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The Only Five Web Development Tools You Need

Posted on May 7th, 2009 by Gabriel Harper

I use a lot of different software in my job, but there are five software tools in particular that I can do nearly all of my Web development with. The best part is they are allcompletely free applications. You can download and install everything you need to be up and coding in under 30 minutes.

We all use different languages and technologies, but most of these tools are useful for any developer.  I do server-side development in PHP/MySQL, design & markup with XHTML/HTML/CSS, client-side scripting in JavaScript, with some XML/JSON and other miscellaneous items thrown in – pretty similar to what most Web developers out there are using.

Here’s the basic Web developer’s software arsenal that I rely on to get up and running in a short time, pretty much anywhere. These are all completely free apps!

Thanks to Sean for courteously noting that HTML-Kit and PuTTY are for Windows only.

  1. Code Editor: HTML-Kit (free version)
  2. FTP Client: Filezilla
  3. SSH Client: PuTTY
  4. Browser: Firefox + Web developer toolbar
  5. Graphics: GIMP

I often find myself just using HTML-Kit editor instead of (the much more expensive) Zend IDE. Set up your FTP servers in the explorer sidebar and manage code on hundreds of sites in one place.

Photoshop is actually my default graphics editor, and it’s been a while since I used good old GIMP. However if Photoshop isn’t available, GIMP is a graphics powerhouse when you get used to the interface.

I’d love to know what tools are in your standard arsenal!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 7th, 2009 at 8:28 pm and is filed under Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • ORACLE

    The only web-development tool you need no matter what: Firebug.

    Good day.

  • http://www.satya-webmail.com/ SATYA PRAKASH

    GIMP is really good and that also free of cost. I learnt a little big of image editing using GIMP.

  • http://isean.co.az SEAN NIEUWOUDT

    would be worth noting that putty and htmlkit are for windows…

  • http://codecrushers.com/ ROB

    Your pretty much right but I think you need to add Nvu a free HTML editor.

  • http://www.gabrielharper.com/ GABRIEL HARPER

    Thanks for your comments guys.

    It’s interesting hearing what the most important apps in other’s toolkits are. There are some great ones out there. It was hard not mentioning many others but these are truly the five that I could do nearly my entire job with.

    @Sean – Thanks for pointing that out, it was an oversight to leave that unmentioned. Post updated to reflect this.

    @Rob – Have not tried Nvu but glad to hear about it and will have to take a peek!

  • http://www.childofthemachine.com GRANT PERRY

    Nice selection of tools I’d also recommend FireBug in addition to the Web Development toolbar, and also Bitvise Tunnelier (http://www.bitvise.com/tunnelier) a great SSH tool which include SFTP and Remote Desktop!

  • http://adamo.org ADAMO

    You could replace items 1-3 with Eclipse and reduce this list down to 3 tools. ;) Eclipse is free, open source and runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It also integrates with SVN and CVS, and has integrated database management. Personally I consider some type of revision control system an absolute necessity for any kind of development, and GUI database tools save me a lot of time and pain.

    Eclipse can be a pain in the ass to set up at first (mainly finding and installing all the right plugins), so if you don’t want to deal with that headache, take a look at Aptana: http://aptana.com/. It’s a self contained Eclipse based web development IDE, that’s got basically everything you need right out of the box. FREE, and available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

  • http://xavierdomenech.blogspot.com XAVO

    I would change Filezilla for GIT or SVN is much better work with version control.

  • http://www.z-crypt.com NANNYCAMS

    1)HTML-Kit (an oldie and still a goodie)
    2)Site Spinner (excellent for wysiwyg pages)
    3)Core FTP Lite (simple, direct, fast, friendly)
    4)Corel (older version but still powerful)
    5)Open Office 3 (Does much more then most people realize(even does flash))

    Back in my linux days I never could get the hang of gIMP. I even tried gIMP ported for winDOZ. I just did not care for it i guess.


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