Ultimate Power tools for .NET Developers [2021]

Introduction

Hi Readers!

In this article, I want to share with you some hand-picked powerful tools to make development work more effective. I use most of them all the time on a daily basis.

In the following article, I will just focus on the basic overview, because some tools are very complex and the list of features changes frequently. The companies work really hard to make their products better and better, so it's hard to keep up to date 😀.

You may not be involved in programming, but it is quite possible that you can find something for yourself here anyway.

Hopefully, you can also save some time ⏱️ and make your daily tasks quicker.

 If you’re ready, let’s jump in.

IDE

• Visual Studio - Word class IDE, my primary .NET Development platform (Code editing, debugging, testing, IntelliSense, Deployment), has a lot of powerful extensions and works really well with Resharper.
• Visual Studio Code - great and light code editor developed by Microsoft supporting debugging, git integration, IntelliSense, and many more). It's highly customizable and has a lot of awesome extensions.

Modeling

• Structurizr - a collection of tooling to create software architecture diagrams and documentation.
• Draw.io - Powerful open-source tool for building diagramming applications - all you need is a web browser. it is a very popular tool and you can quickly design a professional diagram. Works well with Confluence and has a nice UX.
• Archimate - open and independent modeling language for enterprise architecture. Supports describing business processes, organizational structures, information flows, IT systems, and technical infrastructure.
• Pencil Project - free standalone tool for UI design and basic modeling
• WebSequenceDiagrams - Web tool for diagrams

Online tools

• Regexr - perfect place to learn, build, & test Regular Expressions.
• JsonViewer - the tool supports many operations on JSON strings like validation, beautification, conversions to various formats, visualization, formatting.
• Text to ASCII art converter - A simple browser-based utility that converts text to ASCII art.

Testing

• BrowserStack - a powerful platform for testing websites and mobile applications across on-demand browsers, operating systems, and real mobile devices. It's cloud-based, so you don't have to install anything. It's not cheap but it has been useful to me many times.
• Postman - application for testing API (request-response) with user-friendly GUI. You can store your requests in the cloud and group them into folders.
• LINQPad - portable tool for making isolated tests / quick code snippets without opening Visual Studio. Supports SQL/Linq queries against the database and more. Check great discussion here

Git Clients

• Sourcetree - A free Git client for Windows and Mac, is enough in most cases (doesn’t support Linux). Sourcetree with clear UI can visualize and manage your repositories through simple GUI.
• GitKraken - Git client with GUI for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Has a cool interface - you can find more information here.

Files

• Putty - is an open-source SSH client used to connect to a remote server. It supports several network protocols, including SCP, SSH, Telnet, rlogin, and raw socket connection. Putty was originally written for Microsoft Windows, but it has been ported to various other operating systems.
• FileZilla - is free software, cross-platform FTP application, consisting of FileZilla Client and FileZilla Server, can be used on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
• Total Commander - well-known file manager for Windows, supports many files, folders operations, you can find a full list of features here.
• Code Compare - Nice and simple tool for comparing/merging files and folders with user-friendly GUI. It is available as both a standalone app and a visual studio extension.
• File Samples - file samples to use for testing purposes.

Project Management

• ASANA - my favorite tool to manage my daily tasks - it has a task-oriented approach and offers good workflow functionality. If you want to get more out of your asana and stay up to date with new features - I can fully recommend Paul Minors' youtube channel.
• Trello - is a card-based task/project management tool that can be used for projects/team collaboration. Trello is more straightforward and easy to get started with, but Asana has more features. 
• Jira - Great platform for software teams to manage projects and collaboration, has many advanced features and powerful integrations.

Collaboration

• Slack - a channel-based messaging platform, it's easy to connect external tools and services.
• Miro - The online collaborative whiteboard platform
• Screen to GIF - free screen, webcam, and sketchboard recorder with an integrated editor. It's portable, single executable, and has a nice UI.
• We transfer - file transfer service, it can handle big files and it's fast.
• Screenpresso - a free program that allows you to capture the screen, to obtain accurate and detailed screenshots/videos. The commercial version with extra features is it's worth every cent.
• Loom - great free screencasting tool
• Skype
• Zoom 

Productivity

• Resharper - top refactoring and productivity extension by Jetbrains for faster coding and testing. Watch out - can sometimes slow your IDE 🙂.
• Text Expander - tool allows you to create snippets of text and code and place them within your content using shortcodes. Supports Windows, Mac, and iOS.

Network

• TCPView - Windows GUI tool allowing you to monitor TCP and UDP endpoints - without using -netstat command.
• Fiddler - inspects all HTTP Traffic that is incoming or outgoing data.

Password Managers

• Dashline - world-class password manager.

Others worth mentioning

• CCleaner is a freeware Windows utility for optimization and cleaning your PC. You can easily speed up your station, remove temporary files, fix your system registry, and many more issues. It has a simple and user-friendly interface. I didn't check the Pro version yet.
• ILSpy - open-source .NET assembly browser and decompiler
• Process Explorer provides good insights into Windows processes.
• NoSQL Booster for MongoDB - GUI tool for querying MongoDB with SQL, provides IntelliSense and a lot of snippets
• Remote Desktop Connection Manager by Microsoft - a simple and powerful app with GUI which allows you to easily manage remote desktops.
• Kitematic - GUI for Docker
• BuiltWith - Find out what websites are built with

Wrapping up

The above set of tools is not complete for sure and I will try to update the list from time to time.

Do you have something to add?

Please feel free to let me know about your favorite tools in the comment section below.

I would love to check them out.

Best, Piotr