I built a free online toolbox with 80+ dev and productivity tools — here's what's inside

wells tang — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:46:05 +0000

The Problem

I had 15+ browser bookmarks for small dev tools. JSON formatter here, Base64
encoder there, regex tester on some random site with 5 popups. Every time I
needed to convert a timestamp or decode a JWT, I was either searching Google
again or navigating to a site I half-remembered.

So I built WorkTool — a single, clean toolbox with 80+ tools. Here's what's inside.

Developer Tools (15 tools)

These are the ones I use most. All run client-side with zero file uploads:

JSON Tools

JSON Formatter: Format, compress, validate JSON with syntax highlighting (Monaco editor)
JSON Diff: Compare two JSON objects and highlight differences — great for API debugging

Encoding / Decoding

Base64: Encode/decode text and files
URL Encoder: encodeURIComponent / decodeURIComponent in a clean UI
JWT Decoder: Parse header and payload, check expiration at a glance

Regex & Patterns

Regex Tester: Real-time match highlighting with flag support (g, i, m, s)
Cron Parser: Explain cron expressions in plain English — e.g. 0 9 * * 1-5 → "At 09:00 AM, Monday through Friday"

Conversion

Timestamp Converter: Unix ↔ human-readable, with timezone support
Color Converter: HEX ↔ RGB ↔ HSL with live preview
Number Base Converter: Binary, octal, decimal, hex

Generators

UUID Generator: v1/v4, single or batch
Hash Generator: MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA512

Reference

HTTP Status Codes: Full reference with descriptions
SQL Formatter: Format SQL with dialect support
Markdown Preview: Live render with GFM support

Image Tools (12 tools)

Privacy-first: client-side tools never upload files.

Compress: Uses browser-image-compression — no server upload
Format Convert: JPG/PNG ↔ WebP via Canvas API
Crop: Interactive crop with aspect ratio lock
Resize: Set exact dimensions or percentage
Remove Background: AI-powered (server-side, deleted after 1h)
Watermark: Text or image watermark via Canvas
Image to Base64: FileReader API, instant
EXIF Viewer: Read camera metadata with exifr
Color Picker: Extract dominant colors from image
GIF Maker: Combine images into animated GIF
Image Diff: Visual comparison of two images
SVG Optimizer: SVGO via WebAssembly

AI Tools (10 tools, DeepSeek API)

All use streaming output (SSE), so results start appearing immediately:

Text rewriter
Article summarizer
Grammar checker
AI translator
Weekly report generator (give bullet points → get formatted report)
Code explainer (paste code → get line-by-line explanation)
Title generator
Resume polisher
Prompt builder
Mind map generator (outputs Markdown outline)

Free users: 3 AI requests/day. Pro: 200/day.

Data Conversion (10 tools)

CSV ↔ JSON (PapaParse)
JSON ↔ Excel (SheetJS)
XML ↔ JSON (fast-xml-parser)
Markdown → HTML (marked.js)
Unit converter (static conversion tables)
Live currency converter (rates updated daily, cached in Redis)
Byte converter
Random data generator (faker-js, lazy-loaded)
HTML table generator
SQL → JSON

Productivity Tools (12 tools)

QR code generator (custom colors, download PNG/SVG)
Password generator (configurable length and charset)
Word counter
Pomodoro timer (Web Worker, works in background tab)
Lorem Ipsum generator
Remove duplicate lines
Chinese Pinyin converter (pinyin-pro)
Barcode generator (JsBarcode)
Meeting countdown timer
Invoice builder (HTML → PDF export)
Color contrast checker (WCAG algorithm)
Whiteboard (simple Canvas)

Document Tools (10 tools)

PDF merge (pdf-lib, client-side)
PDF compress (server-side API)
PDF → Word (server-side API)
Word → PDF (server-side API)
PDF → Image (PDF.js)
Image → PDF (pdf-lib)
PDF split (pdf-lib)
PDF OCR (server-side)
PDF protect (pdf-lib)
Excel → CSV (SheetJS)

Tech Stack

Framework:    Next.js 14 (App Router) + TypeScript
Styling:      Tailwind CSS + shadcn/ui
Database:     Neon (Postgres) + Drizzle ORM
Cache:        Upstash Redis (rate limiting, quota counting)
AI:           DeepSeek API (streaming via SSE)
Auth:         Auth.js v5 (email magic link)
Payment:      XorPay (CNY) + Creem (international)
Deploy:       Vercel

Privacy Design

This was important to me:

Client-side tools (JSON formatter, Base64, image compress, etc.): nothing ever leaves the browser
Server-side tools (PDF conversion, AI, remove background): files auto-deleted 1 hour after processing
No file history: we don't store what you processed

What's Free vs Pro

Free: all tools available, 50 tool uses/day, 3 AI requests/day, 5MB file limit

Pro ($2.50/month): unlimited tool use, 200 AI requests/day, 100MB file limit,
batch processing, 30-day usage history

Check It Out

→ worktool.app: https://worktool.app?utm_source=devto&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=launch

Would love to hear what tools are missing from your workflow. What's the one
browser-bookmark dev tool you use every week?

Built this as a side project. Happy to answer questions about any part of the implementation.

DEV Community: wells tang