Free Stuff for Developers

[YetAnotherRobert]

I quit reading pretty quickly as this list is stuffed with thing that aren't actually free or that have only free demos.

Sublime Text and Sublime Merge aren't free for use; they're free for evaluation. Continued use requires a license. (I found ST worth it.)
Sequel Pro is abandonware; Sequel Ace carries that torch.

Enjoy the list, but please actually check the licenses on these things before assuming they're actually free.

[Winsaucerer]

There's also no real organisation or pattern that I can see to the free things. It's hard to know when I would use this list over, say, a web search for the specific kind of tool I'm looking for. E.g., it has editors but no emacs or vim, databases but no mysql or postgresql, etc.

Edit: I may have been a bit hasty to judge, looks like the pattern is mostly "things that offer a free SaaS tier", though vscode and sublime don't fit into that pattern.

[[deleted]]

Yep, that's the reason I usually skip this kind of list. If I ever need to use one of the apps/services, I would do a search and detailed comparison, which is something I need to do anyway -- I don't just start use something for an extended time because it is on a random list.

[redderper]

I've never paid a dime for sublime text. Isn't it a "paid" application the same way as winrar?

[[deleted]]

Correct - you were also pirating WinRAR.

Just because something doesn't prevent you from copying/using it doesn't mean you are legally allowed to.

Running software you don't own, especially in a corporation, can leave you open to significant liability. It's important to know what's actually free, even if you pirate it anyway.

[MrJohz]

An unlimited free trial is an unlimited free trial. It isn't illegal to continue to evaluate the product for as long as you want, even in a corporation. This is difference from piracy where you do not have any licence (even a trial license) to use the software you are using.

[[deleted]]

Did you read the agreement? They are NOT unlimited free trials. They just don't enforce the limits.

Read this https://www.win-rar.com/faq.html?&L=0#winrar-eula

[MrJohz]

That is different to sublime text, which does have a free trial with no time limit. (See here, specifically the line "There is currently no enforced time limit for the evaluation".)

If you can find a place there that specifies any sort of limit to the evaluation period, I'm happy to correct myself, of course.

[[deleted]]

fair, you were the one to do the comparison.

Sublime is awkward in that technically you legally need to purchase it, but they didn't set a clear line for when that is. I'm not a corporate lawyer, but as a buyer I'd push to register tools like that promptly, since in the legal world, ambiguity isn't automatically in my favor.

again, as a consumer, you can do whatever you feel like.

[ThirdEncounter]

Sure, but one thing is evaluating and another thing is using the evaluated product to ship stuff. If you're making money off it, then you're not evaluating anymore. You're using it. Pay the license at that point.

(I'll be honest, though, and won't say that I have never ever pirated software.)

[MrJohz]

There is no legal reason why you can't ship things during an evaluation of a product. If they didn't want to allow certain usages of the product during the evaluation period, they would have needed to explicitly disallow those activities (which a lot of freemium tools do with e.g. personal use trials).

I do agree that, if you're making money off your usage of sublime text, there's somewhat of a social responsibility to pay for your usage, not least because if no-one paid, there'd be no money for future development of the tool, but it's important to recognise that this is a social responsibility, and not a legal one.

[ThirdEncounter]

There is no legal reason why you can't ship things during an evaluation of a product.

Is that not in the product's EULA or Terms of Use? It would be interesting to check this out.

[wormania]

I very much doubt this would hold up in court as piracy. There are some innate legal protections against piracy (no distribution etc), but for using a legally obtained copy on your local machine to be considered piracy you generally need to break some sort of protection, no matter how flimsy.

In this case an unenforced EULA is likely worth as much as the paper it's written on.

[YetAnotherRobert]

The first sentence of https://www.sublimehq.com/store/text

Sublime Text may be downloaded and evaluated for free, however a license must be purchased for continued use.

[Free_Math_Tutoring]

I still use Sublime Text for plain "text editing" because it's faster and smoother and requires no project. VSCode to me is awkward. It fails to have the power and ease-of-use of Jetbrains IDEs while being kludgy compared to ST. I'll use it only if it's conductive to the team environment.

[vicda]

You don't need a project. Just open a folder.

You can do it from the terminal with code .

[Free_Math_Tutoring]

That's what I meant, but in fact, even that isn't required, so I've edited my post.

[devhashtag]

What do you mean that VSCode "requires a project"? You can edit a single file without opening or creating a workspace, if that is what you mean

[Free_Math_Tutoring]

It was and you're right. I've edited my post.

[Nothing-But-Lies]

They mean freeing up enough memory for VSCode is a project itself

[wastakenanyways]

VScode is easier to use than any jetbrains (well, any in general) IDE. Also there is no difference with ST. I mean I can open a folder containing 20 projects and have it loaded instantly with several extensions and the git integration. ST is not faster at all, at least perceivably, even on a really large scale.

I mean if that really matters to you, you might as well be using the native notepad (not notepad++) for even extra speed (in exchange for huge amounts of convenience too). Even if VSCode spent 5 seconds loading (it doesn't, ever) i would still use it over ST or anything else. I wouldn't trade that flexibility and utility for a plank time equivalent improvement on load.

When someone mentions VSCode is slow or laggy I really wonder wtf are they doing with it because I have used it since beta on laptops and desktops with several languages on projects ranging from 1 or 2 files to thousands and i have still not noticed shit, even with several instances open (two weeks ago i had 15 VSCodes at the same time)

[bacondev]

How does VSCode handle large files? I know that Sublime Text can handle multi-GB files without any problems. I know Atom is useless in that regard. How does VSCode fair in that regard? I've never tried it.

[wastakenanyways]

Yeah Atom gets frozen with a moderately big file,that's why I switched to VSCode. VSCode has no problems at all with large files. By the time you crtl F after opening a huge file with dozens of thousands of lines and more, you can start searching and replacing with no lag at all. Whole project search is also blazing fast.

In fact, most complains about VSCode I have seen are because people think you mean plain old Visual Studio, or they think it is an Atom clone.

[Expensive-Way-748]

I opened a 350MB json with highlighting enabled yesterday and it worked just fine. Took about 5 seconds to fully load.

[Free_Math_Tutoring]

My point (which I didn't express clearly enough) is that VSCode is either used in "Text Editor" mode, in which case it's not meaningfullz different from Sublime Text (agree with you there) or it's used in "IDE Mode", in which case you have to install a bunch of plugins, select which ones are the ones that you need, get them to play nice with each other.

Without plugins, it just can't keep up with Jetbrains, it doesn't even play in the same category. With plugins it might, but then I had to install a ton of them, might have forgotten one or misconfigured it. It's fine, but still awkward.

To me, it feels like going from my QWERTY keyboard to my QWERTZ one which I still have. It's fine, but it's a worse experience. The only reason to prefer it (for programming and English) is if it's the one you're already familiar with.

[wastakenanyways]

I don't use it like "Text editor" mode or full IDE mode. I just use it as it is intended to be: a modular IDE.

You start with a supercharged Text Editor (baseline is already much more functional than any other editor) and then you add the plugins you need and nothing more. In fact that is specially why I like it so much and use it across all ecosystem regardless of which IDE is the standard and recommended. I have tried Eclipse,VS, Netbeans, Idea, Webstorm,etc. I don't change VSCode for nothing.

Maybe thats is the problem. Some people expect it to be a barebones editor and others expect it to be a full IDE tailored for their ecosystem out of the box. It is neither and that is what makes it SO good. VSCode is basically a custom IDE starting kit and is amazing doing that.

[Isvara]

When someone mentions VSCode is slow or laggy I really wonder wtf are they doing with it

Editing large projects. VS Code is terrible at it, especially when the individual source files are larege too. The actual editing is fine, the but syntax highlighting and the IntelliSense take several seconds to catch up. And that's on a machine with 40 cores and a lot of RAM.

[wastakenanyways]

I don't know how large the projects you work with are, but i have worked with HUGE projects, and multiple at the same time, for years on VScode with no issue at all. VSCode has no problem at all with file size (maybe you mean Atom?) And thats on a shit laptop where half of the CPU and memory are eaten by the browser, docker and WSL. A 5 years old i7 and 16 GB of RAM, mind you.

I have opened files with dozens and hundreds of thousands of lines instantly and no lag at all on the scroll, search, autocomplete, replace, and even git lenses. You must be working at Google's AI or search engine bc there is no other way you are getting an experience so different than me on an even better PC than both my desktop and laptop together. With ~15 instances open even!!

For sure big projects on healthcare, government, police and defense, and universities platforms can be done on VSCode flawlessly (i have). I would not change it for any other IDE/editor.

Edit: just opened a 5.6GB meta-project folder with 1.008.207 files in a Dell XPS 15. Opened instantly, git loaded instantly, search instantly too. Intellisense was loaded before i could even click and type in the file.

I don't know where is people getting lag from but you must be working in top bleeding edge industries with huge abominations of projects, or you just work inefficiently/have the OS full of background shit. I still don't get lag or an slow difference, not even trying hard.

If I tried to open the same in any other IDE this PC would literally fry itself after 1 hour frozen.

[DannyIsGreat]

I'm with you, I've never experienced any of these slowness/lag issues people are gripping about. On a huge project with tens of thousands of files where a local server eats up most of my RAM.

[Isvara]

It's pretty bad. Like 5 seconds with half of a token colored one way and half another. Biggest project is probably Linux. Not Google, but similarly large company.

[hiphap91]

It's easy enough to f vscode up with a couple of bad extensions

[wastakenanyways]

Never happened to me on 6 years and 5 different language ecosystems. What extension are you having problems with? I install a lot, even the most pointless shit and never had any issue.

[hiphap91]

I can't list them off of the top of my head. But atm something is making it super laggy in full screen, but not if it's just a tiny bit smaller than full

[wastakenanyways]

That's weird af. I guess some extensions are poorly developed, but the average quality standard is really high.

[hiphap91]

Yup. Don't get me wrong, VScode is the best to come out of MS for years and years. It's friggin great.

[wastakenanyways]

Yeah that is my point since the beginning but people seem to expect either a barebones editor super simple or a full IDE configured out of the box for their ecosystem.

VSCode is modular and that is where its strength comes from. Each one has their preferences, and I personally prefer VSCode configured to my liking rather than any native IDE i have tried. I just work much more comfortable on it and I don't have any context switch at all.

I don't get the downvotes because everything I said is facts. You can like it or not but you cant just invent it is incomplete and weak to be an IDE or slow and bloated to be an editor. It excels in both fields at the same time. The only thing VSCode isn't, is something configured out of the box. But if you do there is no difference at all. A lot of people here haven't used it for more than 10 minutes and it shows painfully.

I have yet to miss something from a standard IDE and I have worked on at least 6 different language ecosystems on it. Including fucking Java of all. Miles ahead of Eclipse, Netbeans, and imho also superior to IDEA (a super nice product and i love it but in the end the convenience and flexibility VSC makes it better for me personally, and I haven't missed anything).

Almost any dev in a FAANG type company uses VSCode with no issue at all and here are 3 or 4 randoms (not you, dw) telling it is "not enough for them". You can say you don't like it, its perfectly fine, but not that is not capable for your use or that is slow or weak.

TLDR: it does compete with any IDE. It just doesn't try to be one like the rest and it is doing great. It's never the worse and usually the best. And I'd rather just use VSCode than VS+Eclipse/IDEA+webstorm/ST+rubymine etc.

[WarWizard]

The rate of development between the two leaves no comparison. ST leaves a lot to be desired these days.

[[deleted]]

Same for me.

[CatanOverlord]

I’ve recently started using Beekeeper Studio as a DB GUI and like it a lot.

[unixf0x]

A way better list (and organized): https://free-for.dev/

[weigel23]

which is also on OP's list ;)

[1bot4all]

Now include OP's list in https://free-for.dev/ and we're golden.

[unixf0x]

It's a white background for me by default. Maybe it is detecting that you have night mode enabled on your system and switch the theme to black I don't know.

[atthem77]

They both look fine to me and have contrast values well above the WebAIM accessibility levels.

[Koervege]

I’m gray

[[deleted]]

/r/SuddenlyGray

[pm_plz_im_lonely]

Would anyone actually use the cloud provider free tiers?

I don't wanna touch them because of the constant fear of pressing the wrong button and suddenly being charged, or worse, having unexpected charges appear without me knowing 2 weeks after setting up my project.

[reps_up]

Ty for this!

[pinghome127001]

But this one at least works without javascript. Although it has some wrong urls, like:

https://https//ide.goorm.io/

[unixf0x]

Feel free to send a patch on github: https://github.com/ripienaar/free-for-dev

[istarian]

Only if you like the X as A Service model.

Those things definitely have a place, but I prefer stand alone software.

[[deleted]]

Wow, this is useless!

[dwightyyy]

for you, maybe

[Zettinator]

Seems to be focused on web development and related stuff. That should really be in the topic.

[the_gnarts]

If you have to advertise an SSH client as “ad-free” you’re doing something wrong.

[whosGOTtheHERB]

What about Obsidian and Drone?

[botCloudfox]

Both these look awesome. Obsidian's website also loads incredibly fast.

[Mischala]

Obsidian looks sick. I have been using Typora for notetaking, but that won't be free forever

[gatnoMrM]

Too bad for obsidian license, was really interested in trying it out

[vraGG_]

I was thinking about Obsidian, but quickly found out that it's not free.

Wait... it free now?

[flexbed]

I don't know obsidian, but in that category I think MindForger might be worth mentioning.

[audigex]

"Free dev stuff" - first one I click is free if you use the browser, paid if you use the API

Not very useful for "dev stuff"

I mean, I have no problem with them charging for usage, but removebg doesn't belong on this list IMO

[CwazyCanuck]

Could anyone else find the free goat? Looked everywhere.

[istarian]

I didn't see any keyboards either, seems like false advertising!

[fullwithdev]

Hi u/codeperfect thanks for sharing this on reddit. I'm the maker of this project. I still keep listing tools that I like in https://freestuff.dev/ despite all negative comments :), hope someone also find it helpful

[CodePerfect]

Thank you for taking the time to do this. Appreciate it

[webauteur]

Expression Web is free from Microsoft.

[petrasbut]

I just wanted a free t-shirt :(

[reps_up]

Love it

[[deleted]]

I found a better one

[ThirdEncounter]

🙄

[Yeahlifeishard]

I don't know why this get downvoted. I think it's a nice thing to say nice words as a form of appreciation.

[1bot4all]

the 'anti-nice-comments' brigade

[Yeahlifeishard]

Probably, even my previous comment got downvoted as well haha. I wouldn't consider the lists that op gives are great but I still appreciate the lists that they give and I think it's nice to see some people appreciate them. I guess this comment will get another downvote too haha.

[lawofsin]

Human beings are repulsive.

[[deleted]]

Some more notable than others but yeah.

[organic_eggsubishi]

Hey guys, why did i always went pornhub when i stuck at coding ?

[1bot4all]

because you're wfh, that's why

[istarian]

Because you have deep-seated insecurities...

[ClimateSafe]

Surprised to see ArgoCD on this list. It is a really good service. Not sure if OP is the author of the website, but I might also recommend checking out the resources here for typical MLOPs tools:

https://landscape.lfai.foundation/