After my last article 15 must have web developer tools for beginners in which many of you commented that the tools were too expensive, I have decided to revive the list to include only free and open source tools. There are many more tools that I could have posted and I more than likely will at the end of this article over the next few days, however, I feel the list below displays a very good start for any developer. All comments and recommendations are welcome at the bottom of this article. Lets see if we can get truly the greatest list of free and open source web developer tools. 
1. GIMP
Very much a Photoshop esc application but free. GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.
2. Aptana
The Aptana IDE is a free, open-source, cross-platform, JavaScript-focused development environment for building Ajax applications. It features code assist on JavaScript, HTML, and CSS languages, FTP/SFTP support and a JavaScript debugger to troubleshoot your code.
3. Color Cop
A very handy tool for capturing colours anywhere on your screen. Color Cop makes it quick and easy in those situations where you need to know what colour is being used.
4. Firefox web developer toolbar
The Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools. It is designed for Firefox, Flock, Mozilla and Seamonkey, and will run on any platform that these browsers support including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
More about Firefox we developer toolbar…
5. Internet Explorer Toolbar
The Microsoft Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar provides a variety of tools for quickly creating, understanding, and troubleshooting Web pages. This version is a preview release and behavior may change in the final release.
More about Internet Explorer Toolbar…
6. Firebug
Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.
7. Watchfire WebXACT
WebXACT is a free online service that lets you test single pages of web content for quality, accessibility, and privacy issues. It is very similar to Bobby and usefull to anyone wishing to check the accessibilty level of their templates/site.
8. JsUnit
JsUnit is a Unit Testing framework for client-side (in-browser) JavaScript. It is essentially a port of JUnit to JavaScript. Also included is a platform for automating the execution of tests on multiple browsers and mutiple machines running different OSs.
9. Xenu
Xenu’s Link Sleuth (TM) checks Web sites for broken links. Link verification is done on "normal" links, images, frames, plug-ins, backgrounds, local image maps, style sheets, scripts and java applets. It displays a continously updated list of URLs which you can sort by different criteria. A report can be produced at any time.
10. Vischeck
Vischeck is a way of showing you what things look like to someone who is color blind. You can try Vischeck online- either run Vischeck on your own image files or run Vischeck on a web page. You can also download programs to let you run it on your own computer.
11. Feng GUI
Find out how people View your website or image and which areas are getting most of the attention.
The ViewFinder Heatmap service, is an artificial intelligence service which simulates human visual attention and creates an attention heatmap.
12. Fiddler
Fiddler is a HTTP Debugging Proxy which logs all HTTP traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP Traffic, set breakpoints, and "fiddle" with incoming or outgoing data. Fiddler includes a powerful event-based scripting subsystem, and can be extended using any .NET language.
13. browsershots.org
Browsershots.org is a free open-source online service providing screenshots of your web site in a multitude of different browsers. It is not as advanced as BrowserCam but a fantastic tool none the less.
14. Expresso 2.1
Expresso is useful tool for learning how to use regular expressions and for developing and debugging regular expressions prior to incorporating them into your code. It provides a very cut down version of RegexBuddy but most importantly it is simple to use and free.
15. ColorJack
ColorJack is an amazing online application providing users with the ability to match colours that work well together. Perfect for those developers who struggle to get a good colour scheme together.
27 Comments Received
Thanks for the great applications
Great List, thanks !!
Still missing DebugBar (http://www.debugbar.com/?langage=en)…
Webdeveloping isn’t only for FireFox, nor only IE. It’s both, so we also need a FireBug-like application for IE.
By the way, FireBug Lite is available for IE, by porting the script through IE7Pro.
(IE7Pro extension for IE: http://www.ie7pro.com,
FireBug Lite: http://www.getfirebug.com/lite.html
Porting script in IE7Pro: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/8291)
How about development environemtns?
This client side testing stuff you have listed here is pretty good, but what about writing and debugging server side things like PHP and J2EE(servlets,JSP,etc.) ?
Eclipse does both nicely and 100% free
PHPEclipse is a fine product for open source development. Additionally, if you install the Eclipse SDK you can install aptana as a plugin, and easily switch views between AJAX and Server Side development.
Hi everyone, sorry for the delay in replying. I’ve been in a lot of meetings of late.
Anyway…
Mark yes I agree with your additions and will include them on to the list as soon as possible.
ldog and pz, I also agree with your comments and am working on a more advanced list specifically aimed at PHP and it’s looking good. It should be up over the next couple of days.
Finally I have also been pointed in the direction of the following tool: http://kuler.adobe.com/. Have a look its pretty cool…
thanks great post!
nice list. I’ll keep these in mind!
Great list I use Xenu all the time.
Color Cop is the best! It beats ColorZilla by a mile too since you can snag colors from flash or other videos! Great post! Thanks!
Great list…i’ve been using colorzilla…i’m going to try Color Cop
Check Out these FF extensions
Xinha Here
measure it
What about Selenium? It’s a good web testing framework.
M
thanks this is a great list
Funny that I stumbled upon this… Color Cop was written by my friend Jay. Good little app, it is. Not bad at all for a college project.
Wow, thanks for the tips =)
Well done for finding these useful resources and not to mention your each an individual review of each one. =0)
very good, i like it,
waiting for the next post
very good, i like it, thanks.
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! qibxbkvosm
Thanks for some real good advice.
Heinz
Thanks for mentioning Fiddler! Note that the new version, Fiddler2 (http://www.fiddler2.com) also supports display and modification of HTTPS traffic.
Colorzilla - extension for Firefox. Pick the colors out of the site that you want to use.
I suppose the same thing as Color Up, but I have not heard of the latter.
do you mean ‘photoshop-esque’?
Thanks for the list. I think I may revisit Aptana for Mac. Loved its IDE but the FTP tool blew-up my site, created hundreds of recursive folders! But with all the praise I’ve been reading it might be worth a second shot.
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