To be the best developer you can be, you need access to the best tools. Your programming language of preference will obviously influence the IDE, package manager, and the compiler that you can use, however, there are a number of universal dev tasks that are common to every developer in the world.

Instead of being forced into using lots of different tools to handle these universal tasks, picking a single tool that can do lots of things will make your life easier. If this sounds interesting to you, then this is where Dev Tools and True Devtools enter the conversation. These two tools can be compared to the swiss-army knife of the development tool world. Each tool contains over 28+ individual tools and the good news is that both of these tools are free, so the big question is which one should you use? Read on to find out 🔥🔥🔥

The first thing that you might be curious about is the exact definition of a dev tool? In terms of functionality, the below lists the types of services that you can expect to find within both tools:

  • Html/CSS/JS Tools
  • Text Tools
  • JSON Tools
  • Image Tools
  • Utilities

Hopefully we can agree that all developers will need to perform one of these types of tasks on a pretty much weekly basis and having a single tool that can do most of these tasks will make you more productive. For the tools being reviewed today the specific features that they offer are shown below:

| Feature | DevToys | True DevTools | |---------------------------------|:-------:|:-------------:| | Backslash Escape / Unescape | | ✔️ | | Base64 Encoder / Decoder | ✔️ | ✔️ | | Base64 Image Encoder / Decoder | ✔️ | ✔️ | | Bcrypt Hash Generator & Checker | | ✔️ | | Checksum Generator | ✔️ | | | Color Blindness Simulator | ✔️ | | | Color Converter | ✔️ | ✔️ | | Cron Expression Parser | ✔️ | ✔️ | | CSS Formatter | | ✔️ | | CSS Minifier | | ✔️ | | Digital Certificate Decoder | ✔️ | ✔️ | | GZip Compressor/Decompress | ✔️ | | | Hash Generator | ✔️ | ✔️ | | Hex to Unicode Converter | | ✔️ | | HTML Entity Encoder / Decoder | ✔️ | ✔️ | | HTML Formatter | | ✔️ | | HTML Minifier | | ✔️ | | HTML Viewer | | ✔️ | | Image Format Converter | ✔️ | ✔️ | | Image Resizer | | ✔️ | | JavaScript Formatter | | ✔️ | | JavaScript Minifier | | ✔️ | | JPEG / WEBP Compressor | ✔️ | ✔️ | | JPG to PNG Converter | ✔️ | ✔️ | | JSON Formatter | ✔️ | ✔️ | | JSON Minifier | | ✔️ | | JSON to XML Converter | | ✔️ | | JSON to YAML Converter | ✔️ | ✔️ | | JWT Decoder | ✔️ | ✔️ | | List Sorter / Randomizer | | ✔️ | | Lorem Ipsum Generator | ✔️ | ✔️ | | Markdown Preview | ✔️ | ✔️ | | Number Base Converter | ✔️ | ✔️ | | Password Generator | ✔️ | | | PNG to JPG Converter | ✔️ | ✔️ | | Random String Generator | | ✔️ | | Regex Tester | ✔️ | ✔️ | | SQL Formatter | ✔️ | ✔️ | | Text Case Converter | ✔️ | ✔️ | | Text Diff Checker | ✔️ | ✔️ | | Unicode to Hex Converter | ✔️ | ✔️ | | Unix Timestamp Parser | | ✔️ | | URL Encoder / Decoder | ✔️ | ✔️ | | URL Parser | | ✔️ | | UUID Generator | ✔️ | ✔️ | | Word Counter | | ✔️ | | XML Formatter | ✔️ | ✔️ | | XML Minifier | | ✔️ | | XML Validator | ✔️ | | | XML to JSON Converter | | ✔️ | | YAML to JSON Converter | | ✔️ |

As you can see the new kid on the block ships with more services, but is it better?

True Dev Tools

True Dev Tools is a free online SASS tool released in May 2024. From my perspective, True Dev Tools feels like it copies upon the brilliant DevToys as it came second and it offers many of the same features.

When Dev Toys first released its moniker was that its the worlds first Swiss-army knife of development. Released in Sep 2021, it was launched as a Windows only tool that came with 28 pre-built dev tools.

True Dev Tools boasts 45+ carefully hand-picked tools that are useful for development. The big difference between True DevTools and DevToys is that True DevTools does not need an installer and you can access it via a browser. As it can be used on both Windows and Mac, this is a big tick for any pure MAC users. All you need to do is bookmark the website and off you go!

Some of my personal favourite tools that ship with True DevTools are JavaScript Formatter, Regex Tester, Lorem Ipsum Generator, Random String Generator, JSON Formatter, Base64 Encoder / Decoder, Image Resizer, Image Format Converter, and a UUID Generator. Another features that I personally love is the option to switch to a dark mode theme, as I hate a plain white background!

DevToys

DevToys is free as well as an open source project. As mentioned the difference with DevToys is that you need to install it and its Windows only. Size-wise its very reasonable and only takes up about (130mb of space).

My personal favourite tools that come with DevToys include the colour blindness simulator, password generator, and it also has an easier to use image convertor.

In terms of looks, in my opinion DevToys provides a much slicker experience. It looks more modern and the UX is a little easier to use. The trade-off is fewer tools with less capabilities compared to True DevTools!

Truedevtools Vs Devtoys

I've been using DevToys for several years, however, in general my preference is towards browser based tools. If you work with sensitive data, the good thing about DevToys is that you do not need to copy and paste potentially sensitive data over the web and onto an external website. Even though from my understanding True DevTools does not store data, your companies security team would probably frown if they found out what you were doing!

Both tools are free to download and both are better alternatives compared to finding a random site on Google whenever you need to perform one of these dev-tasks. Bookmarking one site is a lot easier than bookmarking 30 after all!

Personally, I'll be using True DevTools as my go to tool moving forward. As I work between several computers on a weekly basis including a Windows PC, two Windows Laptops, as well as a MAC, an online tool available via my shared bookmarks makes my life easier!

My only other final comment is that you won't be upset by picking either option! Happy Coding 🤘