My favorite software

As of November 12th 2025, my favorite software (besides from Simple DNS Plus) is:

Software Development tools

• Rider - https://www.jetbrains.com/rider
  Amazing alternative to Visual Studio. Actually a lot better in many ways.
  Only problem is that it doesn't work well with VB.Net - and I maintain a lot of old VB.Net code.
  Once I am done migrating VB.NET code to C#, I will probably ditch Visual Studio.

• Visual Studio - https://www.visualstudio.com
  Integrated development environment (IDE) for most everything.

• esbuild - https://esbuild.github.io
  Build tool / bundler for JavaScript, CSS, etc.
  I use this directly (.exe) instead of a Node / JS based bundler.

• Dart Sass - https://sass-lang.com/dart-sass
  Compile Sass to CSS.
  I use this directly (.exe) instead of a Node / JS based bundler.

• Fork - https://git-fork.com
  Nice GUI Git client.

• SQLite Studio - http://sqlitestudio.pl
  For managing SQLite databases.

• Code Converter (VB - C#) - https://marketplace.visualstudio.com... ⭐2025
  Visual Studio extension for converting VB.net code to C# (see blog post)

• Advanced Installer - http://www.caphyon.com
  Nice MSI installer builder.

• Yaak - https://yaak.app
  HTTP REST API test tool and more.

• Apidog - https://apidog.com ⭐2025
  OpenAPI specification creation, and more.

Software development components / libraries

• Stoplight Elements - https://stoplight.io/open-source/elements ⭐2025
  Interactive API docs with code generation from OpenAPI specs and more.

• Frappe Charts - https://github.com/frappe/charts
  Very nice and small JavaScript charting library.

• Fuse.js - https://www.fusejs.io
  Powerful, lightweight fuzzy-search library, with zero dependencies.

• EPPlus Free - https://github.com/rimland/EPPlus
  .NET library for creating Excel spreadsheets.

• SQLite - https://www.sqlite.org
  The best local / embedded database.

• HiQPdf - http://www.hiqpdf.com
  .NET library for creating PDF files.

• MarkDig - https://github.com/lunet-io/markdig
  .NET library for converting markdown to HTML.

• ClearScript - https://github.com/microsoft/ClearScript
  .NET library for running JavaScript.

Server software

• Meilisearch - https://www.meilisearch.com ⭐2025
  Fast and easy-to-use and search engine software.
  (using the self-hosted version)

• CouchDB - https://couchdb.apache.org
  Amazing document store / NoSQL database server.
  Simple, lightweight, HTTP REST based interface (no client libraries needed), map/reduce, live continuous replication/backup, free / open-source.

• Certify SSL Manager - https://certifytheweb.com
  Software to automate installation and renewal of free Let's Encrypt SSL certificates on IIS / Windows Server.
  Of course, it has an option to authenticate via DNS by updating DNS records in Simple DNS Plus :-)

• Syncthing - https://syncthing.net
  For backup and syncing files between devices.

• SoftEther - https://www.softether.org
  Great VPN software.

Desktop software / Utilities

• TickTick - https://ticktick.com
  For tasks, notes, habits.

• eM Client https://www.emclient.com/
  Desktop e-mail client and calendar. Way better than Outlook ("New" and old).

• Notion - https://notion.so
  Notes, kanban boards, etc.

• Discord - https://discord.com
  Nice (free) service for internal chat / communication (replaced Slack).

• KeePassXC - https://keepassxc.org
  Great (free) program for storing passwords.
  Storing the (encrypted) password database on DropBox or similar makes it easy to sync between computers and my (Android) phone.
  It also lets you store "passkeys" and use these via a browser extension.

• 7-Zip - http://www.7-zip.org
  Great for working with zip files and other compressed file archives.

• CutePDF Professional - http://www.cutepdf.com
  I mostly use it for scanning to PDF files, and for merging multiple PDF files into one.

• pCloud - https://my.pcloud.com
  File synchronization, backup, sharing, etc.

• TreeSize Free - https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free
  Figure out what is using all that hard disk space.

Image / Video editing

• Affinity Photo - https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo ⭐2025
  Edit photos/images.

• Capture One - https://www.captureone.com ⭐2025
  Organize, cull, raw processing of photos.

• ImageGlass - https://imageglass.org ⭐2025
  Quickly view photos/images.
  Because Microsoft keeps messing with the one that comes with Windows.

• Filmora - https://filmora.wondershare.com
  Edit videos.

Software that I am looking into and will probably start using soon

• jint - https://github.com/sebastienros/jint
  .NET library for running JavaScript.
  I am planning on replacing ClearScript (see above) with this soon.

• Apache Answer - https://answer.apache.org
  Nice free forum / Q&A website software.
  Will be implementing soon.

Honorable mentions - software I no longer use - but still highly recommend

• StableBit DrivePool - https://stablebit.com/DrivePool
  Pool disks and duplicate important files to multiple drives (HDDs / SSDs) - like RAID, only much simpler.
  Have used with great success, but don't currently have a use case for it.

• Gitea - https://gitea.com
  Fantastic self-hosted Git server with a web UI that is very similar to GitHub.
  Have used it for private repositories with great success.
  Now, I just use bare repositories in a shared folder on pCloud .

• SyncBackPro / SyncBack Touch - https://www.2brightsparks.com
  Great file synchronization software.
  Have used it a lot for many different tasks in the past. Don't currently have a use case for it.

• WinMerge - http://winmerge.org
  Great tool for comparing text files - and folders.
  I now use Rider's built-it functions for comparing files and folders instead.