My favorite software

As of February 27th 2025, my favorite software (besides from Simple DNS Plus) is:

Software Development tools

• Rider - https://www.jetbrains.com/rider ⭐2024
  Amazing alternative to Visual Studio - for newer C# code. 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.
  As I migrate more VB code to C#, I will probably ditch Visual Studio eventually.

• 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 ⭐2024
  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.

• Fiddler Classic - https://www.telerik.com/fiddler/fiddler-classic
  Analyze HTTP(S) traffic.

• Yaak - https://yaak.app ⭐2024
  HTTP REST API test tool and more.

Software development components / libraries

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

• 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.

• Swagger UI - https://swagger.io/tools/swagger-ui
  For web API documentation.

Server software

• CouchDB - https://couchdb.apache.org ⭐2024
  Amazing NoSQL database server.
  Simple, lightweight, HTTP REST based interface (no client libraries needed), map/reduce, live continuous replication/backup, free / open-source.

• StableBit DrivePool - https://stablebit.com/DrivePool ⭐2024
  Automatically duplicate important files to multiple drives (HDDs / SSDs) - like RAID, only much simpler.
  Using this for HyperV virtual disks and other critical files.

• Gitea - https://gitea.com ⭐2024
  I am now using this fantastic self hosted Git server for my private Git repositories.
  I had these on GitHub for years, but after learning how easy it is for private GitHub repos to "leak" into public, I do prefer keeping private source code behind my own firewall.

• 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

• Diarium - https://diariumapp.com ⭐2024
  Great app for Journaling.

• TickTick - https://ticktick.com ⭐2024
  For tasks, notes, habits.

• eM Client https://www.emclient.com/ ⭐2024
  Desktop e-mail client and calendar. Way better than Outlook ("New" and old).

• LibreOffice - https://www.libreoffice.org ⭐2024
  Free desktop programs for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, diagrams, and more.

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

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

• KeePass Password Safe - http://keepass.info
  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.

• 7-Zip - http://www.7-zip.org
  Great for working with zip files and other compressed file archives.
  I primarily use this because the built-in function for creating zip files in Windows 10 doesn't work with file names containing non-english characters.

• 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.

• 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

• 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.