Web development involves a lot of small tasks that aren't particularly difficult, but can become repetitive very quickly.
Formatting JSON, decoding Base64, checking a JWT payload, converting timestamps, generating UUIDs, or testing a regular expression are all things developers may need to do regularly.
Having a few simple tools available can save time and avoid unnecessary setup.
Here are seven useful categories of developer tools worth keeping bookmarked.
1. JSON Formatter & Validator
JSON is everywhere in modern web development, especially when working with APIs.
When JSON is minified or poorly formatted, it can be difficult to read:
A formatter makes it much easier to inspect:
A JSON validator is also useful when an API request is failing because of a missing comma, quotation mark, or bracket.
2. Base64 Encoder & Decoder
Base64 encoding appears frequently when working with APIs, authentication, data transfer, and web applications.
For example:
can be represented in Base64 as:
One important thing to remember is that Base64 is encoding, not encryption. Anyone can decode Base64 data.
3. JWT Decoder
JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) are commonly used for authentication.
A JWT normally looks something like:
It consists of three parts:
Header
Payload
Signature
When debugging authentication problems, being able to quickly inspect the header and payload can be extremely useful.
Never paste sensitive production tokens into an online tool. Use test or non-sensitive tokens when experimenting.
4. URL Encoder & Decoder
URLs often contain characters that need to be encoded before being safely included in a URL.
For example:
becomes:
URL encoding and decoding tools are particularly useful when working with query parameters, APIs, redirects, and links generated dynamically by applications.
5. UUID Generator
UUIDs are frequently used as unique identifiers for:
Database records
API requests
Sessions
Objects
Temporary resources
Instead of manually creating identifiers, a UUID generator can produce one instantly.
For example:
For development and testing, having a quick generator available can save a surprising amount of time.
- Unix Timestamp Converter
Unix timestamps represent time as the number of seconds or milliseconds since January 1, 1970 UTC.
You'll often encounter values such as:
when debugging APIs, databases, logs, or authentication systems.
Converting timestamps into human-readable dates makes debugging much easier.
7. Regular Expression Tester
Regular expressions can be powerful, but debugging them manually can be frustrating.
A regex tester lets you enter a pattern and immediately see which parts of your test string match.
For example:
can be used to test whether a string follows a basic:
format.
This is especially useful when working with form validation, parsing, search functionality, and data processing.
One place for small developer utilities
I find that the most useful developer tools are often the simple ones—the utilities that solve a small problem in a few seconds without requiring a large application or complicated setup.
A collection of these browser-based utilities is available on DevToolsHub, including tools for JSON, Base64, JWTs, URLs, UUIDs, timestamps, regex, and other common development tasks.
DevToolsHub: https://devtoolshub-gamma.vercel.app/
If you have a developer utility that you use constantly, I'd be interested to hear about it in the comments.
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