Don’t Pay for These Dev Tools

There’s a tool for everything — but that doesn’t mean you need to pay for it.

Don’t Pay for These Dev Tools

Here are the best free alternatives to popular (and pricey) dev tools — powerful enough for professionals, and friendly enough for side projects.

Let’s face it — developers love shiny new tools. But that often means falling for fancy marketing, only to realize you just shelled out $15/month for something you could’ve gotten for free.

If you’re a developer (especially early in your journey), here’s a hard truth:

You don’t need to pay for most dev tools.

There’s a treasure trove of free and open-source tools that are just as powerful (sometimes better) than their paid counterparts — if you just know where to look.

In this post, I’ll save you time and money by sharing tools you should stop paying for, and their free alternatives you can switch to today.

1. Paid Code Editors

Stop paying for: Sublime Text (licensed), Nova, Coda

Use instead: Visual Studio Code

VS Code is the undisputed king of code editors right now — and for good reason.
It’s fast, fully customizable, packed with extensions, and 100% free.

Whether you’re building with Python, JavaScript, Go, or even COBOL (yikes), VS Code has your back.

Pair it with GitLens, Prettier, and the Live Server extensions — you won’t miss paid editors ever again.

2. API Testing Tools

Stop paying for: Postman Pro, Paw

Use instead: Hoppscotch or Insomnia

Postman is popular, but once it started locking features behind paywalls, many devs looked elsewhere.

Hoppscotch is a blazing-fast open-source API client built in Vue.

It’s lightweight, browser-based, and beautifully designed.

Insomnia is another solid choice with a slick UI, open-source core, and support for GraphQL, REST, and gRPC.

3. Cloud IDEs

Stop paying for: GitHub Codespaces (if on higher tiers), JetBrains Space

Use instead: Replit or CodeSandbox

If you’re not working on massive enterprise apps, tools like Replit and CodeSandbox let you spin up full-stack environments in seconds — all from your browser.

Perfect for side projects, learning, or quick experiments.

Replit even lets you deploy projects and collaborate in real-time. For most devs, that’s more than enough.

4. Database GUI Clients

Stop paying for: TablePlus, DataGrip

Use instead:

DBeaver (multi-DB support)

Beekeeper Studio (clean, open-source alternative)

pgAdmin (for PostgreSQL devs)

Whether you’re managing PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, or MongoDB — there’s a free client that covers your needs.

5. CI/CD Services

Stop paying for: CircleCI (beyond the free tier), Travis CI (legacy plans)

Use instead:

GitHub Actions

GitLab CI/CD

Drone (open-source, lightweight)

GitHub Actions is powerful, integrates natively with your repos, and supports everything from deployments to running tests and sending Slack notifications — all with generous free minutes.

6. Documentation Generators

Stop paying for: ReadMe, Document360

Use instead:

Docusaurus (great for product docs)

MkDocs (Python devs will love this)

Docz (if you like MDX)

You don’t need a paid SaaS just to document your code or APIs.

With these free static site generators, you can host polished docs for free on Netlify, Vercel, or GitHub Pages.

7. Paid Search & Logs

Stop paying for: Algolia, LogRocket, Datadog (for small projects)

Use instead:

Meilisearch (lightning-fast search engine)

Highlight.io (open-source alternative to LogRocket)

Prometheus + Grafana (for metrics/logs/dashboards)

If you’re running a startup or side project, these free tools will give you 95% of what the paid ones offer — minus the monthly burn.

8. BONUS: AI Tools

Stop paying for: ChatGPT Plus (unless you’re deep into AI work), GitHub Copilot (for casual coding)

Use instead:

Phind — AI search engine for developers

Codeium — Free AI coding assistant

Cursor — AI-native VS Code fork with Copilot-like features

AI tools are powerful — no doubt.

But if you’re using them casually, there are excellent free tools out there that do the job without the subscription guilt.

Final Thoughts

Here’s the truth:

You don’t need a bigger tool budget — you need better tool awareness.

Free tools today are more powerful than most of the paid tools from five years ago. Unless you’re working on enterprise-level projects or require advanced features, you can build, test, deploy, and document entire applications without spending a dime.

So stop bleeding money on overpriced dev tools. Use that cash for coffee, courses, or side projects that matter.

Over to You

Which dev tool are you paying for that you think you could replace? Or which free tool totally surprised you?

Drop your thoughts in the comments. Let’s save some money together.

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