12 Best Developer Productivity Tools for Smarter Coding

The tools you’re using as a developer determine more than only your productivity. These also affect your job satisfaction and ego, clean code quality, and your ability to meet deadlines.

That’s why I made a guide with the best developer productivity tools you need to stay on top of your game if you’re a seasoned developer or get a head start with cutting-edge tools as a newbie. Let’s jump right in!

Disclaimers

❗You need to know that I’m not a developer but a writer – I gathered honest feedback from our team of developers @ EARLY and held interviews with freelance developers across various specializations.

❗While one of the featured tools is our own product, this review remains objective, and none of the other companies have sponsored this content.

❗I’ve evaluated these tools based on feedback from real developers and specific criteria that matter:

• Core functionality: Does it excel at solving developer-specific challenges?
• Learning curve: How quickly can a developer become productive with it?
• Integration capabilities: Does it work well with existing tech stacks?
• Customization options: Can it adapt to different coding workflows?
• Performance reliability: Is it stable during intensive development?

Best developer productivity tools

1. EARLY

Main functionality: Comprehensive time-tracking app with automatic time capture, AI-driven time entries, and productivity reports for developers and teams.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.6/5
• Capterra: 4.6/5
• Product Hunt: 5/5

According to the freelance engineers I spoke with, the best thing about this tool is that they’ve finally reached accuracy in their client reports, but without any effort. They no longer have to stress about how to fill out their timesheets, as these are basically filled out automatically with EARLY’s automatic time-tracking capabilities.

If you’re a freelance engineer, you know how important client billing is and how much value this feature brings!

“EARLY 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

Price:

• Personal account: $6.63/month
• Personal Pro: $10.10/month
• Team: $18.41/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Best for: freelance developers, software agencies, and development teams that need to track time across projects, clients, and tasks.

“EARLY has allowed us to work more efficiently. Thanks to the insights, we have been able to make a lot of changes to the IT structure to work more efficiently. This has saved each team member around two hours per week, which is 10 hours gained in total across the team each week.” Noah Ruseng Bested, IT Support Assistant @Bang & Olufsen

Since starting to use EARLY, the IT team at Bang & Olufsen has restructured their workflow priorities and transformed how they understand their productivity patterns. Honestly, what engineering team would prefer to waste time because of a poorly built workflow instead of doing what we know best: coding?

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Notable features:

• Automatic time tracking that detects which coding environments, apps, and tools development teams are using and adds them automatically to their timesheets.
• Physical and digital tracking methods: EARLY combines tracking time from a physical tracking cube to an intuitive calendar interface or keyboard shortcuts.
• AI productivity tracking generates insights that identify peak productivity hours and potential bottlenecks.
• Anti-surveillance policy: As engineers are aware of all the potential threats, development teams particularly value how EARLY respects their privacy, and the tracking data remains confidential and accessible only to designated users.
• A project budget monitoring feature that tracks development hours against allocated time budgets, making it an effortless project time tracker.
• Intuitive team time tracking to effortlessly stay on top of all team’s timesheets, time off tracking and management, and overtime patterns.

• Detailed reporting with time breakdowns by project, task, or activity – This easy-to-use time reporting system provides detailed analytics and visualizations to help developers understand their time allocation.
• Integration with development tools, including GitHub, GitLab, Jira, and more.
• Available on mobile, desktop, and web apps for engineering teams to use the time tracking software in the office, at a client’s site, both online and offline.
  

Track time with zero effort, using EARLY

top guessing where your coding hours go! EARLY’s AI-powered time tracking automatically captures your development activity while respecting your privacy.

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💡 Pro Tip: Looking to understand your time allocation on tasks? Check our guide on the top time-tracking apps for developers and how to make software development time estimations.

2. Visual Studio Code

Main functionality: Lightweight yet powerful code editor with extensive language support and customization options.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.7/5
• Stack Overflow Survey: #1 most popular development environment (2022-2024)
• Slant: #1 ranked code editor

The freelance developers I spoke with consistently ranked VS Code as their most essential tool, with one senior full-stack developer describing it as “the Swiss Army knife of coding” that adapts perfectly to any language or project type.

Price: Free (open-source)

Best for: Developers of all experience levels across virtually any programming language or framework.

Visual Studio Code kept its position as the most popular code editor among developers for good reason. The developers I interviewed emphasized how its lightweight nature doesn’t sacrifice power—one backend engineer mentioned saving time amounting to 10 hours weekly through VS Code’s extensions and customizations compared to their previous setup.

The way Visual Studio Code works centers around its extensibility. The core editor is streamlined and fast, while thousands of extensions allow developers to build their perfect environment. Our development team praised how easily they could standardize their development environment by sharing extension packs and settings, ensuring everyone has the same capabilities regardless of their operating system.

Notable features:

• IntelliSense Suggests sends contextually aware code completions based on the project’s types, imports, and patterns and reduces documentation lookups with inline parameter hints, return types, and others.
• Integrated terminal to stay in the editor while running commands and eliminate disruptive context switching while simultaneously running tests, servers, and builds in a single environment.
• Debugging support for Node.js, Python, C++, and other languages that cut debugging time by more than 50% through visual breakpoints and step-through execution.

• Git integration for managing repositories without leaving the editor and reduces version control overhead by 70% through inline staging, commits, and branch management.
• Live Share for real-time collaborative editing and debugging and better team performance.

💡 Pro Tip: Not sure if your team deals with too much work overload? We wrote comprehensive guides on how to manage a software development team and how to track employee performance.

3. GitHub Copilot

Main functionality: AI-powered code generation tool integrated directly into code editors.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.6/5
• TrustRadius: 9.1/10

If you’re not using GitHub Copilot, then what are you doing? According to the software development teams I spoke with, GitHub Copilot has dramatically accelerated the speed at which they’re generating code, that previously required searching documentation or Stack Overflow. One senior developer estimated it had increased their productive output by “at least 25-30%” for routine coding tasks and changed the entire resource allocation process on projects.

Price:

• Individual: $10/month
• Business: $19/user/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Best for: Software engineering teams as well as professional developers looking to boost their productivity for both routine coding tasks and exploring new solutions.

This app’s features are much more complex as it’s evolved since its introduction. Our dev team considers it an essential part of their toolbox. More than simply autocompleting code, it now helps them think through problems by suggesting potential approaches and implementations. One developer mentioned how Copilot helped them implement a complex sorting algorithm they weren’t familiar with.

The way GitHub Copilot works is by continuously analyzing the code context to generate relevant suggestions. It integrates directly into VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, and other popular environments. Developers noted that the tool becomes more useful over time as it learns from their way or writing code and project context.

Notable features:

• Context-aware code completion that understands the project and surrounding code in various programming languages.
• Whole-function generation based on comments or function names that accelerate development by automating routine tasks.
• Multiple code suggestions to choose from alternative implementations, giving engineers the options that suit their specific use case and needs and ensuring the generation of clean code.
• Documentation generation to help create comments and documentation. This not only saves time but also ensures that code is well-explained, making it easier for teams to collaborate and hand over projects over time.
• Support for dozens of programming languages, including Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Ruby, Go, and more.

💡 Pro Tip: GitHub is as good as its efficiency – do you know how much time you spend in GitHub? If not, check our guide on GitHub time tracking integration.

4. Jam

Main functionality: Asynchronous code review and collaboration platform specifically designed for remote development teams.

Reviews:

• Product Hunt: 4.8/5
• G2: 4.5/5

Freelance developers working on distributed teams told me that Jam has transformed their code review process, with one lead developer explaining that it “eliminated the constant context-switching that used to plague their review workflow.”

Price:

• Free: Basic features
• Pro: $15/user/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Best for: Distributed development teams looking to make their code review process more efficient and thoughtful.

Jam was highlighted by several remote developers I interviewed as a tool that revolutionized how they perform code reviews. Unlike real-time pair programming in regular collaboration tools, Jam focuses on async collaboration, allowing devs to record short videos explaining their code changes while navigating through the codebase. Can you imagine how much this impacts software developer productivity?

Just think about how many lengthy written explanations you had to write over the years, and you’ll understand!

Notable features:

• Code-centric video recording that connects the explanation directly to specific code segments automatically, without any written explanation or note added.
• Timestamped comments that link feedback to exact code snippets in the review.
• Integration with GitHub and GitLab to connect reviews to pull requests in its user-friendly interface.
• Screen and voice recording with automatic transcription. These advanced features create an entire codebase in the form of interactive documents.
• Interactive playback that allows reviewers to navigate the codebase as seen during recording.

5. GitLab

Main functionality: A Complete DevOps platform that unifies development, operations, and security, making it easy to manage software development teams.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.5/5
• Capterra: 4.7/5
• TrustRadius: 8.5/10

Several DevOps engineers I spoke with praised GitLab for eliminating tool-switching and centralizing their entire workflow, which is an advantage we’d all like, regardless of our jobs, right?

Price:

• Free
• Premium: $19/user/month
• Ultimate: $99/user/month

Best for: Development teams looking for a unified platform to handle their entire DevOps lifecycle.

GitLab is beyond just a Git repository manager, and developers at EARLY who have integrated it highlighted how it provides an end-to-end DevOps solution. One DevOps specialist described how GitLab has streamlined their CI/CD pipeline by having everything in one place, from code hosting and review to testing, deployment, and monitoring.

The way GitLab works is it centers around its complete DevOps platform, where all stages of the software development lifecycle are integrated into a single app. This means developers don’t need to cobble together multiple tools or constantly switch contexts. The senior developers I interviewed particularly emphasized how this approach improved visibility across their entire development process.

Notable features:

• Built-in CI/CD for automated testing and deployment
• Kanban boards help in making agile decisions while checking project milestones without complex project management tools.
• Integrated security scanning for identifying vulnerabilities and error tracking without other developer tools involved in the process.
• Container registry to securely store and manage Docker images directly within your GitLab instance, eliminating the need for external registry services.
• Wiki and documentation capabilities within the same platform to keep all project documentation in the same app as your code.

💡 Pro Tip: GitLab is as good as its efficiency and outputs. If you’re looking to know how much time you’re spending with GitLab, check our The best GitLab time tracking integration guide.

6. Claude AI

Main functionality: Advanced AI assistant for developers that helps with coding, documentation, problem-solving, and more.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.4/5
• TrustRadius: 8.7/10

This list includes numerous tools already, but AI tools need to be included, as these do wonders in many jobs. The frontend developers I interviewed mentioned how Claude AI has become their weapon for documentation and debugging, with one noting that it “explains complex algorithms and system architecture better than many technical tutorials.”

Price:

• Free: Basic access
• Claude Pro: $20/month
• Team: $30/user/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Best for: Developers who need assistance with problem-solving, documentation writing, code explanation, or tackling unfamiliar technologies.

Several developers highlighted Claude AI as unique for its contextual understanding and ability to work with large blocks of code. Unlike some other tools, Claude maintains context over longer conversations, and this enables users to explore complex technical concepts or troubleshoot difficult bugs.

The way Claude works involves sophisticated language understanding that can follow complex programming concepts and technical discussions. Unlike simpler chatbots, Claude can understand nuanced questions about development approaches and provide detailed, accurate explanations. A backend developer at EARLY shared how Claude helped them understand and refactor a legacy codebase by explaining the architectural patterns used and suggesting modern alternatives.

Notable features:

• Long-context understanding for working with entire functions or classes. This allows developers to share large codebases, full error logs, or entire classes at once.
• Technical knowledge across programming languages and frameworks, from React and TypeScript to Python and Kubernetes, Claude serves as an always-available expert to help navigate unfamiliar tech stacks.
• Ability to explain complex code in simple terms by breaking down complex algorithms, design patterns, and architectural decisions.
• Documentation generation from code samples, including usage examples, parameter descriptions, and architectural overviews.
• Debugging assistance by analyzing error messages and suggesting solutions.

💡 Pro Tip: Claude AI is just a fish in the ocean; choose from the best AI tools that will top all lists.

7. Codeium

Main functionality: AI-powered code completion and generation tool with a focus on speed and accessibility.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.3/5
• Product Hunt: 4.7/5

Junior developers particularly praise Codeium as their “coding co-pilot,” noting it helped them contribute meaningfully to projects despite being new to the codebase.

Price:

• Free: Full features for individual developers
• Teams: $12/user/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Best for: Developers looking for AI tools without a subscription fee or teams wanting an alternative to GitHub Copilot.

Codeium was mentioned by freelance developers as a great alternative to GitHub Copilot, with the big advantage that it offers many more features in its free tier. A frontend developer I interviewed explained how Codeium has become part of their workflow as it understands project context and offers good suggestions without requiring them to carefully prompt the AI.

The way Codeium works involves analyzing your code patterns and context to predict what you’re likely to write next. Developers at EARLY noted that while it started as a code completion tool similar to others, its chat interface for asking coding questions and generating entire functions has become increasingly useful as it challenges them to think beyond the regular solutions.

Notable features:

• Fast, context-aware code completion across 70+ programming languages that analyzes your entire project context in real-time to provide remarkably accurate suggestions matching your coding style and variable naming conventions.
• The free tier includes the core functionality, unlike other AI tools that lock essential features behind paywalls.
• IDE integration with VS Code, JetBrains, Vim, and more that seamlessly embeds into your existing workflow across virtually every major development environment with native-feeling integrations
• Chat interface for asking coding questions without leaving your IDE.
• Function-level code generation from natural language descriptions.

8. Postman

Main functionality: API development environment for building, testing, and documenting APIs.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.7/5
• Capterra: 4.8/5
• TrustRadius: 9.0/10

API developers I spoke with consider Postman indispensable, with one senior backend engineer saying it “cut their API development and testing time by more than half.”

Price:

• Free: Basic features
• Team: $10/user/month
• Business: $19/user/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Best for: Backend developers, API designers, QA engineers, and anyone working with API endpoints.

Postman has transformed how the dev team at EARLY approaches API development. One backend engineer described how, before Postman, they would use a combination of curl commands, custom scripts, and browser extensions to test APIs. This process was error-prone and inefficient. With Postman, they can now design, document, and test APIs all within the same environment.

The way Postman works centers around collections of API requests that can be organized, shared, and automated. The developers I interviewed particularly valued the ability to create test scripts that automatically validate responses, ensuring APIs continue to function as expected over time. This has led to more stable APIs and fewer production issues.

💡 Pro Tip: Curious to understand and enhance the habits that prevent you from working efficiently? We wrote all about work habits that are beneficial, and about areas of improvement at work.

Notable features:

• Intuitive request builder for testing API endpoints that provides a visual interface for constructing HTTP requests with customizable headers, authentication, query parameters, and body content.
• Collection runner for automating test suites that execute predefined sequences of API requests with assertions to validate responses, scheduling options, and environment variables.
• Mock servers to simulate API responses before implementation that create functional API interfaces based on examples or specifications.
• API documentation that generates from your requests and automatically stays synchronized with your actual endpoints.
• Collaboration features for sharing APIs across teams that include role-based access controls, version history, and commenting capabilities.

9. Exflow

Main functionality: Workflow automation platform designed specifically for development and DevOps teams.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.4/5
• Product Hunt: 4.6/5

DevOps engineers highlighted Exflow for removing repetitive tasks from their day, with one stating it “automated away 40% of their routine deployment checks and monitoring.”

Price:

• Free: Basic features
• Pro: $15/user/month
• Team: $25/user/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Best for DevOps engineers, SREs, and development teams looking to automate repetitive tasks and workflows.

Exflow was singled out by several DevOps specialists I interviewed as a breakthrough tool for automating the repetitive tasks that previously consumed hours of their time each week. One engineer at EARLY explained how they’ve created workflows to automatically validate deployments, check for security vulnerabilities, and alert the team to potential issues—all without writing custom scripts.

Exflow works by using a no-code/low-code interface to create sophisticated automation workflows specific to development and operations tasks. Developers appreciated how it connects with their existing tools like GitHub, Jira, Slack, and monitoring systems to create holistic automation that spans their entire toolchain.

Notable features:

• Visual workflow builder for creating complex automation without code that provides an intuitive drag-and-drop interface for connecting different actions and triggers.
• Pre-built templates for common development tasks that offer ready-to-use workflow configurations for CI/CD pipelines, code reviews, deployment processes, and testing sequences.
• Extensive integration library covering most development and DevOps tools that seamlessly connects with GitHub, GitLab, Jira, Slack, AWS, and dozens of other platforms
• Conditional logic for creating sophisticated decision trees that evaluate variables, system states, and previous outcomes to determine execution paths.
• Monitoring and alerts to flag automation failures.

10. GitHub Actions

Main functionality: Workflow automation tool integrated directly into GitHub repositories.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.5/5
• TrustRadius: 8.7/10

CI/CD specialists praise GitHub Actions for its simplicity, with one developer telling me it “reduced their deployment pipeline configuration from 1,000 lines to less than 200.”

Price:

• Free: 2,000 minutes/month
• Team: $4/user/month (includes 3,000 minutes)
• Enterprise: $21/user/month (includes 50,000 minutes)

Best for: Development teams already using GitHub who want to automate their workflows without additional tools.

The way GitHub Actions works involves defining workflows as YAML files directly in your repository. These workflows can be triggered by various events like pushes, pull requests, or schedules. Developers particularly appreciate how this approach keeps automation logic alongside code, making it easier to maintain and evolve together.

Notable features:

• Workflow automation that is triggered by GitHub events and automatically responds to code pushes, pull requests, issue updates, and scheduled intervals.
• Matrix builds for testing across multiple configurations that simultaneously run workflows against different operating systems, language versions, and dependency combinations.
• Reusable actions from a growing marketplace that provides thousands of pre-built, community-maintained components for common tasks like Node.js setup, Docker publishing, and cloud deployments.
• Integrated secrets management to securely store sensitive information like API tokens, passwords, and certificates with fine-grained access controls.
• Self-hosted runners for custom environments.

11. Docker

Main functionality: Containerization platform that ensures consistent development and deployment environments.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.6/5
• TrustRadius: 8.9/10

Backend developers consider Docker transformative, as they’re stating it eliminated a big portion of the ‘works on my machine’ problems their team previously faced.

Price:

• Free: Docker Desktop Personal
• Pro: $5/user/month
• Team: $9/user/month
• Business: $24/user/month

Best for: Backend developers, DevOps engineers, and teams struggling with environment consistency.

Docker was mentioned by nearly every backend developer I interviewed as a foundational tool in their workflow. One developer recalled the “nightmare” of onboarding new team members before Docker when setting up a local development environment could take days. With Docker, new developers can be productive within hours by simply running a few commands to spin up the entire application stack.

The way Docker works involves packaging applications and their dependencies into standardized containers that run consistently across different environments. Developers particularly value how this eliminates compatibility issues between development, testing, and production environments. Many noted that Docker not only improved their development workflow but also simplified deployment and scaling.

Notable features:

• Containerization for consistent environments across development and production that packages applications with all dependencies and configurations in isolated units.
• Docker Compose for defining multi-container applications that orchestrate complex systems with a simple YAML configuration.
• Docker Hub for sharing and discovering container images that serve as both a private repository for your team’s custom containers and a public registry with thousands of ready-to-use images for databases.
• Volume mounting for local development without rebuilding containers.
• Networking capabilities for connecting containers and services.

💡 Pro Tip: Want to discover and test more tools that boost productivity? Dive into this guide on the top apps to boost team productivity.

12. Jira

Main functionality: Comprehensive project management and issue-tracking software designed specifically for agile software development teams.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.3/5
• Capterra: 4.4/5
• TrustRadius: 8.2/10

You’re probably using Jira already in your job, but if you happen not to use it, you’ll learn why you should. Dev teams rely on Jira for many functions, but mainly as their workflow management tool.

Price:

• Free: Up to 10 users
• Standard: $7.75/user/month
• Premium: $15.25/user/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Best for: Dev teams that implement agile methods like Scrum who need robust tracking and reporting capabilities.

Jira was consistently mentioned by the dev teams I interviewed as one of the best project management tools they used. It helps engineers with task management, tracking project progress, and other processes that allow them to focus on code quality.

A development director described how, before Jira, their team struggled with inconsistent task management practices across different squads, which made it difficult to coordinate releases and dependencies. Standardizing on Jira has significantly improved cross-team collaboration and release deadlines.

The way Jira works involves customizable workflows that map directly to development processes, with configurable board views that visualize work in progress. Developers particularly like how they can tailor Jira to match their specific implementation of agile methodologies rather than changing their process to fit the tool.

Notable features:

• Customizable workflows for modeling your exact development process.
• Scrum and Kanban boards for visualizing work in progress.
• Advanced reporting for sprint burndown, velocity, and other metrics.
• Integration ecosystem connecting with version control, CI/CD, and support tools.
• Automation rules for reducing manual status updates and transitions.

Conclusion

The right developer productivity tools make or break your success as an engineer, so hopefully, this compilation helped you browse through some of the most cutting-edge tools available and make your choice.

As you must already know, tools should make it easy for you to work, and these should ease into your software development process. not the other way around. Test these tools for a while to get a grip on how they integrate into your tool stack and workflow. If your purpose is measuring developer productivity, EARLY is the best tool for measuring productivity.