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10 Best Developer Productivity Tools for Efficient Work

25 July 2023

Like many other professionals, developers are continuously seeking ways to streamline their workflows, tackle coding projects, and meet tight deadlines. And with the same productivity goals in mind as other professionals, the right set of tools is key.

The tech industry constantly evolves, presenting an array of better developer productivity tools, designed specifically to enhance developer productivity.

Looking for a smart, secure and effortless productivity tool for developers?

Go for a time tracking tool chosen by 50,000 dev teams worldwide

Whether you’re a seasoned coder seeking to optimize your current toolkit or a newcomer eager to dive into the coding world equipped with the best resources, this compilation will provide valuable insights into some of the most cutting-edge tools available today.

Together, we will uncover a range of game-changing technologies, from intelligent code editors to collaborative platforms, testing frameworks, and project management solutions.

The 10 best developer productivity tools

Timeular
ClickUp
VS Code
GitHub Copilot
Jam
GitLab
Testsigma
SaltStack
F.lux
Mermaid JS

1. Timeular – for easy time tracking

Timeular is the most effortless and accurate time tracking software for teams and individuals. It combines smart time tracking methods with automated time tracking features to ensure the most accurate data.

Timeular works as a perfect productivity tracker tool for developers and programmers who want to optimize time management and enhance focus in their daily tasks. It’s already used by over 50,000 teams worldwide seeking productivity improvement.

Track time with a physical Tracker

“When you have a lot of simultaneous activities going on, you often forget when you started working on something. With the tracker in front of you, you are always aware of what’s being tracked”

Timeular is a team time tracker known for its physical time management cube that connects to the app via Bluetooth. As you can easily customize it through colorful stickers and pens, the 8-sided dice serves as a physical reminder that sits on your desk.

Timeular users can choose to use the physical Tracker or a digital alternative Quicktrack that allows them to begin tracking a time entry using a keyboard shortcut.

The app offers a unique approach to tracking and analyzing time, enabling users to gain valuable insights into their work patterns. While tracking time in Timeular, you can easily identify time-consuming and low-value tasks.

Start tracking your time with Timeular to maximize your productivity

Timeular provides comprehensive analytics and visualizations, giving users a clear overview of their time allocation across various tasks or projects. This allows for easy identification of time sinks and areas where you can maximize productivity.

By using Timeular, developers can set goals and milestones, helping them stay focused and motivated. The app provides insights on goal progress, highlighting areas of improvement.

It also seamlessly integrates with popular task management tools such as Trello, Asana, and Jira, allowing developers to link time-tracking data with specific tasks.

“Timeular has been a game changer. It has helped me develop a discipline for being mindful of my time and really understanding the value of it so I get more done.“
Jenny, Software engineer working remotely

Pricing: Timeular offers a 30-day free trial. Paid plans start at 6.30€ per month, when billed annually, or 8€, billed monthly.

Why Timeular is one of the best apps for programmers?

Accurate time tracking helps you understand how much time is being allocated to specific workloads, providing insights into where your time is being utilized effectively or inefficiently.
Timeular is one of the few time tracking apps that allows leave tracking. The team can track any type of absence and adjust their work schedule report accordingly.
By tracking your time, you gather valuable data about your work habits and patterns. This data can be analyzed to identify areas of improvement, optimize workflows, and make data-driven decisions about resource allocation, workload prioritization, and management.
It offers visual representations of your and your team’s time allocation. These visualizations give you a clear overview of how your time is distributed among various tasks or projects and help identify bottlenecks or areas where adjustments can be made to optimize workload management.
Integrations with popular project management tools like Jira and Asana allow you to sync your time-tracking data with other systems. These integrations enhance the overall workload management process by streamlining data flow and providing a holistic view of your work across different platforms.
Collaboration features enable team members to track their time, share insights, and coordinate workloads. This promotes transparency, facilitates effective task distribution that prevents work overload, and encourages collaboration within teams.

Track time with zero effort, using Timeular

“We’ve saved an impressive lot of time with Timeular. Monthly time reviews that were previously taking up half a day every month now take 15 minutes. It’s an immense time saver!”

2. ClickUp

ClickUp is an online project management tool that provides features catered to the needs of developers and programmers.

With a wide range of features tailored for efficient task management and seamless collaboration, Clickup empowers developers to streamline their workflows and enhance productivity.

The software supports customizable task views and task dependencies, enabling developers to organize and prioritize their work.

Precisely for these professionals, Clickup supports several project management methodologies, such as Scrum and Kanban, with features like Sprint Boards, Burndown Charts, and Agile Dashboards. This makes it ideal for developers who follow Agile practices with a flexible project management approach.

To facilitate things further, this tool integrates with numerous popular third-party tools, around one thousand of them, such as GitHub, GitLab, Jira, or Slack.

This is a great workload prioritization software that supports automation features, enabling developers to create custom processes to save time on those repetitive tasks that always steal so much time. However, it’s important to note that while Clickup offers a vast group of features, it may be more suitable for complex projects and larger development teams, potentially overwhelming for smaller-scale projects.

This resource allocation software has a completely free plan that can be used forever but is limited to 100 MB of storage. Paid plans start at 5$ per user per month (Unlimited), with the Business plan costing 12$ per user per month as well. For Enterprise solutions, the ClickUp team must be contacted.

Read also: Time-tracking in ClickUp

3. VS Code

Visual Studio Code, widely known as VS Code, is one of the best productivity tools for developers since it’s a code editor designed with developers and programmers in mind.

Developed by Microsoft, the popularity of VS Code has a lot to do with its extensive features, customizability, and seamless integration with various programming languages and development tools.

This coding tool includes features such as:

syntax highlighting
intelligent code completion
code refactoring
a built-in Git integration

It supports a wide range of programming languages, making it suitable for diverse development projects.

The VS Code editor has a built-in terminal that allows developers to execute commands, run scripts, and perform debugging tasks directly within the editor. This eliminates the need to switch between multiple applications, adding to this the extensive number of possibilities for customization.

Developers can customize the editor’s appearance, behavior, and functionality using a vast library of extensions created by the community.

Track time to identify time-wasting activities and boost your productivity levels

VS Code offers intelligent code suggestions, auto-completion, and documentation for supported programming languages, a feature that significantly speeds up development and reduces errors.

It has the advantage of being a super flexible tool available for all operating systems and being open-source, the community around it ensures continuous improvement and frequent updates.

All these possibilities can also be a double-edged sword when working on larger projects. VS Code may consume more resources when working on projects with extensive codebases and multiple extensions.

The desktop versions of VS Code are completely free and after the one-time purchase of the mobile apps, the continuous use of VS Code is also free. You can, however, also choose to buy a professional subscription. Plans start at 45$ per user per month.

TIP: Read our guide and learn how to manage a software development team.

4. GitHub Copilot

GitHub Copilot is an AI-powered code completion tool designed for developers and programmers to boost their productivity.

Developed by GitHub in collaboration with OpenAI, GitHub Copilot leverages the power of machine learning to assist developers in writing code faster and more efficiently.

It serves as an intelligent coding companion, suggesting code snippets and completing lines of code in real-time. The tool is capable of analyzing code patterns, documentation, and publicly available code repositories.

It suggests relevant code snippets, function definitions, and even entire lines of code as developers type, helping speed up the coding process.

Copilot supports a wide range of programming languages and frameworks, adapting to the developer’s preferred language and providing suggestions accordingly.

It integrates with mainstream code editors (VS Code included) and since it’s used by developers worldwide, it continuously learns from their coding patterns and community feedback, like other Artificial Intelligence tools.

GitHub Copilot depends on an internet connection, as it is required for optimal performance. It’s also important to note that this is still an AI tool, and even though it’s a time saver, it still needs some manual review and validation.

The plan for Individuals costs 10$ per month and the Copilot for Business plan goes for 19$ per user, per month.

Read also: GitHub time tracking integration

5. Jam

Jam is one of the best productivity tools for developers since it’s focused on simplifying the debugging process. For that, the app has a range of powerful features and tools that help identify and resolve issues in software applications efficiently.

Jam provides real-time debugging capabilities, allowing developers to monitor and analyze their code execution as it happens, helping to fix the bugs as quickly as possible. This feature enables developers to pinpoint bugs, track variables, and identify the root causes of issues more effectively

With this tool, it’s possible to grab a screenshot or video (called “jam”) of the bug and share it with other developers. Jam automatically captures useful information, such as:

network requests
browser info
device details
repro steps
comments
console logs

This tool integrates with some of the most popular developer software like ClickUp, Jira, and GitHub, making it easy to start using Jam to improve existing workflows and tools.

It’s also possible to share links to the bug reports or send them directly to an issue tracker. an issue that may occur is that some screenshots may not include all the details needed to identify the problem.

Jam is a free plan for individuals (that doesn’t include a team workspace or some other more specific features), a team plan that costs 10$ per user per month, and an enterprise plan, customized to the business needs.

6. Gitlab

GitLab is a platform designed specifically for developers and programmers, providing a comprehensive set of tools and features. It’s an open-source code repository and collaborative software development platform for large DevOps and DevSecOps projects.

From version control and issue tracking to continuous integration and deployment, GitLab offers a unified environment that facilitates collaboration and enhances productivity for development teams.

GitLab seamlessly integrates the entire DevOps workflow into a single platform. From planning and development to testing and deployment, developers can manage the entire software development lifecycle within GitLab.

This software offers built-in CI/CD capabilities and a robust issue-tracking system that allows developers to track and manage project issues, assign tasks, and monitor progress. Additionally, GitLab provides project management features like project milestones, boards, and Kanban boards.

There is, however, a certain learning curve to consider when working with Gitlab because of its extensive feature set. Still, this tool remains one of the top deployment solutions in the industry.

It combines the essentials of planning, packaging, and release with DevOps features such as monitoring and configuration.

There is a free plan that includes all essential features for individual users. The Premium plan starts at 29$ per user per month and the Ultimate plan, destined for organizations, goes for 99$ per user per month.

7. Testsigma

Testsigma is an app that serves as a comprehensive test automation platform focused on simplicity and efficiency.

This tool allows developers and QA teams to build comprehensive testing stacks without having to write code, in a scriptless approach to test automation.

The platform utilizes natural language processing and intuitive interfaces, making it accessible to both technical and non-technical users.

Testsigma is one of the best developer productivity tools because it supports cross-browser and cross-platform testing, saving time and effort by eliminating the need for manual testing on various environments.

One of its most interesting features is the parallel test execution, allowing developers to run tests concurrently. This significantly reduces test execution time and accelerates the overall testing process, improving productivity and efficiency.

Testsigma also uses AI algorithms to automatically detect and fix test failures caused by changes in the application under test.

Testsigma integrates with other CI/CD tools like Jenkins, JIRA, and Gitlab, but it does present some limits in customization.

There is a free plan that includes five applications or projects. The Pro plan, with unlimited automated testing and applications, costs 349$ per month, and there is also the possibility of requesting a customized Enterprise option.

8. SaltStack

SaltStack is a Python-based configuration management and automation platform that focuses on scalability and efficiency.

SaltStack supports developers in managing the configuration of servers and network devices.

This automation tool is powerful and flexible, even for large-scale infrastructure providing robust remote execution capabilities. This feature is particularly useful for performing batch operations, saving developers a considerable amount of time.

SaltStack seamlessly integrates with cloud and container technologies and enables developers to manage diverse environments from one single platform.

Event-driven automation allows developers to respond to changes and triggers in real time, improving system responsiveness and efficiency.

Setting up SaltStack for the first time can be challenging and may require configuration and infrastructure adjustments, especially for complex environments.

SaltStack offers a free open-source version, with the Enterprise version costing 150$ per machine per year.

TIP: Read our post and find out the best team communication apps

9. F.lux

Developers’ well-being is also important for productivity and f.lux is an app that can help in that regard.

This innovative app provides a solution to reduce eye strain and improve sleep quality during extended computer usage. It works by focusing on color temperature adjustments creating a more comfortable and visually-friendly environment for developers working long hours in front of their screens.

Users can also customize color temperatures to suit their preferences and environment and adjust the transition speed, set specific lighting levels, and create personalized schedules to match their daily routines.

f.lux can automatically detect the user’s geographic location and adjust the color temperature based on local sunrise and sunset times. Sometimes, the color temperature adjustments made by f.lux may slightly affect color accuracy, which can be a consideration for developers working on tasks that require precise color representation.

Another point is that f.lux was developed for Mac computers, other systems might require a more complex setup. Still, f.lux is completely free of charge in any system.

10. Mermaid JS

Mermaid JS is a user-friendly app that offers a powerful solution for creating diagrams and flowcharts with a simple text-based syntax. As the name implies, this is a JavaScript-based tool and integrates with the most popular code editors. Mermaid JS allows developers to visualize complex concepts and workflows, making it a valuable tool for documentation and communication.

It uses a text-based syntax inspired by Markdown, making it easy for developers to create diagrams and flowcharts without the need for complex graphical editors.

The simplicity of the syntax allows for quick and efficient diagram creation. It supports various types of diagrams, including flowcharts, sequence diagrams, and Gantt charts.

The app provides options for customizing the appearance of diagrams, enabling developers to match the visual style with their project or brand. However, Mermaid JS lacks real-time editing capabilities found in other graphical diagram editors, making it less suitable for collaborative use. This is free-to-use software.

Features to look for when choosing a software developer productivity tool

When choosing the best software developer productivity tool, there are several key features to consider. Features that can greatly impact workflow, efficiency, and productivity.

Here are the ones you should keep looking for when selecting the best software developer productivity tool:

Extensive code editing capabilities – a good developer productivity software should provide a powerful and feature-rich code editor. Look for syntax highlighting, intelligent code completion, code refactoring, and support for multiple programming languages. The possibility to install plugins or extensions should also be considered as it can further enhance the coding experience.
Efficient project management – project management features help you stay organized and focused. Look for features like task creation, assignment, project cost tracking, project timelines, Kanban boards, and the ability to set priorities, deadlines, and dependencies. Integration with popular project management tools can also be valuable.
Testing and debugging capabilities – look for built-in testing and debugging capabilities within the productivity tool. Features like unit testing frameworks, automated testing, and debugging tools can help identify and fix bugs more efficiently, leading to higher-quality and better-written code.
Version control integration – a characteristic that is crucial for collaborative development. Ensure that the tool integrates with popular version control systems like Git, allowing you to easily manage and track code changes, merge branches, and handle code conflicts.
Good communication and collaboration between team members – seamless communication capabilities are essential. Features like real-time messaging, comments, document sharing, and screen sharing can greatly improve team collaboration and coordination. Integration with team communication tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams can also be beneficial.
Easy integration in the team’s ecosystem – consider the tool’s integration capabilities with other tools and services commonly used in software development, such as issue tracking systems, continuous integration and deployment platforms, cloud services, and APIs. A rich ecosystem of integrations allows for seamless workflow and enhanced productivity.
Documentation/support available – ensure that the tool has comprehensive documentation, tutorials, and a supportive community.
Customization possibilities – prefer tools that offer customization options, allowing you to tailor the tool to your specific needs and preferences. Additionally, support for extensions, plugins, or APIs can enable you to enhance functionality or integrate with custom tools or services.

By evaluating these features, you can find a software developer productivity tool that aligns with your specific needs and enhances your coding experience.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the world of software development is constantly evolving, and developers are always on the lookout for ways to streamline their workflows and boost productivity.

The right set of developer productivity tools can make a significant difference in achieving these goals. This compilation has provided valuable insights into some of the most cutting-edge tools available today.

From time tracking and project management to code completion and testing automation, these tools cater to the diverse needs of developers, whether they are seasoned coders looking to optimize their toolkits or newcomers eager to dive into the coding world equipped with the best resources.

Timeular offers unique insights into time management, ClickUp streamlines project management, and VS Code provides a powerful code editor. GitHub Copilot, powered by AI, assists in code completion, while Jam simplifies the debugging process.

GitLab offers a comprehensive platform for collaboration and deployment, Testsigma simplifies test automation, and SaltStack focuses on configuration management and workplace automation. F.lux enhances developers’ well-being, and Mermaid JS simplifies diagram creation.

When selecting the best developer productivity tool, consider essential features such as extensive code editing capabilities, efficient project management, testing and debugging capabilities, version control integration, and the other features that we showed you above.

By carefully evaluating these features, you can find the ideal software developer productivity tool that fits your specific needs, boosts your efficiency, and ultimately enhances your development journey.

So, choose wisely, optimize your development kit, and take your coding productivity to new heights.

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