As a web developer, having the right tools at your disposal can significantly enhance your productivity and ensure the quality and security of your projects. In this article, I’ve compiled a list of essential tools for web developers that every web developer should consider using.
1. SecurityHeaders.com
Description: SecurityHeaders.com is a valuable tool for assessing the security headers of your website. It provides a report on HTTP response headers, helping you identify and fix potential security vulnerabilities.
2. Mozilla Observatory
Description: Mozilla Observatory is a comprehensive security testing tool that checks your website for various security issues. It offers recommendations to improve your website’s security and provides a score based on its findings. Find out how this tool works in my comprehensive article about Mozilla Observatory.
3. What’s My DNS?
Description: What’s My DNS? allows you to check the DNS propagation of your domain globally. This tool helps you verify if your DNS changes have propagated across different DNS servers worldwide.
4. TechnicalSEO.com Robots.txt Tester
Description: Ensuring proper management of your website’s robots.txt file is crucial for search engine optimization. TechnicalSEO.com’s Robots.txt Tester helps you validate and troubleshoot issues in your robots.txt file to control search engine crawling.
5. Lighthouse
Description: Lighthouse is an open-source tool from Google that audits web pages for performance, accessibility, progressive web app capabilities, and more. It provides actionable suggestions to improve the quality of your website.
6. Can I Use
Description: Can I Use is a comprehensive compatibility reference for web developers. It allows you to check which web technologies are supported by various web browsers, helping you make informed decisions about feature implementation.
7. WebPageTest
Description: WebPageTest is a performance testing tool that allows you to analyze the speed and performance of your web pages. It provides insights into load times, resource optimization, and more.
8. JSONLint
Description: JSONLint is a simple online tool for validating and formatting JSON data. It helps you ensure the correctness of JSON objects and troubleshoot any syntax errors.
9. CSS Validator
Description: The W3C CSS Validator checks the validity of your Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) code. It identifies and reports CSS errors and warnings to ensure your stylesheets are well-formed.
10. CodePen
Description: CodePen is an online code editor and social development environment for front-end developers. It allows you to experiment with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code and share your creations with the community.
These tools cover a wide range of aspects in web development, from security and performance testing to SEO and compatibility checks. Incorporating them into your workflow can help you build better and more secure websites.
Remember, I will continuously collect my useful tools here, so be sure to check back for updates or subscribe to my blog’s RSS feed for the latest additions and insights. Happy coding!