The Best Software Development Tools You Must Have!

There are tons of Software Development tools and selecting the best could be a challenge. Following is a curated list of the 21 top software development tools.

We have covered Software Development tools in the following categories

• Recommended Tool
• IDE (Integrated Development Environment)
• Frameworks
• Cloud Tools
• Data Science
• Source Control
• Prototyping
• DevOps
• Notifications
• UML

Recommended Tool

1) Linx: 

Linx is a low code IDE and server. IT pros use Linx to quickly create custom automated business processes, integrate applications, expose web services and to efficiently handle high workloads.

• Easy-to-use, drag-and-drop interface
• Over 100 pre-built functions and services for rapid development
• One-click deployment to any local or remote Linx Server directly from the IDE
• Input and outputs include nearly any SQL & NoSQL databases, numerous file formats (text and binary) or REST and SOAP Web services
• Live debugging with step through logic
• Automate backend processes via timer, directory events or message queue or expose web services, and call APIs via HTTP requests

Download: https://linx.software/lowcode-application-designer/ 6

2) Buddy 

Buddy  is a smart CI/CD tool for web developers designed to lower the entry threshold to DevOps. It uses delivery pipelines to build, test and deploy software. The pipelines are created with over 100 ready-to-use actions that can be arranged in any way – just like you build a house of bricks.

• 15-minute configuration in clear & telling UI/UX
• Lightning-fast deployments based on changesets
• Builds are run in isolated containers with cached dependencies
• Supports all popular languages, frameworks & task managers
• Dedicated roster of Docker/Kubernetes actions
• Integrates with AWS, Google, DigitalOcean, Azure, Shopify, WordPress & more
• Supports parallelism & YAML configuration

Download: https://buddy.works/ 10

IDE (Integrated Development Environment)

3) NetBeans:

NetBeans  is a popular, Free, open-source IDE. It allows developing desktop, mobile and web applications.

Features:

• Support for fast & smart code editing
• Easy & Efficient Project Management process
• Rapid User Interface Development
• Helps to write bug-free code
• NetBeans IDE offers superior support for C/C++ and PHP developers
• It can be installed on any OS which supports Java, from Windows to Linux to Mac OS X systems

Download link: https://netbeans.org/downloads/index.html

4) Cloud9 IDE:

Cloud9 IDE  is an online integrated software development environment. It supports many programming languages like C, C++, PHP, Ruby, Perl, Python, JavaScript and Node.js.

Features:

• Allows to clone entire development environment
• Built-In Terminal for command-line wizard
• Code Completion suggestions helps software developers to code faster and avoid typos
• The Debugger helps developers to set breakpoints, and inspect variables of any JS/Node.js app
• Simply drag any file or Terminal to create multiple split views
• Developers can select an extensive set of default Runners to execute app, such as Ruby, Python, PHP/Apache

Download link: https://c9.io/pricing 3

5) Zend Studio:

Zend Studio  allows software developers to code faster, debug more easily. It is next-generation PHP IDE designed to create apps for boosting developers’ productivity. It scales according to the DPI settings of the underlying operating system.

Features:

• Code faster with up to performance improvements in indexing, validation, searching for PHP code
• Offering debugging capabilities with Xdebug, Zend Debugger, and Z-Ray integration
• Extensive plugin provided by the large Eclipse eco-system
• It supports development tools including Docker and Git Flow
• Deploy PHP applications on any server for Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure

Download link: http://www.zend.com/en/downloads

6) Atom:

Atom  is a solid all-around text-editor. It is fully free and open source. It can be customized to do anything but without a need of modifying the config file.

Features:

• Atom works across many popular operating systems like OS X, Windows, or Linux
• It helps developers to write code faster with a smart, flexible autocomplete
• Easily browse and open whole project or multiple projects in one window
• It is possible to split Atom interface into multiple panes to compare and edit code across files
• Find, preview, and replace text type in a file or across the entire project

Download link: https://atom.io/ 5

7) Spiralogics Application Architecture:

Spiralogics Application Architecture  (SAA) is a cloud-based software development tool. It allows users to build and customize their applications online and deploy them. It also allows users to choose from a set of prebuilt applications or customize them it from scratch.

Features:

• Create customized pages
• Built-in HTML editor
• Interactive Dashboard builder
• Preview Changes before publishing the application
• Predefined processes like Save, Delete, Accept, Reject, and Email
• Allows customization of look and feel of page components
• Create custom processes not already defined

Download link: https://www.gotosaa.com/ 1

8) CodeLobster:

Codelobster  streamlines and simplifies PHP software development. process. It supports CMS like Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, and Magento.

Features:

• PHP, HTML, JavaScript, CSS code highlighting
• Autocomplete of tags, attributes for a current tag, closing tags.
• Inspector makes it simple to find HTML elements and their styles buried deep in the page
• Autocomplete of style property names and values
• It allows autocompleting of keywords, DOM elements, and their properties
• It offers PHP Advanced autocomplete

Download link: http://www.codelobster.com 2

9) CodeCharge Studio:

CodeCharge Studio offers the fastest way to build applications. This tool helps to develop data-driven Web sites or enterprise Internet and Intranet systems.

Features:

• Avoid costly errors and misspellings by generating consistent, well-structured code
• Eliminate time-consuming programming tasks and build scalable, robust Web Applications
• Helps to convert any database into a web application in very less amount of time
• Analyze and modify generated code to learn web technologies and take on programming projects in any environment

Download link: http://www.codecharge.com/download/index.php 1

Frameworks

10) Bootstrap:

Bootstrap is a responsive framework for developing with HTML, CSS, and JS. It has many in-builds components, which you can easily drag and drop to assemble responsive web pages.

Feature:

• Bootstrap enables utilization of ready- made blocks of code
• It ensures consistency irrespective of who’s working on the project
• It offers extensive list of components
• Base Styling for most HTML Elements
• Bootstrap can be customized according to the specific need of the project

Download link: http://getbootstrap.com/docs/4.0/getting-started/download/ 4

11) Expression Studio:

Expression Studio  is a set of a family of tools for professional designer’s developers. It is a robust professional design tool which gives creative freedom to developers.

Features:

• It revolutionizes the speed of prototyping
• It allows creation of effective UI with sample data
• Fast, flexible, seamless workflow helps to excel the entire development process
• These tools save time of creating web sites to deliver faster results
• Advanced visual diagnostics speed debugging
• It offers team Foundation Server integration
• Rich standards-based web design & technologies
• It provides precision layout control and supports a broad range of technologies.
• It helps to speeds up cross-browser debugging with advanced visual diagnostics

Download link: http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx 5

12) HTML5 Builder:

HTML5 Builder is a software solution for building the web and mobile apps. It can develop an app using a single HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and PHP codebase. It helps to target multiple mobile operating systems, devices and Web browsers.

Features:

• It is the fastest way to develop cross-platform Apps with flexible Cloud services
• Increased speed of development with a single visual framework
• Brings Designers and Developers in a Collaborative Workflow
• Create Enterprise or ISV web and mobile apps
• Create location-based browser and mobile applications using geolocation components in HTML5 Builder

Download link: https://www.embarcadero.com/products/rad-studio/start-for-free 6

13) Visual Online:

Visual Studio Online  is a collection of services. It is fast and easy to plan, build and ship software across a variety of platforms. These software development tools allow the organization to create the perfect development environment.

Features:

• Track and manage all ideas on kanban or scrum boards with agile tools
• Improve code quality and catch issues early
• Build, manage, secure and share software components
• Automate and simplify Azure deployments
• Tools for manual, performance and automated testing
• It offers a centralized version control system with free private repositories.

Download link: https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/

Cloud Tools

14) Kwatee:

Kwatee Agile Deployment is a software development tool. It automates applications or micro services to any number of servers. It fully automates deployments of text and binary files from any number of target servers.

Features:

• It allows managing environment-specific configuration parameters for your application
• It allows generating command-line installers to be used for deployments on environments
• This software development tool eliminates the need for installation & configuration. It also takes out many operational risks in the software development process
• It is a friendly web interface lets configure deployments efficiently and painlessly
• It supports a broad range operating systems including Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, etc.

Download link: http://www.kwatee.net/#download

15) Azure:

Microsoft Azure is widely used by developers to build, deploy and manage web applications.

Features:

• It supports wide range of operating systems, programming languages, frameworks, and devices
• Allows to build apps quickly and easily
• It easily detect and mitigate threats
• Rely on the most trusted cloud
• Allows to manage app proactively
• Helps to deliver mobile apps seamlessly

Download link: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/free/ 2

Data Science

16) Data studio:

Dataiku DSS  is a collaborative data science software platform. It is used by data scientists, data analysts, and engineers to explore, prototype, build and deliver their data products.

Features:

• Profile the data visually at every stage of the analysis
• Prepare, enrich, blend, and clean data using more than 80+ built-in functions
• Bundle whole workflow as a single deployable package for real-time predictions
• Build & optimize models in Python or R and integrate any external ML library through code APIs

Download link: https://www.dataiku.com/dss/trynow/ 2

Source Control

17) Github:

GitHub allows developers to review code, manage projects, and build software. It offers right tool for different development jobs.

Features:

• Coordinate easily, stay aligned, and get done with GitHub’s project management tools
• Easy documentation alongside quality coding
• Allows all code in a single place
• Developers can host their documentation directly from repositories

Download link: https://github.com/

18) BitBucket:

Bitbucket is a version control tool. It facilitates easy collaboration amongst software development team. It integrates very well with JIRA, a famous project and issue-managing app.

Features:

• Branch permissions access to ensure that the only right people can make changes to the code
• Helps development team to focus on a goal, product or process by organizing repositories into projects
• It can display build results from CI system
• Integrate into existing workflow to streamline software development process

Download link: https://bitbucket.org/

19) Cloudforge:

CloudForge is a software-as-a-service product for application development. It Integrates and manages various development tools.

Features:

• Integrate and manage various development tools
• Elastically scale development teams, projects, and processes
• Deploy code to public and private clouds
• Deploy source-code with a single click using various protocols including FTP, SCP, SSH, and Rsync to run-time environment
• CloudForge Publisher allows deployment to multiple servers in parallel

Download link: https://app.cloudforge.com/trial_signup/new/

Prototyping

20) Axure:

Axure 2 provides the capability to produce wireframes, prototypes, and create documentation. This tool is used by business analysts, product managers, and IT consultants around the world.

Features:

• Axure RP generates prototype in HTML and provides link for sharing
• It allows multiple people to work on the same file at the same time
• It can runs on Microsoft IIS with a MySQL or Microsoft SQL Server database
• It helps to create and maintain widget libraries

Download link: https://www.axure.com/ 2

DevOps

21) Codenvy:

Codenvy automates applications or micro services to any number of servers. It fully automates deployments of text and binary files from any number of target servers.

Features:

• It allows managing environment-specific configuration parameters for your application
• It allows generating command-line installers to be used for deployments on any environment
• This software development tool eliminates the need for installation & configuration.
• It takes out many operational risks in the software development process
• The friendly web interface lets configure deployments efficiently and painlessly
• It supports a broad range operating systems including Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, etc.

Download link: https://codenvy.com/

Notifications

22) SendBird:

Sendbird  is used as a messaging and Chat API for Mobile Apps and Websites. It offers scalability for a massive audience. It also prevents spam flooding of chat rooms.

Features:

• Read and track the status of the messages sent to users
• Integrate bots to assist with customer support and product recommendations
• Offers Push Notifications & Callbacks
• Read Receipt & Delivery Status
• Automatically split or merge chat rooms on the audience volume to offer continues engagement

Download link: https://sendbird.com/ 1

UML

23) Enterprise Architect:

Enterprise Architect 6 is a requirement management tool. It integrates seamlessly with other development tools by creating requirements in the model.

Features:

• Allows to build robust and maintainable systems
• It loads extremely large models in seconds
• Collaborate effectively globally
• Offers complete traceability
• Improve business outcomes
• Model and manage complex Data effectively
• Supports Single click HTML and document generation
• Code execution to visual diagrams

Download link: http://www.sparxsystems.com/products/ea/ 6