Developers Should Build More Small Tools

Julien Huff — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 21:35:53 +0000

There is a lot of pressure in software to build something big. A full platform. A subscription product. An AI assistant. Something with accounts, dashboards, integrations, billing, team features, and a long roadmap. Sometimes that makes sense, but I think it also causes developers to overlook a simpler kind of project: a small tool that solves one annoying problem well. Not every useful idea needs to become a startup. Sometimes it just needs to save someone a few minutes.

Small problems are still worth solving

A lot of the tools people use every day are incredibly simple. A time zone converter helps someone schedule a meeting. A text formatter cleans up a block of content. A name generator helps when someone is stuck. A calculator saves them from looking up a formula. None of these ideas sound groundbreaking, but that is part of the point.

Developers sometimes ignore small problems because they do not seem technically impressive. The person using the tool does not care how complicated the code is, though. They care whether it works. A simple utility that gives someone an answer right away can be more useful than a large product that requires an account, onboarding, and ten minutes of setup.

Not everything needs AI

AI is useful, but it has also become the default label for almost every new software product. A lot of tools now lead with AI before they even explain what the tool actually does. In some cases, that makes the product feel more complicated instead of more useful.

I have started thinking about the task first. Does this problem actually need AI? Would a basic formula, converter, template, or browser-based script do the job better? Can the user get what they need without sending data to a server? Sometimes AI is the right answer. Sometimes it is not. The technology should support the tool. It should not be the entire reason the tool exists.

Small tools are easier to finish

One of the best things about building a focused tool is that the scope is easier to manage. You can define the input, the output, and the few options that actually matter. There is less temptation to keep adding features before the project is useful, and it becomes much easier to know when the first version is ready to publish.

Smaller tools also make it easier to learn from real users. You can release an early version, see how people interact with it, and improve what matters instead of spending months building a large product around assumptions. Finishing small projects also teaches skills that tutorials usually skip over, such as making the interface obvious, handling bad inputs, explaining what the tool does, making it usable on a phone, keeping it fast, and deciding which features are unnecessary. Those lessons carry over into bigger projects later.

A useful site can grow one tool at a time

One small tool may not turn into much on its own, but a group of related tools can slowly become something people return to. That is the direction I am taking with BitFern, a collection of free online tools, generators, and converters.

I am not trying to force every tool into the same category. Some may use AI when it genuinely helps, while others may be simple browser-based utilities. The main question is whether the tool helps someone complete a specific task. Lately, I have been focusing more on practical productivity tools instead of trying to make everything look like an AI product. That has made it easier to judge ideas. Instead of asking whether something sounds impressive, I can ask whether someone would actually use it.

Small does not mean low quality

A small tool can still be bad. It can be slow, confusing, inaccurate, cluttered, or full of distractions. In some ways, users have even less patience with simple tools because they expect them to work immediately.

A useful tool should have a clear purpose, very little setup, an obvious input and output, helpful error messages, fast performance, and a layout that works on mobile. It should also give first-time users enough explanation to understand what to do without filling the page with unnecessary text. Just as importantly, it should be honest about what it cannot do. A tool does not need to solve every version of a problem. Doing one thing reliably is enough.

Small tools make sense for solo developers

Large software projects usually require more time, money, support, and maintenance than one person expects. Small tools are easier to manage. A solo developer can build, test, launch, and maintain them without immediately needing a team. The cost of experimenting is also lower, so when an idea does not work, it is easier to learn from it and move on.

That does not mean every tool will find an audience. Most probably will not. But building smaller projects gives you more chances to discover which problems people actually care about. It also lowers the risk of spending six months on one large product that nobody uses.

Start with something annoying

A good tool idea often starts with a small frustration. Look for tasks where people repeatedly copy information between websites, calculate the same values, reformat text by hand, search for the same kind of template, use a spreadsheet for one quick task, or open a large app for something simple.

Those little annoyances can turn into useful tools. The first version does not need every possible feature. It only needs to remove enough friction to be worth using. In many cases, the best starting point is not asking what would be exciting to build, but what people are tired of doing manually.

Useful is enough

Developers are often encouraged to build ambitious products, and there is nothing wrong with that. But ambition does not always mean building something larger. It can also mean making a small tool reliable enough that people actually come back to it.

A converter, generator, formatter, or calculator may not look impressive in a launch post. But if it saves someone time, it has done something useful. That is a strong enough reason to build it.

DEV Community: Julien Huff