The Best Tools for JavaScript Development

In the middle 90's, when word JavaScript came in most of the people mind that it was only for validations and animation in web pages. Now the time has changed, JavaScript has been evolved as a programming language giant. JavaScript nowadays used in more places than ever before. Its ecosystem accounts dozens of JavaScript tools. Widely used JavaScript development tools are more stable, supported by a larger community and eventually more reliable. In this article, we are going to make the ultimate list of JavaScript tools for web developers to help you with various coding tasks. You’ll discover helpful instruments to boost the development flow, reduce risks, optimize code, enhance security, and even more. It includes the most popular tools for each category according to developer popularity and user satisfaction. So, let's see the tools -

WebStorm

WebStorm brings smart coding assistance for JavaScript. It provides advanced coding assistance for Angular, React.js, Vue.js and Meteor. It also helps developers to code more efficiently when working with large projects. It provides built-in tools for debugging, testing and tracing client-side and Node.js applications. It integrates with popular command line tools for web development. Spy-js built-in tool allows tracing JavaScript code. It provides a unified UI for working with many popular Version Control System. It is extremely customizable to perfectly suite various coding style. It offers built-in debugger for client-side code and Node.js apps.

Grunt

Grunt is our preferred tool when it comes to task automation. It’s a Javascript task runner, offering both a lot of bundled plugins for common tasks, while still being very extensible, giving you the option to write all kinds of tasks to suit your need. The best comes when you can combine tasks together to create even more powerful ones. Grunt’s scope goes beyond simply automating front-end related tasks.

Karma

Karma is a Javascript test runner written by the guys behind AngularJS. Karma lets you execute your tests from your workstation to the production CI. It can launch multiple browsers and run your tests against them, giving you maximum confidence in your code. While developing, it’s a real pleasure to write code on your first monitor and get the results, in real-time, on the second, all running against multiple browsers.

TypeScript

TypeScript is an open-source front-end scripting language. It is a strict syntactical superset of JavaScript which adds optional static typing. It is specially designed for the development of large applications and compiles to JavaScript. TypeScript supports other JS libraries. It is possible to use this Typescript on any environment that JavaScript runs on. It supports definition files that can contain type information of existing JavaScript libraries, such as C/C++ header files. It is portable across browsers, devices, and operating systems.

Infinite Scroll

Unlike most of the rest of this list, this is an old tool but it’s been rewritten for version 3. The new version includes URL changes while scrolling, no jQuery dependency, and lots of optional settings via a clean API.

KUTE

JavaScript animation engine with performance as its primary feature. This one grabs your attention immediately due to the gorgeous and super-smooth animation on the home page. The API looks elegant and well worth trying out.

Timeline

A jQuery plugin with a twist on the carousel component, for the specific use case of creating a carousel timeline (ie a slider that progresses based on chronological points) with lots of visual and functional customisation options.

Muuri

JavaScript API for responsive, sortable, filterable, and drag-and-drop Masonry/Packery-style grid layouts. The demos are really nice and there are lots of options available to customise the grid for different layout types.

Webpack

Webpack is a bundling tool used by developers for all manner of sites and applications. If you use Webpack to do your bundling, you have the advantage of the stats data available from the tool. This data can range from module contents, build logs and errors, relationships that exist between modules, and much more.

Express

A minimalist web framework allowing developers build websites with the help of Node. Node.js, in turn, is JavaScript runtime environment using JS on the server. Express.js is stable, fast and to the point. It simply provides robust tooling for HTTP servers, and that’s the beauty of it.

SessionStack

SessionStack is a monitoring software that provides you with a set of monitoring tools. These tools collect client-side data and assist you in figuring out exactly what your clients are doing on your website. In situations where problems occur, being able to track precisely what happened and how is vital. This is where Session Stack shines. SessionStack uses a video replay to help developers replicate user issues and error conditions.

Electron

When it comes to desktop apps, this framework has been gaining traction recently as a fine tool to build cross-platform applications and websites. The electron is based on Node.js and Chromium engine and supports the whole HTML, JS, CSS pack.

React

React is a JS library introduced by Facebook engineers in 2011 and then released as an open-source. ReactJS offers new ways to render web pages, a dynamic UI, high performance and several other advantages. One of the key benefits is the reusability of code components, which is especially useful and a time-saver when dealing with system upgrades. Components are isolated and do not cause changes in each other.

Vue.js

It is an open source, lightweight (20 Kb zip), virtual DOM library/framework, created out of Angular. Vue utilizes an HTML syntax for data binding and provides tools for tasks like routing, scaffolding, animations etc.

Backbone

Backbone.js gives structure to web applications by offering models with key-value binding and custom events. Backbone.js allows developers to develop one-page applications. It has a simple library used to separate business and user interface logic. This tool makes code simple, systematic and organized. It acts as a backbone for any project. It manages the data model which also includes the user data and display that data on the server side. It allows developers to create client-side web applications or mobile applications.

GULP

Gulp is basically a task automation tool. The file that you create in this tool, is a plain JavaScript file that you can run to automate you menial tasks. It comes under the category of the package manager. Gulp is very developer friendly and easy to learn.

 

We cannot fit all the existing tools JavaScript developers should know into one article, even the most popular. These are the tools that make the life of a JavaScript developer easier. If you know about some other great tools, then share with us in the comments section. Thank you!