15 Free Web Development Tools

Web development is not an easy task. To make the website work, developers have to take care of many things to make sure that the website is working properly, efficiently and is designed in a way to help users navigate it easily. Today, we have gathered a list of 15 excellent tools which every web developer must have:

You may like these Tools too : E-Books Every Developer, 10 Tools Test Website Loading Time, Productivity Tools, HTML 5 Web Based Apps, Drawing Tools5 HTML/CSS Editors , jQuery Tools/Tricks for Developers, Testing Your Site on Mobile Devices  and bloggers Editors etc

 

Site123

site123-review

Site123.com has been added as it does away with even drag and drop for you to create a free website. This is great if you don’t know how to make a website. By using Site123.com, you will get your site up within minutes or even seconds.

 

1. Firebug

Firebug is a must have tool for all developers. Firebug can be integrated with Firefox and you can easily edit, debug and monitor, HTML, CSS and javascript while you are browsing the web. It even tells users what they need to know about the style on the web page and easily helps you find details about the HTML, CSS and javascript errors.

firebug-splash

2. GIMP

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program which helps users take care of tasks such as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. Its an excellent software for those designers and developers who want a good alternative to Adobe Photoshop to perform basic image editing tasks.

Gimp

3. FileZille (Portable)

FileZilla is a fast and reliable FTP client with lots of handy features. It supports resume on both downloads and uploads, timeout detection, firewall support, SOCKS4/5 and HTTP1.1 support, SSL, SFTP and more, all with an intuitive drag and drop interface.

filezillaportable

4. Color Cop

Color Cop is an excellent multi-purpose color picker for developers and designers which help users identify and represent colors in various hex color code formats. All you have to do is drop the eye dropper on the screen and it will give you the color code for the specific color.

colorcop

5. Webbo

A free, open-source, lightweight development tool for Windows Web developer. Webbo features flexible editing, support for Web languages, server-side technologies and instant page and server preview, all help turn a text editor into an integrated development environment.

Webbo

6. Web Developer Toolbar

Web Developer Toolbar is a must have extension for Firefox if you are a developer. It provides developer with wide range of tools in your browser which can help you manage HTML and CSS while you browse.

web developer toolbar

7. Fiddler

Fiddler is an excellent web debugging tool which logs all HTTP(S) traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP(S) traffic, set breakpoints, and “fiddle” with incoming or outgoing data. Fiddler includes a powerful event-based scripting subsystem, and can be extended using any .NET language.

fiddler

8. Notepad++

Notepad++ is a free (as in “free speech” and also as in “free beer”) source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Notepad++ features tabbed editing, drag and drop, split screen, multiple clip board and much more.

notepad

9. Xenu

Xenu is an excellent tool which checks websites for broken links. Link verification is done on “normal” links, images, frames, plug-ins, backgrounds, local image maps, style sheets, scripts and java applets. It displays a continously updated list of URLs which you can sort by different criteria.

xenu

10. XDebug

Xdebug is a PHP extension which provides debugging and profiling capabilities. The extension helps users stack traces whenever PHP decides to show a notice, warning, error etc and enable users log all function calls.

xdebug

11. BrowserShots

Browsershots is a must have web application for developers which help developers check how their website looks in different browsers. All you have to do is provide the link to your website and it will show you a wide range of web browsers.

browsershots

12. Pingdom Tools

Pingdom tools helps developers find out how fast their website loads on different internet connections and help users find out bottlenecks which are slowing down the loading of the website.

pingdom

13. Pixlr

Pixlr is a complete online suite for all your photo editing needs. With Pixlr, you can edit images, crop them, add effects and much more without even installing anything on your computer.

pixlr

14. WC3 Markup Validation Service

This validator checks the markup validity of Web documents in HTML, XHTML, SMIL, MathML, etc. If you wish to validate specific content such as RSS/Atom feeds or CSS stylesheets, MobileOK content, or to find broken links

wc3-validation-service

15. ProCSSor

ProCSSor is a powerful (and wholly free) CSS prettifier that lets you format CSS in the exact way you want. It empowers you to turn your CSS into something that is visually more compelling, and with a minimum of effort at that.

procssor

If you know about any other tools, please share with us.


About the author

With a passion for Knowledge, Smashinghub has been created to explore things like Free Resources For Designers, Photographers, Web Developers and Inspiration.

Twitter Visit author website

Subscribe to Smashing Hub


12 Comments

  1. sudharana says:

    I have used some of these tools, but not all of them. Would like to add one more tool by Google for improving page load time. https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights

  2. aditia says:

    you can replace firebug with chrome / safari developer tools, or maybe with opera dragonfly

  3. jonwilson says:

    I was going to point out the Filezilla typo but it seems someone beat me to it. Anyway, Filezilla is great when your web hosting doesn’t offer its own file management system.

  4. Dexter Morgan says:

    …and thank you Hammad for this article. Very useful.

  5. Dexter Morgan says:

    FileZilla is hopeless and unstable.
    For Windows users much much better is WinSCP – free SFTP, SCP and FTP client (open source).

  6. @jonny, Ha ha I was just going to mention that. The French equivalent perhaps?

  7. jonny says:

    You mistyped FileZilla. Gimp – “who want a good alternative to Adobe Photoshop to perform basic image editing tasks” – I have trained people in Photoshop and use Gimp exclusively now – this comment shows lack of experience in using your recommendation’s.
    Also your recommendations are a little slanted toward Windows users. I would prefer a cross-platform list.

  8. Hi i use de notepad++ is very good program, great article

  9. Alli says:

    I will have to try some of these! Not mentioned here were

    ColorZilla (http://www.colorzilla.com/firefox/) – Firefox plugin to grab hex codes of colors within the browser

    Measure-It (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/measureit/) – another Firefox plugin to measure (in pixels) anything in the browser

    and WAMP (http://www.wampserver.com/en/) – a local server, although I’m sure there are tons out there, I just like this one =)