Joseph Abu

Posted on Aug 10

I Built 131 Free Developer, PDF, Image, Calculator & Productivity Tools — No Sign-Up Required

#freetools #devops #design #webdev

There is a strange pattern on the internet.

You need to do something simple.

Format some JSON.

Compress an image.

Convert a Unix timestamp.

Generate a UUID.

Merge two PDFs.

Create a QR code.

Calculate a percentage.

Remove the background from an image.

Convert a video.

So you search Google, click a website, and before you can actually use the tool, you're asked to create an account, accept a subscription, upload your file, or wait through an aggressive advertising experience.

For something that should take 30 seconds.

As a developer, I kept running into this problem.

So I decided to build a different kind of tool collection.

Storkim Free Tools is now a collection of 131 browser-based tools covering everything from developer utilities and PDF manipulation to image processing, calculators, SEO, career tools, audio and video utilities, and everyday productivity.

And the basic idea is simple:

Open a tool. Use it. Get your result. Leave.

No account required.

No subscription.

No artificial usage limits.

And for tools that process your data, the goal is to keep that processing in your browser whenever possible.

You can explore the collection here:

https://storkim.com/tools

Why build another collection of online tools?

The internet already has thousands of online utilities.

So the obvious question is:

Why build another one?

Because convenience has gradually become complicated.

A developer shouldn't need to register for an account just to decode Base64.

A student shouldn't need a subscription to count words.

A designer shouldn't have to upload an image to an unknown server just to resize it.

A business owner shouldn't need expensive software to create a simple invoice.

And someone who needs to merge two PDFs shouldn't have to start a free trial to accomplish it.

Many of these tasks are technically simple enough to perform directly in the browser.

That became one of the principles behind Storkim Free Tools:

If a simple task can be done quickly and privately in the browser, why make people create an account first?

1. Developer tools

This is probably the category closest to my own day-to-day workflow as a developer.

There are currently tools for things like:

JSON formatting and validation
Base64 encoding and decoding
URL encoding and decoding
SHA hash generation
UUID generation
Slug generation
Color conversion
Unix timestamp conversion
Regex testing
CSV ↔ JSON conversion
JWT decoding
Cron expression translation
CSS gradient generation
Dummy data generation
HTTP status code lookup
User-agent parsing
.gitignore generation
Open-source license generation
Number-base conversion
JSON diffing
HTML entity encoding/decoding
CSS and JavaScript minification
Image-to-Base64 conversion

The idea isn't to replace an IDE or a serious developer workflow.

It's to eliminate the tiny interruptions.

You know those moments when you're working on something and think:

"I just need to quickly decode this."

Or:

"What's this timestamp?"

Or:

"I need a UUID."

Or:

"Why isn't this JSON valid?"

Opening another tab and doing it immediately is often faster than installing another package, opening another application, or writing a quick script.

2. PDF tools without the usual friction

PDF utilities are another category where simple tasks have become surprisingly annoying.

Storkim includes tools for:

Merging PDFs
Splitting and extracting PDF pages
Converting images to PDF
Adding signatures
Generating signatures
Extracting PDF text
Rotating PDF pages
Adding page numbers
Converting PDF pages to images
OCR/image-to-text
Adding PDF watermarks
Compressing PDFs

This is particularly useful when you're dealing with documents on a laptop or phone and don't want to install a desktop application for a one-time task.

Need to combine three documents?

Merge them.

Need pages 2, 4 and 7 from a PDF?

Extract them.

Need to reduce a PDF before emailing it?

Compress it.

Need to turn photos into one document?

Convert them to PDF.

The goal is to make these tasks feel like utilities rather than software products you have to "subscribe to."

3. Image tools

Images create another category of repetitive tasks.

Storkim includes tools for:

Removing backgrounds
Compressing images
Resizing images
Cropping images
Converting JPG, PNG and WebP
Adding watermarks
Creating memes
Generating favicons
Extracting color palettes
Removing EXIF metadata
Creating photo collages
Exact-dimension resizing
Rotating and flipping images
Passport/ID photo creation
Compressing images to a target file size
Social-media image resizing
Batch image compression and resizing

One of my favorite use cases is the target-size compressor.

Sometimes you don't just need an image to be "smaller."

You need:

"Make this image less than 200 KB."

That's a very different requirement.

Likewise, social platforms often require specific image dimensions, and websites frequently have upload limits.

Having small utilities for these problems can save a surprising amount of time.

4. Calculators for everyday decisions

Not everything needs to be a developer utility.

There are calculators for:

Age
BMI
Percentages and discounts
Units
Splitting bills
Loans and mortgages
Dates
Currency conversion
Public holidays
Tips
Compound interest
Fuel costs
Calorie/BMR/TDEE estimates
Body-fat percentage
Pregnancy due dates
Business break-even calculations

The business tools are particularly useful.

For example, a seller shouldn't have to guess whether a product is actually profitable after accounting for shipping, fees and other costs.

That's why there's also a Reseller Profit Calculator designed around that problem.

5. Tools for sellers and small businesses

This is where the project starts connecting with the larger Storkim ecosystem.

Storkim isn't only a collection of developer utilities.

The platform is built around helping people buy, sell and promote products and services online.

So we added tools specifically for sellers:

Reseller Profit Calculator
Shipping Label / Packing Slip Generator
SKU / Product Code Generator
Invoice & Receipt Generator
Return & Refund Policy Generator

For someone running a small online business, these are the kinds of tools that don't necessarily justify paying for another SaaS subscription.

You just need to get the job done.

6. SEO and blogging tools

If you've ever built a website, you know that publishing content is only part of the job.

You also need to think about:

Meta tags
Search previews
Keyword usage
Readability
Headlines
Social previews
Robots.txt
XML sitemaps
Hashtags
Social character limits

So Storkim includes tools such as:

Keyword Density Checker
Readability Score Checker
Blog Title Generator
Social Share Preview Generator
Robots.txt Generator
XML Sitemap Generator
Hashtag Formatter
Social Media Character Limit Checker
Markdown Live Preview
Meta Tag & Google Preview Generator

They're intended to make the repetitive parts of publishing a little easier.

7. Job and career tools

Another category we wanted to make accessible is career development.

There are tools for:

Building a CV/resume
Generating cover letters
Writing resignation letters
Converting salaries
Tracking job applications
Practicing interview questions

For someone applying to dozens of jobs, a job application tracker can be much more useful than another productivity app that requires a monthly subscription.

8. Audio and video tools

The collection also goes beyond documents and text.

There are browser-based tools for:

Extracting video frames
Recording your screen
Recording audio and webcam
Trimming audio
Merging audio
Metronome practice
BPM/tap tempo
Generating waveform images
Normalizing audio volume
Creating GIFs from images
Converting audio formats
Trimming videos
Converting video formats
Compressing videos
Converting video to GIF
Extracting audio from video
Joining video clips

Again, the philosophy is simple:

If you need a quick utility, you shouldn't necessarily need a full editing suite.

The interesting technical part: the browser

One of the things I care about most with this project is where processing happens.

For many of these tools, there's no reason the user's data needs to travel to a server.

If you're calculating a percentage, why send the number to a backend?

If you're formatting JSON, why upload it?

If you're converting a simple image, why should an unknown server necessarily receive the original file?

For appropriate tools, Storkim uses browser-based processing so the work can happen locally on the user's device.

The tools page explicitly states that calculations and conversions run in the browser and that uploaded data isn't sent away from the device for these tools.

That architecture has another benefit:

Less server-side processing.

Instead of building a backend endpoint for every tiny operation, the browser can perform many of the computations itself.

It's a useful reminder that modern browsers are much more capable than we sometimes give them credit for.

131 tools is not the finish line

The number isn't actually the most important part.

131 sounds impressive, but a directory with hundreds of mediocre tools isn't particularly useful.

The real goal is to build utilities that solve specific problems quickly.

A good tool should answer a very simple question:

"Can I accomplish what I came here to do without fighting the interface?"

That's the standard we're aiming for.

And there are still plenty of tools I'd like to add.

More developer utilities.

Why is everything free?

This is probably the question that comes next.

The tools are part of Storkim, a broader platform for buying, selling and promoting products and services.

The tools aren't designed around forcing users into a paid subscription.

They're intended to be useful on their own.

Someone might arrive at Storkim because they need to compress an image.

Another person might need to format JSON.

Someone else might need an invoice.

Another person might need a CV.

They can use the tool without creating an account.

And if they find the rest of Storkim useful, they can explore the platform.

That creates a much more natural relationship than putting a payment wall in front of a simple utility.

What I'm hoping developers will do

If you're a developer, designer, student, freelancer, business owner, or just someone who regularly needs small online utilities, I'd genuinely like you to try the tools.

Don't just tell me that the collection looks good.

Break it.

Try weird inputs.

Paste malformed JSON.

Upload unusual images.

Try large files.

Test edge cases.

See where the UX gets confusing.

Tell me which tools are missing.

Tell me which ones are unnecessary.

Tell me what you'd build differently.

That's how the collection gets better.

A small project can solve a surprisingly large number of problems

One thing I've learned from building this is that software doesn't always have to be complicated to be useful.

Sometimes the best product is a tiny utility that does one thing extremely well.

A developer needs a UUID.

A student needs a word count.

A designer needs to resize an image.

A seller needs an invoice.

A marketer needs a social preview.

A job seeker needs a CV.

A musician needs a metronome.

A business owner needs to calculate their break-even point.

None of these problems individually sounds revolutionary.

But people encounter them every day.

That's why I built Storkim Free Tools as a growing collection of small, focused utilities rather than one giant application trying to do everything.

131 tools. One place. No sign-up required.

If you want to explore them:

👉 https://storkim.com/tools

I'd love to hear what tool you use first — and, more importantly, what tool you think should be next.

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