My favorite software

As of January 20th 2026, my favorite software (besides from Simple DNS Plus) is:

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)
Visual Build https://www.kinook.com/VisBuildPro
Nice GUI based build automation tool.
I also use it for general automation - such as making database backups.
Advanced Installer - http://www.caphyon.com
Nice MSI installer builder.
Yaak - https://yaak.app
HTTP REST API test tool and more.
OpenAPI-GUI https://mermade.github.io/openapi-gui ⭐2026
Web-based tool to create/edit OpenAPI specification files.

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.

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.

Vivaldi - https://vivaldi.com ⭐2026
Nicest web browser out there.
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).
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://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.
LibreOffice - https://www.libreoffice.org
Free desktop programs for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, diagrams, and more.
SyncBackPro - https://www.2brightsparks.com
Great file synchronization software.

Paint.NET https://www.getpaint.net ⭐2025
For quick image / screenshot editing.
It has fewer features than PhotoShop, PaintShop Pro, Affinity, GIMP, etc. but it is very capable and much faster.
PaintShop Pro https://www.paintshoppro.com
For more advanced photo/image editing.
Have use PhotoShop and Affinify Photo in the past, but keep coming back to PaintShop Pro.
Capture One - https://www.captureone.com ⭐2025
Organize, cull, process raw photo files.
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.

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.

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 .
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.

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