TL;DR
Every day, we rely on countless technological tools. Many of these powerful resources remain unknown to us, yet mastering them can give you a crucial competitive edge.
Whether you're building an online store, a mobile app, or even a simple clicker, the right tools can make all the difference.
In this article, I’ve compiled a list of must-know tools that will help you become a top-tier developer. Stay ahead of the curve and unlock new possibilities in your projects!
Well, let's get started! 🏎️
1. 🐜 HMPL - Server-oriented customizable templating for JavaScript
Let's start with a small template language that allows you to get components from the server and display them on the client. Due to its syntax, applications are quite small.
It’s integrated with JSON5 and DOMPurify, and keeps your JS bundles small. If you care about performance and like having full control, this one's worth a look.
2. 🧩 Shadcn UI - A set of beautifully-designed, accessible components and a code distribution platform
The most popular component library today. All software as a service applications and more use it in conjunction with Next.js. If you want a modern design without any fuss, this library is for you. Example of adding components: npx shadcn-ui@latest add button
Accessible and customizable components that you can copy and paste into your apps. Free. Open Source. Use this to build your own component library.
3. 🐈⬛ Nest.js - A progressive Node.js framework for building efficient, scalable, and enterprise-grade server-side applications
If you’ve ever wished Express had a bit more structure, Nest.js is the upgrade you’ve been looking for. It brings TypeScript, OOP, and a modular architecture to Node.js development.
Nest is a framework for building efficient, scalable Node.js server-side applications. It uses modern JavaScript, is built with TypeScript (preserves compatibility with pure JavaScript) and combines elements of OOP (Object Oriented Programming), FP (Functional Programming), and FRP (Functional Reactive Programming).
4. 🖋️ Appwrite - Build like a team of hundreds_
This is a very useful ultimate platform for developers, which has many functions related to databases, connections between other developers and much more. This platform is used by such giants as Tik Tok, Nestle, Apple and others. But even one developer can handle it and make a quality product.
Appwrite is a backend platform for developing Web, Mobile, and Flutter applications. Built with the open source community and optimized for developer experience in the coding languages you love.
5. 📗 Storybook - The industry standard workshop for building, documenting, and testing UI components in isolation
Storybook is a must-have if you’re working with UI components. It lets you develop, preview, and test components in isolation before you drop them into production.
Workshop for building UI components and pages in isolation. Thousands of teams use it for UI development, testing, and documentation.
6. 🦕 Deno - modern runtime for JavaScript and TypeScript
Deno is what Node.js might look like if it were built today. It has better defaults, built-in TypeScript support, and a strong focus on security. Your files can be executed in other environments. As an example: $ deno test server_test.ts
Deno is a JavaScript, TypeScript, and WebAssembly runtime with secure defaults and a great developer experience. It's built on V8, Rust, and Tokio.
7. 👾 Godot - Free and open source 2D and 3D game engine
Godot is the underdog of the game dev world, but it's incredibly powerful. It handles 2D and 3D games with ease and has an intuitive interface.
Godot Engine is a feature-packed, cross-platform game engine to create 2D and 3D games from a unified interface. It provides a comprehensive set of common tools, so that users can focus on making games without having to reinvent the wheel.
8. ⚙️ Autoprefixer - Parse CSS and add vendor prefixes to rules by Can I Use
Autoprefixer quietly does a ton of work behind the scenes. It adds all the necessary vendor prefixes to your CSS, so your styles work across different browsers.
PostCSS plugin to parse CSS and add vendor prefixes to CSS rules using values from Can I Use.
9. ✉️ Postiz - The ultimate social media scheduling tool, with a bunch of AI
If you juggle multiple social media accounts, Postiz can save you hours. It connects all your platforms in one place and even uses AI to help optimize your content.
Postiz offers everything you need to manage your social media posts,
build an audience, capture leads, and grow your business.
10. 📚 VuePress - Minimalistic Vue-powered static site generator
I love VuePress for documentation sites. It’s clean, simple, and powered by Vue under the hood, so you get interactivity if you want it.
VuePress is a markdown-centered static site generator. You can write your content (documentations, blogs, etc.) in Markdown, then VuePress will help you to generate a static site to host them.
11. ▲ Turborepo - Build system optimized for JavaScript and TypeScript, written in Rust
Created by the same folks behind Vercel and Next.js, Turborepo is a high-speed build system that’s especially useful for monorepos.
Turborepo is a high-performance build system for JavaScript and TypeScript codebases, written in Rust.
12. 🪨 Medusa - The world's most flexible commerce platform
If you’ve worked with WooCommerce or Shopify and felt boxed in, Medusa will feel like a breath of fresh air. It’s modular, open-source, and super flexible.
Medusa is an ecommerce platform with a built-in framework for customization that allows you to build custom commerce applications without reinventing core commerce logic. The framework and modules can be used to build advanced B2B or DTC ecommerce stores, marketplaces, PoS systems, service businesses, or any product that needs foundational commerce primitives. All commerce modules are open-source and freely available on npm.
13. 🗄️ Nx - Build system, optimized for monorepos, with AI-powered architectural awareness and advanced CI capabilities
Nx makes managing multiple apps and libraries in a single repo not just doable, but enjoyable. It handles builds, tests, and CI/CD with surprising ease.
Nx Cloud connects directly to your existing CI setup, helping you scale your monorepos on CI by leveraging remote caching, task distribution across multiple machines, automated e2e test splitting and automated task flakiness detection
14. 🐇 Bun - Incredibly fast JavaScript runtime, bundler, test runner, and package manager – all in one
Bun might just be the fastest thing in the JavaScript ecosystem right now. It's a runtime, bundler, test runner, and package manager all rolled into one.
Bun is an all-in-one toolkit for JavaScript and TypeScript apps. It ships as a single executable called bun.
✅ Conclusion
Knowing all these tools and using them at the right time, you can pump yourself up and become a real ultimate developer! And, regardless of what language you program in.
Thank you very much for reading this article ❤️!
What other open source tools do you use? It would be interesting to know!
P.S. Also, don't forget to help me and star HMPL!
Top comments (13)
Great list! For building with AI tools and automations, I’ve found Dotallio super helpful - lets me connect docs, databases, and workflows with almost zero hassle. Have you tried any AI-powered dev tools yet?
Cursor, Ollama
Thanks!
Nice! Very useful. Thanku for share
Thanks! No problem
Nice
Great article. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks! No problem
I've joined this community just from reading this article. I'm going to love it here I can tell already
Welcome to the developer community
For me, this is the final collection of projects. I just collected everything in one big list. I think it will be interesting.
Of course, it is almost exclusively JavaScript. Kids these days like it I guess.
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