Open source web development is one of the most innovative ways to develop programs. The source code being publicly available means that there is creative input from different quarters around the globe. Various developers can add to the code, the issues which exist in it can be solved quickly and effectively. At the same time, other developers can take insights and learn from what changes occur in the code.
It is difficult to ascertain the best open-source tool because the preferences for each developer is different. So, what we have done instead is narrow the list down from thousands to ten which are widely used and appreciated in the community.
XAMPP
X-Cross platform, Apache, MariaDB, PHP and Perl or XAMPP is considered the simplest way to set up a local webserver. It is widely used among the web developer community. It is a collection of libraries from all of the above-listed languages, so programmers don’t have to worry about configuring each of them individually.
Node.js
Originally written by Ryan Dahl, Node.js is another popular open-source, cross-platform environment which was initially launched in 2009. It is a JavaScript runtime platform which was created on Google Chrome’s v8 JavaScript engine. Node.js is fast and efficient because of the non-blocking I/O model that it uses. It is also event-driven which adds to its functionality.
Notepad++
This program is a text and source code editor which is exclusive for Microsoft Windows. Notepad++ can support more than 50 programming and markup languages. It has an enormous community which constantly interacts with each other to achieve significant feats in the development of various codes. The support for plug-ins is also extensive in Notepad++.
AngularJS
Another famous open-source platform which was released in 2009 is AngularJS. Developers prefer to use it for dynamic and typically single page web applications. AngularJS supports filters and data binding with HTML. The program was created by Google. The open-sourcing was executed under licenses from MIT.
Atom
Atom is another one the many open source web development tools which professionals love. It is called the ‘hackable text editor for the 21st century” because of the freedom it offers to creators. Atom also allows cross-platform editing which makes it even more versatile. There is built-in support for AngularJS, Atom TypeScript, turbo-JavaScript and several other elements which contribute to faster development.
Brackets
First released in 2014, Brackets is designed and launched by Adobe which makes it another hot favorite on our list. The open-source code editor supports HTML, CSS and JavaScript, three of the most popular languages in web development. It offers a line preview of the browser inside the editor which means that the entire process is much faster and simpler.
LESS
Developed by Alexis Sellier, LESS is a CSS pre-processor. The syntax of the program is much like the language itself. There are many features is LESS that make web development hassle-free and less time consuming for developers. It allows functions and mixins as well as other techniques which are useful in web development.
Bootstrap
When it comes to the development of responsive designs, bootstrap is the program of choice. It is the free open source platform which has the most stars on GitHub. Bootstrap has its own grids, forms, containers and media queries etc.
Ember.js
Ember.js is another web developer favorite framework which is used for web applications compromising of only one page. It is based on the MVC or model-view-controller pattern of web development. It is a JavaScript framework that was first launched back in 2011.
Firebug
Firebug is an extension of Mozilla Firefox which is used to help in editing debugging and monitoring CSS, JavaScript and HTML scripts. The focus of this platform is on editing and creating live web pages. It comes with a host of features like visualizing CSS metrics and monitoring network activity among many others.
Open source web development is a hot field nowadays. There are many reasons for this and one of the main things is the experience which a developer can gain through the communities of the tools listed above. If you are interested in learning more about web development or any of these open-source tools. Get in touch with us today.