Developer Tools

Cursor

An AI-first code editor built as a fork of VS Code. Adds chat, autocomplete and agent-style edits on top of a familiar editor. Sold as a subscription with a limited free tier.

Docker

Container tooling and a registry ecosystem for packaging and running applications. The engine is open source. Docker Desktop requires a paid subscription for larger companies.

GitHub

Microsoft-owned code hosting and collaboration platform built around Git. Free for public and private repositories with paid team and enterprise tiers. Home to most large open source projects.

GitHub Copilot

GitHub's AI pair programmer that suggests code inside editors like VS Code and JetBrains. Sold with a limited free tier and paid individual and business subscriptions.

GitLab

An open core DevOps platform covering source control, CI/CD and project management. Available self-managed or as a hosted service, with free and paid tiers. Publicly traded.

Netlify

A hosting platform for static sites and frontend apps, credited with popularizing the Jamstack term. Free starter tier with paid plans. Acquired the Gatsby framework in 2023.

Stripe

A payments platform for internet businesses, covering card processing, subscriptions and payouts. Charges per-transaction fees. Privately held and one of the most valuable fintech companies.

Supabase

An open source backend platform built on Postgres, offering auth, storage and auto-generated APIs. Positioned as an open alternative to Firebase. Free tier with usage-based paid plans.

Vercel

Also known as Zeit

A hosting platform for frontend frameworks, created by the team behind Next.js. Free hobby tier with paid team plans. Usage-based pricing has been a recurring source of developer complaints.

Visual Studio Code

Also known as VS Code

Microsoft's free, open source code editor. The most widely used editor in developer surveys. Extended through a large marketplace of extensions. The core repository is MIT licensed.