The latest articles on DEV Community by Payload Playground (@payload_playground). https://dev.to/payload_playground https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F3967383%2F8caeb95a-8f72-46bc-918e-51cc0a5a78f0.jpg https://dev.to/payload_playground en Payload Playground Thu, 04 Jun 2026 03:34:43 +0000 https://dev.to/payload_playground/stop-pasting-payloads-into-random-websites-i-built-73-hacking-tools-that-never-phone-home-59i https://dev.to/payload_playground/stop-pasting-payloads-into-random-websites-i-built-73-hacking-tools-that-never-phone-home-59i <p>If you do any offensive security work, your browser history is a graveyard of single-purpose tools: a base64 site here, a JWT decoder there, a hash identifier on some ad-covered page that definitely logs everything you paste into it.</p> <p>That last part always bothered me. Half the "free online security tools" out there are a server-side <code>eval()</code> with a privacy policy. You paste a payload, a session token, a customer's data you're testing with — and you have no idea where it goes.</p> <p>So I built <strong><a href="https://payloadplayground.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">Payload Playground</a></strong>: 73 security tools and 35 payload generators that run <strong>100% in your browser</strong>. No backend processing. Open the network tab and watch — when you hash a string or decode a JWT, nothing leaves the page.</p> <h2> What's in it </h2> <p>A few things I reach for constantly:</p> <ul> <li> <strong>Cipher Decoder</strong> — auto-detects classical ciphers (Caesar brute force, Vigenère, ROT13/47, Atbash, Rail Fence, Bacon, Morse, A1Z26, XOR brute force). Built for CTF "what is this encoding" moments.</li> <li> <strong>Payload generators</strong> — XSS, SQLi, SSRF, SSTI, command injection, LFI, XXE, NoSQLi, deserialization, and more, with context options and WAF-bypass encodings.</li> <li> <strong>JWT decoder, hash toolkit (HMAC + comparison), encoder/decoder stack, regex tester, CSP evaluator, IP calculator, HTTP request parser</strong> — the boring-but-essential utilities, all in one tab.</li> <li> <strong>Recon helpers</strong> — certificate-transparency subdomain search, subdomain wordlist builder, dork generator.</li> </ul> <h2> The honest part </h2> <p>It's free — all 73 tools, no account needed. There's a Pro tier ($12/mo) for the AI features (a WAF-bypass payload mutator and an LLM security tester), which is how I keep the lights on, but the core toolkit is the product and it's free.</p> <p>I'd genuinely love feedback from people who do this daily: what's the one tool you keep a tab open for that I'm missing? What would make this your default?</p> <p>→ <strong><a href="https://payloadplayground.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">payloadplayground.com</a></strong></p> privacy security showdev tooling