Alternatives
Products that do what Open-source tools for devs who don't like ads does
Hey HN, wanted to share a new collection of dev utilities that are ad-free, client-side (nothing leaves your device), with a command+k menu for fast search. github.com/jamdotdev/jam-dev-utilities Why? The sites we use every day for data conversion (e.g. PNG to data URI) are cluttered with ads, one of those mildly annoying things engineers deal with while writing code. This came up at a recent team dinner, and we got interested in creating nicer, modern, uncluttered versions of these tools. Since then, every time we needed a util, we added it to our stack. Lots more tools still to…
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Hi HN! I've created [UFreeTools](https://www.ufreetools.com/), a collection of developer utilities (60+ tools and growing) that's completely free, ad-free, and runs entirely in the browser. No data leaves your device - everything is processed locally. ## Background As a developer, I found myself constantly searching for simple utilities like JSON formatters, UUID generators, and color pickers. Most existing options were cluttered with ads, required sign-ups, or sent data to servers. I wanted clean, fast tools that respected privacy. So I built UFreeTools as a modern SPA using…
2025 · ufreetools.com
- 7RM
Hello HN! Being a software engineer and an SEO guy I wrote a heap of tools and scripts to make my life easier. Now I've decided to share some of them with the community, and made a small site where I will be publishing them. They are all completely free (yes, free forever) and you don't even need to sign up for the site. Just use the thing as you like, no limits. Currently you can access 4 instruments: - Backlink retriever - Thin/weak content analyzer - Traffic trend analysis - Visitor list retriever I am planning on releasing more free tools with time, and trying to stay original by…
2018
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Hey there, I'm a solo dev behind KewlTools. So I'm one of those people who like to build their own tools/utilities whenever they a) want to get something done, or b) want to learn something. c) don't want to spend ages finding a utilty and going through walls of ads. I gradually built 66 tools, all free, fast, ad-free, and zero login. I (and my family/friends) use these daily, so thought some of you will find it useful! Any suggestions, improving current tools or adding new ones, please let me know.
2025 · kewltools.com
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2016 · devfreecasts.github.io
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Hi HN! My name is Yossi, and I'm a solo indie maker. SEO tools are super pricey and free tools often fall short, leaving most users to costly subscription-based tools. So, I built SEO Stuff, a keyword tool that uses a credit-based system for builders like me who use SEO more sporadically. Have a great day!
2024 · seo-stuff.com
- 12SO
Hey everyone! I’ve developed a few tools that I wanted to share with the community: https://clipush.deno.dev A simple way to send web push notifications using cURL, making the process much easier to integrate into your workflow. (An experiment for personal usage.) https://request-bin.deno.dev A tool that acts as a real-time HTTP request debugger with SSE logging to track and analyze requests efficiently. (Created after requestb.in introduced limits on free accounts. Personally used for testing webhooks.) https://lock-states.deno.dev A service to manage lock…
2024
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Hey Friends, I always considered doing a show HN about this but never took the jump but since we're in the Show HN carnival I decided to share it. I wrote a free and open source quick guide to teach Firefox OS application development. With this ebook you go from zero to a little application in the Firefox Marketplace. https://leanpub.com/quickguidefirefoxosdevelopment/ I created this to give away at hackathons and hack days because the Mozilla docs were spread all over the developer hub, mdn and the wiki so it was hard for new developers to find what they needed. The…
2014
- 14IM
I spent the past few weeks making an open source cloud code editing environment with an AI copilot and multiplayer collaboration! It's fully self-hostable in 5-10 minutes. There's a lot of minor improvements to be made, and some are already listed in the Github issues. Let me know what you think and feel free to try it out.
2024 · github.com
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I have collected some of the front-end development tools that I use on a regular basis (and on not so regular basis). This list is still a work in progress and I would love any contributions to it. If you want to contribute just head over to https://github.com/KarlHerler/front-end-tools where you will find the entire source. If you find something that looks wrong but dont want to fix it you can head over to https://github.com/KarlHerler/front-end-tools/issues and submit a bug :P
2011 · karlherler.github.com
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Hello everyone, A couple of months ago I was introduced to Excalidraw and fell in love with it instantly. The only thing I didn't like was that I couldn't easily save my whiteboards and had to put everything in one whiteboard which started to lag my PC after a while. So I made ExcaliHub. It's exactly as it sounds: a hub for Excalidraw. It's free, open source, and I aim to keep it that way. Thanks in advance for any feedback!
2024 · excalihub.dev
- 17IB
I built a minimal opensource CMS, I use it myself for my blog and for other SaaS. l love blogging, and sometimes I post random thoughts on my blog. The only thing is, I always did it with .md files, which is fine too However, I was excited about the idea of using a CMS that was very minimal and avoiding the option of connecting something like WordPress or other big platforms. Open source (if you want to fork it or contribute) and free to use (unless I see you have a million views haha). Star the repo if you like it!
Jan 2026 · github.com
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Howdy friends! Tell me if this is an atrociously terrible idea - I've been working on building a leetcode for clientside devs so we can practice React and Javascript interview questions in a more concise way, I call it clientside.dev I just finished a beta version of it yesterday and plan on releasing it with many more problems on Jan 1st but it's there if you wanna play with it open to any ideas / feedback however mean or nice it may be :)
2022 · vacation-call-335691.framer.app
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2012 · rubberdocky.com
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Over three months ago, I posted my book on HN and got tremendous +ve reponse. I am happy to inform that I have published the book to leanpub as per the comments I got on HN itself! It is pay as you go model, and the minimum is $0 because I wanted to contribute back to the FOSS Community
2016
- 21IB
Hi HN, A lot of the dev teams I have worked with had a lot of issues with their documentation. In fact, some of my easiest clients to get were from clients that had "black box" solutions that devs no longer at the company had created. Personally, writing documentation is like grinding nails on a chalkboard. I have been having a lot of fun with building solutions that can run in a distributed way, not something a dev needs to run themselves. And after a significant amount of testing and building out several different solutions, I finally have a solution that is easy to set up and runs in the…
Dec 2025 · codesummary.io
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Myself and three friends, for the last year have been building our own side project, the aim of this side project was to show off the creative side of developers. One of my bug bears with Reddit is how quickly things get buried. The bug bear has turned into the basis for what I been building on the side called The Full Stack. A platform to show off developer projects basically. Another bug bear of mine over the years has been trying to find open source or just cool side projects to work on with others, and even find teams to join. So that's another thing we've built, an easy way to find…
2023 · thefullstack.network
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orignally shared this on startup school... i thought id' share it here. i'm using a `nocode communication tool` (a web-based interface... a single browser tab!) for all of these things: 1. landing page — the landing page is the product and i wanted for folks to feel "transported" right into the app without having to walk through a shitty b2b marketing-style content. this is akin to my experience back in the `BBS` days of the mid-90's where you were immediately into the app, community, and tool. no terms of service, no privacy policy. just pure, immediate value. 2. building community — we…
2021
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Hi, I'm software dev with 2x exit. I collected some affordable alternatives to expensive and well-known tools for a while. Mostly for personal use. Now I built the platform and added them here. Also, community help to grow with their tools and suggestions. Enjoy and if you have any alternative for popular softwares or have a suggestions please submit here to make it the internet's biggest alternative software platform.
Nov 2025 · alterbase.co
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