Software Developer Mac Apps

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on /r/macapps

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  • Visual Studio Code

    Visual Studio Code

    For development/Debugging: 1. VSCode - Got used to the key bindings and integrated terminal, so now it's really hard to switch 2. Requestly - For easily setting up local debugging environments. I am less of a UI guy, so this allows me to use the live UI of a deployed site, and redirect whichever request I want to play with to my local server. 3. Wireshark - To better understand a network protocol.

  • orbstack

    Fast, light, simple Docker containers & Linux machines for macOS

    https://orbstack.dev/ - Better Docker Experience

  • InfluxDB

    Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

  • obsidian-releases

    Community plugins list, theme list, and releases of Obsidian.

    `cask "obsidian"` [link][free] for all markdown notes

  • HomeBrew

    🍺 The missing package manager for macOS (or Linux)

    Hyper in conjunction with fig (I also have iterm2, but I like Hyper pretty well) and brew.

  • iTerm2

    iTerm2 is a terminal emulator for Mac OS X that does amazing things.

    iTerm2, since Terminal.app doesn't support 24-bit colors and I used Neovim for some time. I now use Neovide for Neovim, so all I use iTerm2 for now is the UI (I have a theme I like, plus dark mode actually works).

  • autocomplete

    IDE-style autocomplete for your existing terminal & shell

    These are just apps I directly use. You may also like e.g. Fig if you work in the command line and like knowing what actions are supported, though I find Oh My Zsh with autocompletion + on tab suitable.

  • secretive

    Store SSH keys in the Secure Enclave

    Secretive, which replaces painfully managing SSH keys from the command line / editor. Getting a Touch ID prompt is so much better, though migrating computers will suck.

  • WorkOS

    The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.

  • sublime_text

    Issue tracker for Sublime Text

    Visual Studio Code, since it has a lot of tools I need (though, I don't enjoy using it). Zed is similar but also new, so it doesn't have extensions but is much more pleasant to use (think like a modernized Sublime Text).

  • ohmyzsh

    🙃 A delightful community-driven (with 2,200+ contributors) framework for managing your zsh configuration. Includes 300+ optional plugins (rails, git, macOS, hub, docker, homebrew, node, php, python, etc), 140+ themes to spice up your morning, and an auto-update tool so that makes it easy to keep up with the latest updates from the community.

    These are just apps I directly use. You may also like e.g. Fig if you work in the command line and like knowing what actions are supported, though I find Oh My Zsh with autocompletion + on tab suitable.

  • neovim

    Vim-fork focused on extensibility and usability

    iTerm2, since Terminal.app doesn't support 24-bit colors and I used Neovim for some time. I now use Neovide for Neovim, so all I use iTerm2 for now is the UI (I have a theme I like, plus dark mode actually works).

  • neovide

    No Nonsense Neovim Client in Rust

    iTerm2, since Terminal.app doesn't support 24-bit colors and I used Neovim for some time. I now use Neovide for Neovim, so all I use iTerm2 for now is the UI (I have a theme I like, plus dark mode actually works).

  • iina

    The modern video player for macOS.

    Xcode, since I work on apps (plus it's useful to build existing ones, like IINA).

  • sample-food-truck

    SwiftUI sample code from WWDC22

    Food Truck (if you can count it), which is a reference app for demonstrating how to use SwiftUI.

  • CotEditor

    Lightweight Plain-Text Editor for macOS

    CotEditor, which is like TextEdit except actually useful for non-text documents (e.g. I write a lot of Markdown in it).

  • hyperterm

    A terminal built on web technologies

    Hyper in conjunction with fig (I also have iterm2, but I like Hyper pretty well) and brew.

  • TablePlus

    TablePlus macOS issue tracker

  • Proxyman

    Modern. Native. Delightful Web Debugging Proxy for macOS, iOS, and Android ⚡️

  • ray

    Debug with Ray to fix problems faster (by spatie)

    https://myray.app/ (when not xdebugging)

  • insomnia

    The open-source, cross-platform API client for GraphQL, REST, WebSockets, SSE and gRPC. With Cloud, Local and Git storage.

    https://insomnia.rest/ or https://paw.cloud/

  • XcodesApp

    The easiest way to install and switch between multiple versions of Xcode - with a mouse click.

    Xcodes. Environment manager used to download…

  • feeds

    Collection of Dash docset feeds

    Dash. Look up documentation really fast. Also useful for system wide snippets.

  • Lepton

    💻 Democratizing Snippet Management (macOS/Win/Linux)

    `cask "lepton"` [link][oss] + `cask "masscode"` [link][oss] for storing snippets as github gists or locally

  • Newman

    Newman is a command-line collection runner for Postman

    `cask "postman" [link][free] for anything API

  • beekeeper-studio

    Modern and easy to use SQL client for MySQL, Postgres, SQLite, SQL Server, and more. Linux, MacOS, and Windows.

    `cask "beekeeper-studio"` [link][oss] for anything database

  • vscodium

    binary releases of VS Code without MS branding/telemetry/licensing

    `cask "vscodium"` [link][oss] IDE of choice, I used to use vscode, but prefer the no-telemetry version.

  • lens

    Lens - The way the world runs Kubernetes

    `cask "lens"` [link][oss] for managing Kubernetes clusters

  • Amethyst

    Automatic tiling window manager for macOS à la xmonad.

    `cask "amethyst"` [link][oss] for `i3` like window management

  • alacritty

    A cross-platform, OpenGL terminal emulator.

    `cask "alacritty"` [link][oss] terminal of choice, super fast and lightweight. Set up to start everything in `tmux` giving me native tabs / window splitting.

  • nushell

    A new type of shell

    Nushell as default shell

  • yt-dlp

    A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader

    Apple Shortcuts as an interface for my most used ffmpeg, yt-dlp and other frequently used scripts

  • kdiff3

    Utility for comparing and merging files and directories

    kdiff3 to compare and merge files and directories

  • FFmpeg

    Mirror of https://git.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.git

    Apple Shortcuts as an interface for my most used ffmpeg, yt-dlp and other frequently used scripts

  • Postwoman

    👽 Open source API development ecosystem - https://hoppscotch.io

    Hoppscotch - Amazin

  • Requestly

    🚀 Most Popular developer tool for frontend developers & QAs to debug web and mobile applications. Redirect URL (Switch Environments), Modify Headers, Mock APIs, Modify Response, Insert Scripts & Record web sessions and share it with your teammates for debugging.

    For development/Debugging: 1. VSCode - Got used to the key bindings and integrated terminal, so now it's really hard to switch 2. Requestly - For easily setting up local debugging environments. I am less of a UI guy, so this allows me to use the live UI of a deployed site, and redirect whichever request I want to play with to my local server. 3. Wireshark - To better understand a network protocol.

  • SaaSHub

    SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews. SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives

NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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