The 5 Top Web Development Tools Every Dev Pro Should Try

Web Development 6 min READ

Propelrr

December 20, 2021

Web development has long shifted from being a ‘nice-to-have’ to being a mandatory structure for today’s businesses. This has equally shot up the demand for web developers and, incidentally, top web development tools that get the job done for less the cost.

While there is no lack online for the latter, not all of them are created equal. Some, get the job done fine but cost a lot – far from being worth an investment. Others will come for free, but lack what you need for your development projects.

However, there are those that provide the best value for your investments. As a reputable web development company, we’ll name these tools for you, today.

Criteria for choosing web development tools

Prior to selecting a tool to invest in, you’ll need to evaluate it thoroughly in order to avoid spending resources on the least optimal choice.

Below are some criteria you should look into when doing your scoping:

Functionality. Your web development tool should match your unique business needs and goals. Its core features should be able to deliver the functions you want for your website.
Ease of use. A complicated web development tool will only burden your web design team and developers. Go for one that can be easily learned, preferably a tool with a drag-and-drop feature.
Scalability. Choose a web development tool that adapts easily to increased workload or demands. It should be flexible to your changing needs.
Portability. Your developers should be able to continue with their web development tasks whether they are in the office, at home, or anywhere else.
Design flexibility. What works well on one browser and device needs to look good on another. A web development tool should ensure your website is functional across browsers, platforms and devices.
Security. Never compromise your or your users’ data security for anything. Web devtools that have multi-layer security features are the best option for you.
Cost. The best web development tools are either free or cost a little. If you want to try a paid tool, choose one that offers a free trial to allow you to test it first before signing up.

1. Sencha Ext JS

Sencha Ext JS is considered as one of the most widely used web development tools. It is a pure JavaScript application framework for building data-intensive, cross-platform web and mobile applications for any modern device. You may opt for this tool as a simple component framework or as a full framework for building single page applications.

Ext JS and the user extensions available in the Sencha community covers all stages of a web development – from building, to designing and testing. It includes 140+ high-performance, customizable UI widgets that make web application and cross-platform development easy.

The Charts widget, shown in the image below, allows you to easily incorporate data dashboards easily.

On top of those, Ext JS also leverages HTML5 features on modern browsers while maintaining compatibility and functionality for legacy browsers. It also provides a responsive configuration system that allows device adaptability for each component.

2. Kite Team Server

Kite Team Server, developed by Kite, is a top coding tool with 400,000 developers using it every month. According to users, they experienced an 18% productivity boost and saved about $21,600 per developer per year after using Kite.

Kite Team Server is an AI-powered code completion tool that helps simplify web development. It uses machine learning to automate the repetitive parts of programming. It “automates away boilerplate and basic coding” so web developers can focus on the most important task – programming.

One compelling reason why Kite Team Server is a preferred coding tool is that it supports 16 programming languages and 16 editors/IDEs. The languages it supports are:

Python
JavaScript
Java
HTML/CSS
C Based
Go
TypeScript
Scala
Kotlin
PHP
Ruby
Bash

Kite reinforces company code standards with machine learning models trained on your own code. Moreover, completions are tailored to your codebase.

Kite Team Server encourages the use of internal coding styles and idioms. It makes internal code more accessible by helping your new developers navigate unfamiliar code and your server’s advanced GPU is harnessed for this high-compute task.

To learn more, check out this demo video.

3. Creative Tim Technologies

Web and user interface (UI) designing doesn’t have to be time-consuming and expensive, with the help of Creative Tim Technologies.

Offering UI kits, pre-made sections and elements, easy-to-use admin templates, and fully-coded dashboards, Creative Tim Technologies helps accelerate the web development process.

Here is an overview of the amazing products offered by Creative Tim:

Vue.JS. A progressive framework used for building user interface and recommended forcreating Single-Page Applications. Its component system allows you to build large-scale applications of small, independent, and often reusable components:

React. This is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces. React allows you to make complex UIs through encapsulated components. You can develop new features on the tool without rewriting existing code.
Bootstrap. Bootstrap is a front-end open source component library that lets you quickly design and customize responsive mobile-first sites.
Sass. This is a professional grade extension language preferred in web development. Sass claims to have more features and functions than any other CSS extension language.
Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop is one of the top programs for digital manipulation. Its features include Neural Filters, Sky Replacement, Photoshop Brushes, Content-Aware Fill and Photo Effects.
Sketch. This is a native macOS application that aids in the design process. It has a real-time collaboration feature which lets your teammates access your document and work alongside you.
Figma. Figma is a web development tool that helps you in the design process, prototyping and building design systems. Its unique features includes a modern pen tool that allows you to draw in any direction without needing to merge or to connect to the path’s original point.
Laravel. This is a progressive web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax. It combines the best packages in the PHP ecosystem, offering a highly scalable and developer-friendly framework.

4. Angular.JS

Angular.JS is a web development tool allows you to extend HTML vocabulary especially when you are using HTML for declaring dynamic views in web applications. Angular.JS essentially addresses the limitations of HTML in dynamic views.

This tool is fully extensible and works well with other libraries. It is highly customizable as it lets you modify or replace every feature to suit your unique needs.

AngularJS is testable since it was designed from the ground up. “It encourages behavior-view separation, comes pre-bundled with mocks, and takes full advantage of dependency injection. It also comes with end-to-end scenario runner which eliminates test flakiness by understanding the inner workings of AngularJS.”

One of the key features of Angular.JS are “directives” which allows you to create HTML syntax specific to your application. Directives are useful in creating reusable components that can hide complex DOM structure, CSS, and behavior.

5. GitHub

According to GitHub, its web dev tools are used by 84% of all companies in the Fortune 100 and by more than four million organizations. It boasts to be the largest and most advanced development platform in the world.

The GitHub web development technologies provide the following features and functionalities:

Collaborative Coding. This allows team members to contribute to projects quickly, discuss, and review tasks real-time. Each member can send a notification to the code owner and the rest of the team about changes made.

Automation & CI/CD. This feature automates all your development workflows, letting you write tasks and combine them to build, test and deploy faster.
Security. GitHub automatically reviews every change to your codebase and detects any vulnerabilities before they reach production.
Client Apps. You can work on your projects anywhere via any device, simplify your workflow with a GUI, and address issues from the terminal – where you are already working with GitHub. and on your code.
Project Management. This feature lets you track issues visually, organize your tasks, track progress on groups of issues, and detect bugs.
Team Administration. You can set up user groups engaged in projects and manage their access.
Community. Get and give support, and join conversations in various communities such as the GitHub Sponsors where you may extend financial support to the open source projects your code depends on.

Key takeaways

When it comes to the top web development tools, you’ll have to be absolutely scrutinizing. This is because choosing one that helps you build efficiently can add value to the work you do for clients and partners.

Apart from the information about tools, here are some other considerations when evaluating your tools stack and picking out the top web development tools for your organization:

Involve your team in the conversation. Consider the end-users of the products. Do they have specific pain points that these tools should help address? Involving them in the talks helps you choose the best option to make work efficient for all stakeholders.
Match your tools with your objectives. You should view a web development tool as a long-term asset. As such, you always put your business goals and objectives at the forefront of your considerations when narrowing down your list of options for tools.
Price point doesn’t dictate value. A premium price doesn’t always signal effectivity. If anything, you should be wary and test these for yourself prior to making a commitment to stick with pricey tool.

Do you have your own top web development tools you rely on for your projects? What are they and what do you love about them? Let us know in the comments, or share this with a developer in need on Facebook, LinkedIn, or X.

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