21 Best Software Development Tools in 2021

There are tons of Software Development tools and selecting the best could be a challenge. Following is a curated list of the 21 top software development tools.

We have covered Software Development tools in the following categories

• Recommended Tool
• IDE (Integrated Development Environment)
• Frameworks
• Cloud Tools
• Data Science
• Source Control
• Prototyping
• DevOps
• Notifications
• UML

Recommended Tool

1) Embold

Fixing bugs before deployment saves a lot of time and energy in the long run. Embold is a software analytics platform that analyses source code and uncovers issues that impact stability, robustness, security, and maintainability.

Features:

• With the Embold plugins, you can pick up code smells and vulnerabilities as you code, before making commits.
• Unique anti-pattern detection prevents the compounding of unmaintainable code.
• Integrate seamlessly with Github, Bitbucket, Azure, and Git and plugins available for Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA.
• Get deeper and faster checks than standard code editors, for over 10 languages.

2) Linx:

Linx is a low code IDE and server. IT pros use Linx to quickly create custom automated business processes, integrate applications, expose web services and to efficiently handle high workloads.

• Easy-to-use, drag-and-drop interface
• Over 100 pre-built functions and services for rapid development
• One-click deployment to any local or remote Linx Server directly from the IDE
• Input and outputs include nearly any SQL & NoSQL databases, numerous file formats (text and binary) or REST and SOAP Web services
• Live debugging with step through logic
• Automate backend processes via timer, directory events or message queue or expose web services, and call APIs via HTTP requests

3) Studio 3T

Studio 3T for MongoDB helps you to build queries fast, generate instant code, import/export in multiple formats, and much more.

• Query MongoDB faster with our Visual Query Builder, IntelliShell, or SQL Query tool.
• Our Data Masking tool enables data compliance and bolsters security with powerful field-level data obfuscation.
• Import to MongoDB from JSON, CSV, BSON/mongodump, and SQL, and get a preview of your output documents as you make changes.
• Migration from MongoDB to SQL (or vice versa) has never been easier with our Migration tools."

4) Kite

Kite is IDE for Software Development that automatically completes multiple line codes. This editor supports more than 16 languages. It helps you to code faster with no hassle.

Price: Free

Features:

• It offers Software Development documentation.
• This editor provides a function signature as you type.
• You will get a tooltip on mouse hover.
• Provides support in email.
• Uses machine learning models for Software Development language.

5) Access Rights Manager

Access Rights Manager is a tool that can manage your audit access rights across IT infrastructure. This application helps you to detect compliance by detecting changes. It enables you to generate audit-ready reports instantly.

Features:

• This application can act on high-risk access.
• Offers accurate and fast account provisioning.
• Helps you to manage access rights with ease.
• It can minimize the impact of insider threats.

6) DbSchema

DbSchema is a visual database designer & manager for any SQL, NoSQL or Cloud database. The tool enables you to design & interact with the database schema, create comprehensive documentation and reports, work offline, synchronize the schema with the database, and so much more.

Features:

• Interactive Layouts
• Relational Data Browse
• Visual Query Builder
• Schema Synchronization
• HTML5 Documentation
• Random Data Generator
• Data Loader
• Forms & Reports
• SQL Editor with autocompletion
• Coupon Code "gtupapers" and get 10% OFF

IDE (Integrated Development Environment)

7) NetBeans:

NetBeans is a popular, Free, open-source IDE. It allows developing desktop, mobile and web applications.

Features:

• Support for fast & smart code editing
• Easy & Efficient Project Management process
• Rapid User Interface Development
• Helps to write bug-free code
• NetBeans IDE offers superior support for C/C++ and PHP developers
• It can be installed on any OS which supports Java, from Windows to Linux to Mac OS X systems

Download link: https://netbeans.org/downloads/index.html

8) Cloud9 IDE:

Cloud9 IDE is an online integrated software development environment. It supports many programming languages like C, C++, PHP, Ruby, Perl, Python, JavaScript and Node.js.

Features:

• Allows to clone entire development environment
• Built-In Terminal for command-line wizard
• Code Completion suggestions helps software developers to code faster and avoid typos
• The Debugger helps developers to set breakpoints, and inspect variables of any JS/Node.js app
• Simply drag any file or Terminal to create multiple split views
• Developers can select an extensive set of default Runners to execute app, such as Ruby, Python, PHP/Apache

Download link: https://c9.io/pricing

9) Zend Studio:

Zend Studio allows software developers to code faster, debug more easily. It is next-generation PHP IDE designed to create apps for boosting developers' productivity. It scales according to the DPI settings of the underlying operating system.

Features:

• Code faster with up to performance improvements in indexing, validation, searching for PHP code
• Offering debugging capabilities with Xdebug, Zend Debugger, and Z-Ray integration
• Extensive plugin provided by the large Eclipse eco-system
• It supports development tools including Docker and Git Flow
• Deploy PHP applications on any server for Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure

Download link: https://www.zend.com/downloads

10) Atom:

Atom is a solid all-around text-editor. It is fully free and open source. It can be customized to do anything but without a need of modifying the config file.

Features:

• Atom works across many popular operating systems like OS X, Windows, or Linux
• It helps developers to write code faster with a smart, flexible autocomplete
• Easily browse and open whole project or multiple projects in one window
• It is possible to split Atom interface into multiple panes to compare and edit code across files
• Find, preview, and replace text type in a file or across the entire project

Download link: https://atom.io/

11) Spiralogics Application Architecture:

Spiralogics Application Architecture (SAA) is a cloud-based software development tool. It allows users to build and customize their applications online and deploy them. It also allows users to choose from a set of prebuilt applications or customize them it from scratch.

Features:

• Create customized pages
• Built-in HTML editor
• Interactive Dashboard builder
• Preview Changes before publishing the application
• Predefined processes like Save, Delete, Accept, Reject, and Email
• Allows customization of look and feel of page components
• Create custom processes not already defined

Download link: https://www.gotosaa.com/

12) CodeLobster:

Codelobster streamlines and simplifies PHP software development. process. It supports CMS like Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, and Magento.

Features:

• PHP, HTML, JavaScript, CSS code highlighting
• Autocomplete of tags, attributes for a current tag, closing tags.
• Inspector makes it simple to find HTML elements and their styles buried deep in the page
• Autocomplete of style property names and values
• It allows autocompleting of keywords, DOM elements, and their properties
• It offers PHP Advanced autocomplete

Download link: http://www.codelobster.com

13) CodeCharge Studio:

CodeCharge Studio offers the fastest way to build applications. This tool helps to develop data-driven Web sites or enterprise Internet and Intranet systems.

Features:

• Avoid costly errors and misspellings by generating consistent, well-structured code
• Eliminate time-consuming programming tasks and build scalable, robust Web Applications
• Helps to convert any database into a web application in very less amount of time
• Analyze and modify generated code to learn web technologies and take on programming projects in any environment

Download link: http://www.codecharge.com/download/index.php

Frameworks

14) Bootstrap:

Bootstrap is a responsive framework for developing with HTML, CSS, and JS. It has many in-builds components, which you can easily drag and drop to assemble responsive web pages.

Feature:

• Bootstrap enables utilization of ready- made blocks of code
• It ensures consistency irrespective of who's working on the project
• It offers extensive list of components
• Base Styling for most HTML Elements
• Bootstrap can be customized according to the specific need of the project

Download link: http://getbootstrap.com/docs/4.0/getting-started/download/

15) Expression Studio:

Expression Studio is a set of a family of tools for professional designer's developers. It is a robust professional design tool which gives creative freedom to developers.

Features:

• It revolutionizes the speed of prototyping
• It allows creation of effective UI with sample data
• Fast, flexible, seamless workflow helps to excel the entire development process
• These tools save time of creating web sites to deliver faster results
• Advanced visual diagnostics speed debugging
• It offers team Foundation Server integration
• Rich standards-based web design & technologies
• It provides precision layout control and supports a broad range of technologies.
• It helps to speeds up cross-browser debugging with advanced visual diagnostics

Download link: http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx

16) HTML5 Builder:

HTML5 Builder is a software solution for building the web and mobile apps. It can develop an app using a single HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and PHP codebase. It helps to target multiple mobile operating systems, devices and Web browsers.

Features:

• It is the fastest way to develop cross-platform Apps with flexible Cloud services
• Increased speed of development with a single visual framework
• Brings Designers and Developers in a Collaborative Workflow
• Create Enterprise or ISV web and mobile apps
• Create location-based browser and mobile applications using geolocation components in HTML5 Builder

Download link: https://www.embarcadero.com/products/rad-studio/start-for-free

17) Visual Online:

Visual Studio Online is a collection of services. It is fast and easy to plan, build and ship software across a variety of platforms. These software development tools allow the organization to create the perfect development environment.

Features:

• Track and manage all ideas on kanban or scrum boards with agile tools
• Improve code quality and catch issues early
• Build, manage, secure and share software components
• Automate and simplify Azure deployments
• Tools for manual, performance and automated testing
• It offers a centralized version control system with free private repositories.

Download link: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/

Cloud Tools

18) Kwatee:

Kwatee Agile Deployment is a software development tool. It automates applications or micro services to any number of servers. It fully automates deployments of text and binary files from any number of target servers.

Features:

• It allows managing environment-specific configuration parameters for your application
• It allows generating command-line installers to be used for deployments on environments
• This software development tool eliminates the need for installation & configuration. It also takes out many operational risks in the software development process
• It is a friendly web interface lets configure deployments efficiently and painlessly
• It supports a broad range operating systems including Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, etc.

Download link: http://www.kwatee.net/#download

19) Azure

Microsoft Azure is widely used by developers to build, deploy and manage web applications.

Features:

• It supports wide range of operating systems, programming languages, frameworks, and devices
• Allows to build apps quickly and easily
• It easily detect and mitigate threats
• Rely on the most trusted cloud
• Allows to manage app proactively
• Helps to deliver mobile apps seamlessly

Data Science

20) Data studio:

Dataiku DSS is a collaborative data science software platform. It is used by data scientists, data analysts, and engineers to explore, prototype, build and deliver their data products.

Features:

• Profile the data visually at every stage of the analysis
• Prepare, enrich, blend, and clean data using more than 80+ built-in functions
• Bundle whole workflow as a single deployable package for real-time predictions
• Build & optimize models in Python or R and integrate any external ML library through code APIs

Download link: https://www.dataiku.com/product/get-started/

Source Control

21) Github:

GitHub allows developers to review code, manage projects, and build software. It offers right tool for different development jobs.

Features:

• Coordinate easily, stay aligned, and get done with GitHub's project management tools
• Easy documentation alongside quality coding
• Allows all code in a single place
• Developers can host their documentation directly from repositories

Download link: https://github.com/

22) BitBucket:

Bitbucket is a version control tool. It facilitates easy collaboration amongst software development team. It integrates very well with JIRA, a famous project and issue-managing app.

Features:

• Branch permissions access to ensure that the only right people can make changes to the code
• Helps development team to focus on a goal, product or process by organizing repositories into projects
• It can display build results from CI system
• Integrate into existing workflow to streamline software development process

Download link: https://bitbucket.org/

23) Cloudforge:

CloudForge is a software-as-a-service product for application development. It Integrates and manages various development tools.

Features:

• Integrate and manage various development tools
• Elastically scale development teams, projects, and processes
• Deploy code to public and private clouds
• Deploy source-code with a single click using various protocols including FTP, SCP, SSH, and Rsync to run-time environment
• CloudForge Publisher allows deployment to multiple servers in parallel

Download link: https://app.cloudforge.com/trial_signup/new/

Prototyping

24) Axure:

Axure provides the capability to produce wireframes, prototypes, and create documentation. This tool is used by business analysts, product managers, and IT consultants around the world.

Features:

• Axure RP generates prototype in HTML and provides link for sharing
• It allows multiple people to work on the same file at the same time
• It can runs on Microsoft IIS with a MySQL or Microsoft SQL Server database
• It helps to create and maintain widget libraries

Download link: https://www.axure.com/

DevOps

25) Codenvy:

Codenvy automates applications or micro services to any number of servers. It fully automates deployments of text and binary files from any number of target servers.

Features:

• It allows managing environment-specific configuration parameters for your application
• It allows generating command-line installers to be used for deployments on any environment
• This software development tool eliminates the need for installation & configuration.
• It takes out many operational risks in the software development process
• The friendly web interface lets configure deployments efficiently and painlessly
• It supports a broad range operating systems including Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, etc.

Download link: https://codenvy.com/

Notifications

26) SendBird:

Sendbird is used as a messaging and Chat API for Mobile Apps and Websites. It offers scalability for a massive audience. It also prevents spam flooding of chat rooms.

Features:

• Read and track the status of the messages sent to users
• Integrate bots to assist with customer support and product recommendations
• Offers Push Notifications & Callbacks
• Read Receipt & Delivery Status
• Automatically split or merge chat rooms on the audience volume to offer continues engagement

Download link: https://sendbird.com/

UML

27) Enterprise Architect:

Enterprise Architect is a requirement management tool. It integrates seamlessly with other development tools by creating requirements in the model.

Features:

• Allows to build robust and maintainable systems
• It loads extremely large models in seconds
• Collaborate effectively globally
• Offers complete traceability
• Improve business outcomes
• Model and manage complex Data effectively
• Supports Single click HTML and document generation
• Code execution to visual diagrams

Download link: http://www.sparxsystems.com/products/ea/