Stop for a second. How many tabs do you have open right now?
Go ahead. Count them.
If you're a developer mid-debugging session, I'm willing to bet at least three of those tabs are some flavour of "free online tool." A Base64 decoder. Probably jwt.io. Maybe a UUID generator you googled five minutes ago and will never find again.
I know, because I was you. For years.
The tab graveyard
You're deep in a debugging session. An auth token isn't decoding right. You need to check the JWT claims, fast. So you open a new tab and type "jwt decoder online."
The page loads. There's a cookie banner. You dismiss it. A newsletter popup slides in. You close it. There are two ad columns flanking the actual tool, which is crammed into a narrow centre lane like it's embarrassed to exist.
You get your result. You close the tab. Ten minutes later you need to check a timestamp. You don't have the tab anymore. You google again. Different site. Same experience.
This is not a workflow. It's a punishment.
The problem isn't that the tools don't work. It's that they were never designed around the person using them.
It's not about the 30 seconds
You might be thinking: it's 30 seconds, who cares.
The person who thinks that has never been deep in a gnarly debugging session.
When you're tracing a subtle bug, your brain is holding a lot at once. The request flow. The state before the error. The hypothesis you were about to test. That's fragile. The second you context-switch, open a new tab, wait for a page to load, navigate through clutter, you've fractured it.
You come back and you're not quite where you were. Sometimes you've lost the thread entirely and have to start over.
Developers have a word for this: flow. Getting into it is expensive. It takes 15 to 20 minutes of uninterrupted focus. Breaking it is free. And it happens constantly.
Every unnecessary tab is a small tax on your concentration. You pay it dozens of times a day. You just stopped noticing because it became normal.
Why existing tools aren't good enough
There are plenty of dev tools online. I've used most of them. The problem isn't functionality. It's that none of them were built with developer flow in mind.
- Slow to load. You're staring at a spinner when you need an answer in 2 seconds.
- Full of ads. The actual tool is buried under monetisation layers designed to keep you on the page longer, not to serve you faster.
- Isolated by design. Every tool lives on its own domain. No continuity, no memory, no flow between them.
- Overengineered. Feature-heavy tools for tasks that should take 5 seconds. You don't need 14 options for a Base64 decode.
- Built for Google, not for you. The UX is optimised for SEO and time-on-page, not for getting you in and out in 10 seconds.
The best tool is the one you don't have to think about. These tools make you think about them.
What I actually wanted
Open it. Paste something. Get your result instantly. Close it and keep working.
That was the entire brief I gave myself. No onboarding, no settings, no login. Just a fast, focused tool that does exactly what it says and disappears when you're done.
Instant results. No submit buttons. Output updates as you type.
No distractions. No ads, no banners, no cookie popups. Just your data on screen.
No login. Your tokens and payloads never leave your browser.
Everything in one place. Switch tools without switching tabs or losing context.
Keyboard-first. Built for people who live in the terminal.
What I built: 26 tools, one place, zero ads
I started with the four tools I use every week. Then I kept going. Not a wishlist, but a list built from actual, repeated friction in my own workflow. Every tool that made it in had to earn its place.
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| 🔐 Encoder / Decoder | Base64, URL, HTML, Hex, Binary. 10+ formats, instant, both directions |
| 🪪 JWT Inspector | Decode any token. Headers, claims, expiration, at a glance |
| 🧬 UUID Studio | Bulk generation, formatting controls, batch export |
| ⏱️ Timestamp Converter | Unix to ISO, timezone support, no surprises |
| 📋 JSON Formatter | Format, diff, and explore JSON trees without touching your terminal |
| 🔑 Hash Generator | SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-512, HMAC. From text or files |
| 🎨 Color Lab | HEX, RGB, HSL. Live preview, harmony palettes, shades |
| 📐 Regex Playground | Live matches, capture groups, curated presets |
And 18 more. From a Cron Builder with human-readable preview, to a Log Analyzer, SQL Studio, QR code generator, and even a Rubber Duck debugger for when you just need to talk through a problem out loud.
The UX decisions that actually mattered
Functionality was the easy part. Making it feel fast was harder.
No submit buttons, anywhere.
Every tool updates in real time as you type. Paste your JWT, payload appears instantly. Type a timestamp, conversion is live. The friction is gone before you notice it.
Privacy-first by default.
Everything runs locally in your browser. No tokens, payloads, or hashes ever hit a server. No backend, no logging, no analytics tracking your inputs. Paste your production JWT without a second thought.
Keyboard-first navigation.
Switch tools, copy results, and clear fields without touching the mouse. ⌘K opens the command palette. You never have to reach for the trackpad.
Zero cognitive load on entry.
No configuration screen. No settings panel. You land on the tool, paste your input, and you're done. The tool gets out of the way.
Try it
No login. No setup. Open it and start using it immediately. If it doesn't save you time in the first session, close it and never come back.
What's next (and where you come in)
This thing started as 4 tools I needed. It's now at 26. I'm not going to stop, but I want to keep the same bar: every addition has to solve a real, recurring problem, not just pad a feature list.
Some things on the radar:
- SSL Certificate Decoder
- TOTP / 2FA Code Generator
- API Response Diff
- Number Base Converter
- Markdown to HTML Converter
What tools do you find yourself opening in a separate tab every week? Drop a comment. If enough people are hitting the same friction, it goes in.
If you've made it this far, you're probably the exact kind of developer this was built for. Give it a try. And if you hate it, I genuinely want to know why.
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