If you’re a developer managing a team, then congratulations! You have it easy. However, even for large-scale development projects, not every developer can afford to buy all the tools that they need. In this article, I’ll show you 13 of the best development tools out there which are completely free for startups and smaller teams.
Slack
Slack is a communication platform that makes it easy for teams to communicate and collaborate with each other. It’s a real-time messaging system that can be used for team communication, project management, and as an alternative to email.
Slack was founded in February 2013 by Stewart Butterfield, Eric Costello, Serguei Mourachov, and Cal Henderson in Vancouver, Canada. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and has 2 million daily active users. Slack has raised $340 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Accel Partners, Google Ventures, and other investors.
Slack is currently used by over 6 million people every day at work. It has become the go-to tool for teams in every industry from startups to Fortune 500 companies like Starbucks Coffee Company, Spotify, Airbnb, and many more
Slack Features:
– Real-time messaging: instant messaging with channels, groups, and direct messages
– Files: store and share files for free with your team and clients
– Bots: automate routine tasks so you can focus on what’s important
– Searchable archive of past messages (also known as “the search bar”)
GitLab
GitLab is an open-source Git repository manager that enables you to store, manage and share your code. With GitLab, you can create a project from scratch or import code from existing repositories. You can use GitLab as a single-user application or integrate it with other systems to create a fully functional DevOps pipeline.
GitLab is written in Ruby on Rails, and its source code is available on GitHub.
GitLab offers a lot of features that make it easy for developers to collaborate on projects. Features include:
Accessibility – GitLab is accessible via SSH, HTTP(S), and SFTP connections. There are also user guides for configuring Git access for your operating system of choice.
Security – GitLab uses two-factor authentication (2FA). A password reset token will be sent to your email address if you forget your password or lose access to it in any way. Two-factor authentication (2FA) is required when signing into the application or accessing sensitive information such as billing information or credit card details.
Configuration management – The configuration management tool allows users to define how their applications are deployed across environments, including staging and production environments as well as test environments such as QA or UAT environments
Google Drive
Google Drive is the most popular cloud storage service in the world with over a billion users. It allows you to create and share documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and drawings.
Google Docs is a free word processor that allows you to create and edit documents online. You can use Google Docs to share your documents with anyone, even if they don’t have a Google account.
Google Sheets is an online spreadsheet application that lets you create, edit and collaborate on spreadsheets from anywhere using any device.
Google Forms makes it easy for anyone to create a survey or poll quickly from their computer or mobile device.
Google Drawings lets you create and collaborate on drawings online in a simple yet powerful way.
Google My Maps lets you create custom maps based on lists like your favorite restaurants or hotels, then share them with others by embedding them anywhere on the web (including your blog).
InVision
InVision is a design development tool for web, mobile, and UX designers to share their ideas, mockups, and prototypes with the rest of the team.
InVision allows you to create interactive wireframes and prototypes that look exactly like your finished product will. It has a sleek user interface, allowing you to make changes to your designs right away without affecting the rest of your team. InVision also allows other members of your team to give feedback on each other’s work in real-time, which makes it easy for everyone to stay up-to-date with where they are in the process.
InVision has several features that make it an excellent choice for prototyping:
Prototyping: Create clickable prototypes that look like real products
Collaboration: Share and discuss designs in real-time with team members
Reviews: Collaborate on designs by adding comments directly on them
Trello
Trello is the ultimate project management app for teams who want to get their projects done, fast.
Trello is a free web-based tool that organizes your projects into boards and lists. Each list has its own set of cards, each with its own title, description, due date, attachments, and more.
Trello’s boards are flexible. You can create as many boards as you need, assign members to them, and drag and drop cards around as needed.
If you’re planning on using Trello in an office environment, there are some paid options available for larger organizations that can help take advantage of all the features Trello has to offer.
Basecamp
Basecamp is a project management tool for teams. It’s most commonly used for small businesses, but it can be used by any organization that needs to track and monitor work being done on a project.
Basecamp is designed to be simple and intuitive. It has a clean design and makes it easy to communicate with team members, share information and files, assign tasks, and keep an eye on progress.
Basecamp can be used as a standalone product or integrated with other tools like Slack.
Balsamic
Balsamic is a web development tool that allows you to build sophisticated, high-performance web applications in Java, Scala, and Kotlin.
It helps you to build your frontend and backend applications by providing a unified API for accessing and manipulating HTML documents. Balsamic works with any web framework, including React, Angular, Ember and React Native.
Balsamic has no external dependencies (such as jQuery), so it’s easy to embed in your existing projects or use as part of your continuous integration process.
Balsamic is built on top of Web Components technologies such as Custom Elements, Shadow DOM, and HTML Templates which enable you to create reusable components that can be easily integrated into any web application architecture.
Bitbucket
Bitbucket is a code hosting service for version control using Mercurial, Git, or other revision control systems. It was started by the same people who founded the Mercurial project in 2007.
Bitbucket offers unlimited private repositories for free and provides a flexible billing system based on team size. Users can create groups with different levels of access, such as collaborators, managers, and owners. Groups can be used to organize codebases into teams or departments; they also aid in permissions management by allowing users with similar roles to share repositories.
Bitbucket’s interface has been designed to provide an easy-to-use interface that lets developers focus on their code instead of their tools. Bitbucket features “pull requests,” which allow developers to submit changes to a central repository for review before merging them into the main project. It also allows users to comment on different parts of a pull request, keeping conversations related to each pull together so that everyone can easily track what’s going on in a feature branch.
Jira
Jira is a web-based project management and issue-tracking development tool with a reputation as one of the best in its class. It’s used by many organizations across all industries, including NASA, Google, Adobe, and Zappos.
Jira is a web-based bug tracker that helps teams plan and manage tasks. It allows teams to organize their work into “issues” – problems that need to be solved – and share them with one another.
In addition to being able to assign issues to developers or other members of the team for completion, Jira also integrates with other development tools (like GitHub) so that you can see what your team members are working on at any given time.
Jenkins
Jenkins is a Java-based open-source continuous integration development tool written in Java and released under the MIT License. It was created by Kohsuke Kawaguchi in 2004 and was originally designed to help build the Apache Ant code base.
Jenkins is used by organizations such as Google, Netflix, PayPal, eBay, Mozilla, Digg, and others.
Features:
- Automated builds: Jenkins can automatically build any project as often as needed by watching the version control system. This can be done for projects hosted at any location, including in a private network or behind a firewall.
- Build status indicators: A traffic light display shows the status of each job on the CI server dashboard so that developers can see which jobs are running and which ones failed. In addition to the green (pass), yellow (warnings), and red (failure) indicators, Jenkins also displays a power icon for builds that have recently changed but have not yet been tested.
Evernote (Free for up to 60MB / month)
Evernote is a digital notepad and notebook that allows you to save everything you need to keep track of web articles, images, documents, emails, and more. You can access Evernote from your web browser, desktop software, or mobile device.
Evernote stores all your notes in the cloud so they’re accessible anywhere and any time you need them. You can share your notes with other people, or keep them private. Evernote has many features including the ability to search within your notes and create to-do lists that sync across all of your devices.
Evernote also offers premium plans for $5 per month or $45 per year which gives access to additional features like Premium Support and offline notebooks among other things.
It has been proven that using the right development tool accelerates business growth.
Smart contract development is a growing trend in the blockchain community. The benefits of smart contracts are becoming more apparent, and more businesses are choosing to use them.
If you’re thinking about implementing smart contracts into your business, here are some tips to help you get started:
Get to know the basics. Smart contracts are computer programs that automatically execute when certain conditions are met. They can be programmed to execute a variety of functions, such as transferring money or releasing an asset once a certain task is completed.
Develop a strategy for using smart contracts in your business. Think about what types of transactions would benefit from using smart contracts and how they could be implemented on your platform or app.
Decide whether you want custom-written or open-source code for your smart contract. Open-source code is usually free but may not be optimized for your needs; custom code can be customized for specific functions but will cost more money than open-source options.
