DEV Community: Muhammad Tayyab

I Built a Free Code Sharing Tool Because Pastebin Has Too Many Ads

Muhammad Tayyab — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 17:03:28 +0000

Every developer shares code snippets. Daily.

During code reviews, pair programming, debugging sessions, Slack conversations, Stack Overflow questions — we're constantly copying and pasting code between places.

And yet the tools we have for this are either:

GitHub Gist — great, but requires login. Too much friction for a 15-line snippet you'll forget about tomorrow.
Pastebin — been around forever, but the ads have gotten unbearable. Also no real syntax highlighting.
Hastebin — was perfect. Minimalist, fast. But it's been unreliable lately.
Pasting into Slack/Discord — formatting gets destroyed. Anything over 10 lines becomes unreadable.

So I built my own: Code Share on DevPik

What It Does

Exactly what you'd expect, nothing more:

Paste your code
Pick a language (20+ supported)
Optionally add a title and expiry time
Click "Share Code"
Get a short URL — send it to anyone

That's it. The person who opens the link sees your code with syntax highlighting, a copy button, and the language badge. No login wall. No ads. No cookie banners.

The Expiry Feature

This is the one thing I wanted that most paste tools don't offer well. Not every snippet needs to live forever.

You can set expiry to:

1 hour — for "hey look at this real quick" moments
24 hours — for code review discussions that'll be done by tomorrow
7 days — for sprint-length collaboration
30 days — for longer projects
Never — for permanent reference snippets

Expired links return a clean 404 instead of stale code floating around forever.

How I Built It

Frontend: Next.js (App Router) + TypeScript + Tailwind CSS

Backend: Supabase (PostgreSQL)

How it works:

When you click "Share Code", the frontend sends a POST request to a Next.js API route. The route generates a random 8-character alphanumeric short code, inserts the snippet into a pastes table in Supabase, and returns the shareable URL.

When someone opens a shared link (devpik.com/p/abc12345), a server component fetches the paste by short code, checks if it's expired, increments the view count, and renders the code with syntax highlighting.

The database schema is simple:

CREATE TABLE pastes (
  id UUID DEFAULT gen_random_uuid() PRIMARY KEY,
  short_code TEXT UNIQUE NOT NULL,
  title TEXT DEFAULT 'Untitled',
  content TEXT NOT NULL,
  language TEXT DEFAULT 'plaintext',
  view_count INTEGER DEFAULT 0,
  expires_at TIMESTAMPTZ,
  created_at TIMESTAMPTZ DEFAULT now()
);

Row Level Security is enabled — anyone can insert and read pastes, but nobody can update or delete them (except through the admin dashboard).

Supported Languages

JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, HTML, CSS, JSON, SQL, Bash, Go, Rust, Java, C, C++, PHP, Ruby, Swift, Kotlin, YAML, XML, Markdown, and Plaintext.

Syntax highlighting is handled client-side so the code never needs to be processed by any external service.

What I'd Like to Add Next

A few things I'm considering:

Password-protected snippets — for sharing sensitive code privately
Fork/edit — click a button to create a new snippet based on an existing one
Raw text endpoint — devpik.com/p/abc12345/raw for piping into curl
CLI tool — cat file.js | dpk to create a paste from terminal

Try It

👉 devpik.com/developer-tools/code-share

No login. No ads. No tracking. Just paste code, get a link.

If you share code snippets regularly, give it a try and let me know what's missing. I'm building this based on what developers actually need, so feedback goes directly into the next update.

I'm Tayyab — I build free developer tools at devpik.com. This is one of 24 tools on the site, all free, most running 100% in the browser. Follow me for more.

I Built 24+ Free Developer Tools That Run in Your Browser — Here's the Full Stack

Muhammad Tayyab — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 08:14:02 +0000

I got tired of jumping between 10 different websites every time I needed to format JSON, encode Base64, test a regex, or check DNS records.

So I built DevPik — a collection of 24+ free developer tools, all in one place. No signups, no ads, no data leaving your browser.

Here's what I built, how I built it, and what I learned.

What's Inside

Text Tools (9)

Word Counter — words, characters, sentences, paragraphs
Case Converter — uppercase, lowercase, title case, camelCase, snake_case
Text Diff — compare two texts side by side
Slug Generator — SEO-friendly URL slugs from any text
Markdown Converter — markdown to clean HTML
Lorem Ipsum Generator — placeholder text for designs
Text Repeater — repeat any text N times
Text to HTML — plain text to formatted HTML
Unicode Text Converter — fancy fonts for social media bios

Developer Tools (12)

JSON Formatter — format, validate, beautify with tree view
Regex Tester — real-time match highlighting, capture groups, cheat sheet
Base64 Encoder/Decoder
URL Encoder/Decoder
UUID Generator
JWT Decoder — decode tokens, inspect headers and payloads
HTML Minifier
Color Converter — HEX, RGB, HSL, CMYK with visual picker
Unit Converter — length, weight, temperature, data, speed, time
Mermaid Converter — mermaid code to PNG/SVG
Code Share — share code snippets with shareable links
URL Shortener — shorten URLs with QR codes

Network Tools (3)

Internet Speed Test — download, upload, ping
IP Address Checker — IP, location, ISP details
DNS Lookup — query A, AAAA, MX, TXT, NS, SOA records

The Tech Stack

Here's exactly what powers DevPik:

Frontend: Next.js (App Router) + TypeScript + Tailwind CSS

Backend: Supabase (PostgreSQL + Auth + Storage)

Hosting: Vercel

Architecture:

Most tools run 100% client-side — your data never leaves the browser
Two tools (Code Share & URL Shortener) use Supabase for storage since they need to generate shareable links
DNS Lookup uses a Next.js API route as a proxy to Google's DNS-over-HTTPS API (browsers block direct calls due to CORS)
Blog content is managed through Supabase with a custom admin dashboard
Newsletter subscribers, contact form submissions, tool feedback, and anonymous usage analytics all flow into Supabase

Why I Built This

Every developer has this workflow:

Need to format some JSON → google "json formatter online"
Land on a site with 3 popup ads and a cookie banner
Paste your API response containing sensitive data
Hope the site isn't logging everything to their server
Repeat for Base64, regex, JWT, DNS...

I wanted one clean site where:

No data leaves the browser (for client-side tools)
No signups required
No ads anywhere
Fast — tools respond in milliseconds, not seconds
Everything is in one place

A Few Things I Learned Building This

1. Client-side processing is a real competitive advantage

When I tell developers their data doesn't touch a server, they actually care. Especially when pasting JWT tokens, API keys, or production JSON. The privacy angle isn't just marketing — it's a genuine feature.

2. Supabase's free tier is incredibly generous

I'm running a blog CMS, newsletter system, contact forms, anonymous analytics, a paste bin (Code Share), and a URL shortener — all on the free tier. PostgreSQL + Row Level Security + Storage + Auth in one place made this possible as a solo project.

3. Google's DNS-over-HTTPS API blocks browser requests

I tried calling dns.google/resolve directly from the client. CORS said no. The fix was a simple Next.js API route that proxies the request server-side. Took 20 minutes but saved the entire tool.

4. SEO for tool pages needs more than just the tool

A page with just a JSON formatter widget won't rank. Each tool page needs: a descriptive H1, a "How to Use" section, an "About" paragraph, an FAQ with structured data, and links to related tools. It's more content work than code work.

5. Build the tools people actually search for

I prioritized tools based on search volume, not what I thought was cool. JSON Formatter, Regex Tester, Base64 Encoder, Word Counter — these are the workhorses that bring in traffic. Niche tools are nice, but the basics are what people actually need daily.

What's Next

More tools: Hash Generator, CSS/JS Minifier, Cron Parser, Timestamp Converter, QR Code Generator
More blog content supporting each tool (each post = a new keyword entry point)
Possibly a public API so developers can use these tools programmatically

Try It Out

👉 devpik.com

Everything is free. No signup. No ads. Just tools.

If you find it useful, I'd love to hear which tool you use the most — or which tool you wish existed. Drop a comment below.

I'm Muhammad Tayyab, a full stack developer from Pakistan building DevPik. I write about developer tools, Next.js, and building in public. Follow me here to see what I ship next.