As you may know, full-stack developers work on both front-end and back-end development. A Full-stack developer uses a lot of technologies on each project. This means even if they don’t have expertise in all the technologies out there, they still need to have working knowledge for a lot of development technologies.
There are a number of tools that are created to help full-stack developers with their projects, by using these tools a developer can cut down on the time spent in development. With more time on their hands, they are able to come up with better application solutions for their clients. Not only this, by cutting down the time it takes on a project they are able to lower the cost of the project as well.
Today there many of these tools available for Full-stack developers, some are paid and some are open source and free to use. In this article, we are going to list down some of the best FREE tools available for full-stack developers.
Not in any particular order, the top free tools are:
- NPM.js
NPM is a package manager for JavaScript programming language; it is the default package manager for Node.js. Its best feature is that it helps find reusable code from over 470,000 free code packages in its registry. Being a command-line development tool it interacts with the repository and helps the package. You can manage public and private code, publish and control access to the namespace, discover and reuse code within your teams.
You can try NPM.js out now at – https://www.npmjs.com/
- Codepen
Codepen is an online front-end development environment where software designers and software developers can build, test and deploy test cases. It has live viewing capabilities which make it faster and more convenient to use. The best thing is that the components you build here can be used elsewhere as well. Even though Codepen is open-source, there is also a PRO option available; by opting for this you can keep your code private
You can try Codepen out now at – https://codepen.io/
- HTML5 Boilerplate
HTML5 Boilerplate is an HTML, CCS and JavaScript template, this open-source boilerplate template is used to create HTML5 websites that have cross-border capabilities. This helps developers save time and create robust, fast and adaptable web applications. It is considered to be one of the most popular front-end templates and is used by numerous companies across the world. It comes along with the two plug-and-play libraries jQuery and Modernizr.
You can try HTML5 Boilerplate out now at – https://html5boilerplate.com/
- jQuery
jQuery is a vastly used lightweight JavaScript library; it is used by 73% of the top 10 million websites. It is designed to simplify CSS animation, Ajax and HTML DOM manipulation, as well as event handling. This open-source tool is very stable and user-friendly. It also gives developers a chance to create highly interactive web applications. Its motto sums it up the best: Write less, do more.
You can try jQuery out now at – https://jquery.com/
- GitHub
GitHub is an online development platform used to host, review code, manage projects, and build software. This platform is great for collaborations and is it easy to coordinate using GitHub project management tools. GitHub the world’s largest developer community and is used by over 40 million developers across the world. You can choose to use GitHub, as an open-source resource or sign-up for a business plan.
You can try React.js out now at – https://github.com/
- React JS
React.js is a JavaScript library that is used to create interactive web applications. React.js is normally used for single-page or mobile applications. It can be used to design simple views for each slate in your application. It helps update data and renders just the required components when the data changes, this makes it optimal for fetching data which rapidly changes. React.js is used in addition to other JavaScript libraries.
You can try React.js out now at – https://reactjs.org/
- Creative Tim
Creative Tim offers fully coded UI tools to create web applications that are built on Bootstrap, Vue.js, React and Angular. It has some of the most creative and easy to use templates that are available for free. By using these templates developers can save a lot of time on their projects. They also offer paid templates. Their easy to use admin dashboard helps create bootstrap4 designs and components without spending time to customization.
You can try Creative Tim out now at – https://www.creative-tim.com/
- Angular.js
Anjular.js is an open-source JavaScript framework. This front-end web framework lets developers expand the vocabulary of HTML for your application. This makes the environment extraordinarily expressive, readable, and quick to develop. Angular.js models are not like other frameworks; these are plain old JavaScript objects. This makes testing, maintaining and reusing the code easier.
You can try React.js out now at – https://angularjs.org/
- TypeScript
Typescript is an open-source programming language that can be used with any browser, any host and any operating system. Typescript starts from the same syntax and semantics that JavaScript developers are used to. It is a typed superset of JavaScript that is specially designed for large applications and complies with plain JavaScript. Developers can use existing JavaScript code, include JavaScript libraries and call typescript code from JavaScript.
You can try React.js out now at – https://www.typescriptlang.org/
- Grunt
Grunt is the preferred JavaScript task runner for Node.js. It is flexible, easy to use and offers many add-ons for task automation. This makes automating tasks much faster and easier. Grunt has a large ecosystem that makes it possible to automate any task with the least efforts. A tusk runner is used to do the most mundane work, which in turn frees up the developer to focus on other things.
You can try React.js out now at – https://gruntjs.com/
As you see these 10 free tools can be used by full-stack developers to make their work easier, faster and more creative. There are a few more free tools that you can check out like; Backbone.js, Chrome DevTools, Meteor, etc. The links to these are mentioned below:
- https://backbonejs.org/
- https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-devtools
- https://www.meteor.com/
