
When it comes to developing software, you need the latest technologies and tools, because they help you to solve your problems faster and more effectively. And open source software is one of the best resources for this. The main advantage is lack of cost for the product developers. Open source projects are supported by the creators and community.
Use of Software Programming Tools:
Given below are few uses of the Software Dev Tools:
- Software tools are used to accomplish and investigate the business processes, document the development process of the software and optimize all the processes.
- By using these tools in the software development process, the outcome of the projects will be more productive.
- Using the development tools, a developer can easily maintain the workflow of the project.
Vercel
Vercel is a deployment and collaboration platform for frontend developers. Vercel puts the frontend developer first, giving them comprehensive tools to build high-performance websites and applications.
Vercel enables developers to host websites and web services that deploy instantly and scale automatically – all without any configuration.
Why Vercel is in our top 10
Vercel is a joy to use. They truly accel at developer experience, performance, and UI design. Their community is one of the largest and fastest-growing on Github, and their forums are active and welcoming. They’re also the creators of Next.js, which, in my opinion, is the second-best static site generator after Hugo.
Time-saving: 7/10
Documentation: 8/10
Integrations: 8/10
Community: 10/10
Release/Updates: 10/10
Oh My Zsh
Oh My Zsh is an open source, community-driven framework for managing your Zsh configuration. It’s great if you use the command line often.
Why Oh My Zsh is in our top 10
It, in my opinion, makes the command line more exciting. It also comes bundled with over 275 plugins that make your life as a software developer easier. It also comes with themes contributed by the community too, and they regurly update and release new features for the open source development tool.
Time-saving: 1/10
Documentation: 6/10
Integrations: 10/10
Community: 10/10
Release/Updates: 9/10
Gitlab
GitLab is a single application that spans the entire software development lifecycle. If you’re not using GitLab, your DevOps lifecycle is likely spread across any number of applications. These silos take overhead to integrate, manage, configure, and maintain, slowing down your team and your deployments. Moving to a single application will speed up your workflow and help you deliver better software faster.
Why Gitlab is in our top 10
I prefer Github for version control. But, as the post suggests, this list comprises of open source development tools only. Gitlab is a close second and one I have used for 5+ years. Gitlab has additional features that Github does not, including; Code analytics, Service Desk, Design Management, Secrets management, and time tracking. In addition, it focuses more on the entire DevOps lifecycle, which is helpful if you prefer to only interact with one platform for a vast number of functions.
Gitlab is particularly strong when it comes to package management. GitLab enables teams to package their dependencies, manage containers, and build artifacts with relative simplicity. The private, container, and package registry are built-in and preconfigured out-of-the-box to work seamlessly with GitLab source code management and CI/CD pipelines. Once again, Gitlab shines when you use all its tooling together – but this makes it hard to switch workflow due to lock-in. Gitlab is a behemoth in the open-source developer world, and if you have not tried it, I recommend you give it a go.
Time-saving: 9/10
Documentation: 10/10
Integrations: 9/10
Community: 9/10
Release/Updates: 8/10
Supabase
Supabase is an open source Firebase alternative. Rather than one platform, Supabase is a ‘suite of open source tools, stitched together to build a seamless developer experience.’
Why Supabase is in our top 10
Supabase is packed full of features, including authentification, storage, and soon-to-be-released functions. Another reason I prefer Supabase is that its closed source competitor Firebase charges for API calls, leading to a few ghastly bills at the end of the month.
Time-saving: 5/10
Documentation: 6/10
Integrations: 6/10
Community: 10/10
Release/Updates: 9/10
Shotcut
A slick open source program for advanced video editing
SPECIFICATIONS
Operating system: WindowsTODAY’S BEST DEALSVISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+HDMI preview and capture+Hundreds of codecs supported+Advanced effects
REASONS TO AVOID
-Steep learning curve
Shotcut is open source free video editing software. It’s one of those open source programs that really demonstrates how much a dedicated development community can improve a platform given time. In earlier versions, the Shotcut interface was a little bare, but later releases have added extra dockable panels, an intuitive timeline, and other touches that put Shotcut in the same league as premium video editors like Adobe Premiere Pro.
This video tool supports non-destructive audio and video editing, meaning you can compile effects without any quality loss. You can also use this platform to do color keying and grading operations, as well as more basic clip splicing and trimming.
Perhaps the coolest thing about Shotcut is its ability to work with more or less any format of video, audio, or photo media. That’s largely thanks to FFmpeg, an open source video framework that sits under the hood of the Shotcut program.
Brave
For a private open source browsing experience
SPECIFICATIONS
Operating system: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOSTODAY’S BEST DEALSVISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Automatically disables trackers+Supports Chrome extensions+Built-in ad-blocker
REASONS TO AVOID
-Features its own ads
Built on top of Google’s open source Chromium project, Brave is a web browser that’s designed to keep your browsing activity private by automatically disabling website trackers and blocking pesky ads. For even more secure browsing, it has a built-in Tor function. Advertisement
The big advantage of using Brave is that you can access many of the Google Chrome store’s thousands of extensions but enjoy a faster browsing experience than you’d get with a normal Chrome browser. That’s because Brave is less of a resource hog than Google’s regular Chrome package, giving it a performance boost when loading pages.
Another interesting thing about the Brave browser is something called Brave Rewards. The idea behind this feature is that you can opt in to see certain ads and receive a small Basic Attention Token crypto coin in return. Eventually, the developers behind Brave hope this will change the way advertising works on the internet.
Audacity
A powerful audio editor, ideal for music and podcasts
SPECIFICATIONS
Operating system: Windows, macOS, LinuxTODAY’S BEST DEALSVISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Supports direct streaming+Works with almost all audio files+Expandable with plugins
REASONS TO AVOID
-No mobile app
Even two decades after its original launch date, Audacity remains one of the most widely-used open source applications. It’s a free audio editor that works on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.Advertisementhttps://fd7e270ad8fd3a06d5f747a863c79cd5.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
After installing this nifty little package, you’ll find everything you need to record, edit, and enhance sound files. What’s more, thanks to the enormous developer community supporting the program, you can use Audacity’s library of third-party extensions to add any features that aren’t included by default. These will allow you to do everything from adding sound effects to auto-tuning your tracks.
The Audacity interface might look a little complex at first, but given the professional-grade tools available through the program, it’s easy to see why this is the go-to application for musicians and podcast creators.
Azure
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing service that’s used to design, analyze, deploy, and manage internet applications or hybrid cloud applications via Microsoft’s global network of information centers.
Key Features:
- Offers various services like data management, mobile services, storage services, media services, messaging, migrate apps & infrastructure,
- CDN, caching, business analytics, virtual network, etc.
- It supports various programming languages (PHP, Python, .NET, JavaScript, etc.), the broadest range of operating systems ( Windows Linux, etc.), devices, and frameworks.
Bit bucket
Bitbucket is a web-based, distributed version control system used for collaboration between software development groups (code and code inspection ). It’s used as a repository for development projects and source code.
Key Features:
- Unlimited private repositories
- Flexible deployment models
- Code collaboration on steroids
Bootstrap
Bootstrap is an open-source and free framework for creating projects and websites using HTML, CSS, and JS. Bootstrap is widely utilized to design speedy and simpler websites.
Key Features:
- One can customize it as per their project’s requirement.
- Smart drag and drop facility
- Powerful features like a responsive grid system, sass variables & mixins, pre-built elements, plugins, allow users to make their applications
Cloud 9
Initially, in 2010 Cloud 9 was an open-source, cloud-based IDE that supports several programming languages such as C, PHP, Python, Perl, JavaScript, etc.. Later in 2016, AWS (Amazon Web Service) obtained it for additional advancement and made it chargeable by the usage.
Key Features:
- Used for scripting, running and debugging the code in the cloud
- the users can work with serverless applications that help move between local and remote testing and debugging activities.
CloudForge
CloudForge is a SaaS (Software as a service) product that’s used for application development. It’s used for collaborative application development in the cloud.
Key Features:
- Secured and single cloud platform
- Elastically balances your teams, projects, and processes.
Posthog
PostHog is a product analytics platform built for the enterprise, with the differentiators of being open source and having a broader view of the tools needed to make a product successful.
Why Posthog is in our top 10
PostHog can be deployed on your infrastructure and provides a large set of tools to help improve your product, such as session recording, heatmaps, and feature flags, that are unique to PostHog in the product analytics space. Posthog is a young product, like Budibase, but its community and team are responsive and helpful.
Time-saving: 6/10
Documentation: 7/10
Integrations: 6/10
Community: 8/10
Release/Updates: 7/10
What makes for a good development tool?
Although the term “developer tool” is very general and can apply to a wide range of services, there are a few key features that your top developer tools should have.
It saves you time
As previously mentioned, software developers have an endless list of tasks to complete, so the more time a tool saves us, the better.
Good documentation
Software development is complicated, and some software development tools are complex. I can accept this, and I can take a lousy UI and, in some cases, bad UX, but if the docs are lacking, I’m not going to use the tool.
It integrates well with other tooling
Most developers rely on a particular workflow to complete their tasks. These workflows can include several tools, including Github, Slack, AWS, etc. Therefore, it’s critical when deciding on a dev tool you consider its integrations and how it will fit within your workflow – and improve it!
Good community
Sometimes you may get confused or run into an issue using your new open source development tool. A helpful community is often the answer to your problems. On top of that, a good community can propel a development tool forward, creating a plethora of plugins, themes, etc., with it.
Regular releases and updates
There are several open source development tools out there that are simply not active or maintained. Also, when requesting new features or reporting a bug, you want to be confident the maintainers are around to push a release.
Conclusion
The focus of open source software is on helping developers and programmers collaborate to build better, more robust software. While there are lots of mysteries surrounding the best open source tools for developers, we wanted to explore some of the most popular options available and why you might want to use them in your tech stack.
Open source tools are used by a lot of developers. They grant cost-efficient and easy access to a wide array of tools needed for building and maintaining software. In fact, there is an open source tool for everything you might think of, including the up-and-coming innovative data science tools. Although some of the best open source tools are free, many require money to be invested in them in order to use them effectively. Naturally, you would like this investment work as long as possible. Well, if it’s a top priority for you to save time, money and work effectively with the best open source tools available, it would be worth your while to learn more about them!