whichtool.dev

Your go-to for anything nerdy or code-heavy

The Swiss army knife — does everything decently

Quick answers and anything visual/multimodal

When you need the X/Twitter pulse

Open-source reasoning powerhouse

Free if you're already in Microsoft's world

Local-first AI when privacy matters

Best AI Chrome extension

Model gateway for flexibility across providers

GUI companion to Ollama

Direct line to Gemini models

Clean multi-model chat interface

Privacy-focused AI gateway

Team-oriented multi-model chat

Google's IDE with massive AI limits — your primary IDE

The original AI IDE

Foundation everything forks from

AI IDE competitor — dodged a bullet here

Speed demon editor

The hacker's editor

Theo's AI editor — built by a dev who gets it

Multi-agent IDE — free and ambitious

Visually building frontends fast

Ship apps without touching Xcode

Another vibe coder in a crowded field — hasn't differentiated yet

Google's vibe coding with Firebase baked in

Vibe code a full app without leaving the browser

Describe a UI, get React code — Vercel's magic trick

Terminal AI agent for Claude in your codebase

Free multi-provider agent — the open-source underdog

OpenAI's competitor to Claude Code

The $500/mo AI dev — impressive demos, mixed reality

Google's free coding agent — assign and forget

Open-source agent from Block — extensible

The open-source terminal agent — indie darling for a reason

AI agent that lives in VS Code — popular with teams

Open-source Copilot alternative — bring your own model

Enterprise AI autocomplete — when privacy is non-negotiable

Speed king of autocomplete — now part of Cursor

AWS's coding agent — free and solid for AWS shops

Fast iterative terminal work — synchronous collaborator

Smart terminal for when you forget the command

Classic terminal with GPU acceleration

Windows native scripting

Legacy Windows terminal

Linux on Windows

The real Windows terminal — tabs and GPU rendering

Your primary PKM — the vault where everything lives

Outliner companion — daily journals and queries

Documents → interactive research assistant

AI second brain for web content

Semantic vault search — private and powerful

Visual canvas PKM for spatial thinkers

Would be daily driver if you didn't need local-first

Most AI-advanced PKM — but vendor lock-in

The OG networked note-taker — outpaced

Encrypted Notion alternative

Power-user PKM for devs

Emerging visual PKM with AI

Enterprise PKM — great for teams, heavy for personal

Docs meets spreadsheets

AI does the organizing for you

PKM for software developers

iPad handwriting king

The quiet minimalist — threads over folders, simplicity over features

Notion meets Obsidian — objects instead of pages

Let AI organize your notes — if you trust it

AI note connections — interesting but unproven

The OG PKM — pen, paper, and intention

The prettiest note app — Apple-native and polished

Markdown notes done beautifully — Apple only

Open-source Evernote — free, encrypted, honest

Open-source Notion+Miro — ambitious and growing

Self-hosted PKM for hackers — your server, your notes

Encrypted notes that promise to last 100 years

Vault to website — publish your digital garden

The fallen king of notes — pioneered it all, lost it all

Fastest mobile capture — tap and type

Quick capture to vault and other destinations

Marginal benefit over Apple Notes

Markdown capture to sync folders

Distraction-free writing

Code editing on mobile

The original scratchpad

Notepad's big brother

The default — extensions unmatched

Chrome but with privacy

Perplexity's browser — browsing IS researching

AI browser trying to compete with Comet — too late to the party

Reimagined tabs

Minimalist vertical-tab browser

Power user's browser

Windows default — fine but not chosen

Privacy search engine

Desktop voice capture

Voice-to-text flow state

Meeting notes + action items on autopilot

Discrete meeting enhancer

Lifetime transcription — if you commit

Voice-first notes

Free but you get what you pay for

AI podcast clipper

Voice messaging with transcription

Your task manager — simple, reliable, everywhere

Free tasks + time tracking

Dedicated time tracker for logging hours

Premium task+calendar — pricey Todoist alternative

Prettiest task manager — Apple only

AI tracks how you spend time

Dedicated Pomodoro timer

Project management that developers actually enjoy using

AI schedules your day — if you trust the algorithm

AI calendar guard — protects your focus time

AI project management — Linear's quieter rival

Defends your calendar from meeting creep

AI search engine — sources not vibes

Funnels highlights into your PKM

Readwise's read-later companion

RSS command center

Free web highlighting

Tool discovery hub

Your tech news pulse

Earnings calls for investment research

Newsletter inbox declutter

AI note-taker from media

Another read-later

Free library books on your phone

Audible library backup

Academic citation manager

Was great — now self-host or move on

AI research assistant — finds papers and extracts what matters

Ask science a question — get cited answers

Academic search with AI — free and massive

Developer search engine — Stack Overflow meets AI

Multi-mode AI search — research, code, and chat

Search API built for AI agents — the plumbing behind agent search

Web → vault pipeline

Pretty bookmark manager

AI content collection

Default cloud storage

Apple cloud — cheap and seamless

Privacy-first vault sync

Your own personal cloud

Microsoft's Drive

The millennial of cloud storage

SyncThing alternative

Photo cloud — AI search is useful

The email default

Every company uses it

Private email for when security matters

Expensive keyboard shortcuts — hard pass

Email + fitness helper

The calendar

Google Cal alt for Notion users

Community hub

Power-user messenger

Global standard messenger

Corporate meetings — because you have to

The prettiest calendar — todos baked right in

The one launcher to rule them all

Zapier but self-hosted and free

Windows macro king

Windows utility pack

Easy web automation — but costly

Open-source text expander

AI text detector

Grep repos without cloning

Magic VPN mesh — any device from anywhere

AutoHotkey for Linux — scripted automation

Baby's first automation — simple but limited

AI prompt patterns library

GitHub without opening a browser — PRs, issues, everything

grep is dead — rg searches everything instantly

Fuzzy find anything — pipe stuff in, pick stuff out

JSON in the terminal — ugly syntax, essential tool

cat but pretty — syntax highlighting built in

ls but modern — the exa successor

cd that remembers where you go — just type z

Pretty prompt that actually tells you useful things

Terminal sessions that survive anything — SSH essential

htop's prettier cousin — system monitoring with style

Git but you can actually see what you're doing

Docker dashboard in the terminal — no more docker ps spam

The design tool

Universal diagramming — free

AI text → diagrams

Phone doc scanner

Design for non-designers — templates on tap

Make screenshots look pro — fast mockups

Open-source Figma — free and getting better fast

Design a website and it's already built — visual shipping

The team whiteboard — every PM's favorite planning tool

Figma's whiteboard — simple brainstorming within the ecosystem

Opinionated diagramming — less options, prettier output

Open-source infinite canvas — draw anything, anywhere

Recording/streaming powerhouse

Screenshot Swiss army knife

Quick edits and social content

Hollywood-grade editing — for free

Edit video like editing text

Auto-zoom screen recorder

Premium screenshots — ShareX is free

Open-source quick screen recording

Videos with code

Consumer video editor

Windows screenshot — fine for quick grabs

Simple screen recorder — OBS if you need more

Dev slides in markdown

Music default — discovery unmatched

When audio quality matters

Great if all-in on Apple

Best for obscure and live recordings

Track every song across platforms

Audiobook library

Moving playlists between Spotify/Tidal/Apple

AI music creation

Best-in-class AI voices

AI video generation

AI pixel art generator

Financial dashboard — everything in one place

Quick trades, simple portfolio

Social investing platform

Put money on your predictions

Kalshi's decentralized rival

Crowdfunded real estate

Envelope budgeting cult — converts swear by it

Monarch competitor — prettier, Apple-only

Set-and-forget investing — the robot manages your money

Wealthfront's twin — goal-based robo-investing

The institution — zero-fee funds and everything else

OG calorie tracker

Point camera at food for calories

Sleep and readiness king — the ring you forget you're wearing

Athlete-grade recovery tracking — expensive but serious

Nutrition tracking for people who care about micronutrients

Clean workout logging — tracks your gains

Workout tracking meets social — follow gym friends

The health data hub — everything flows through here

Open-source, cheap, reliable

Bitwarden for dev secrets

Identity verification — enterprise security

Container everything

Git with a GUI

GitHub alt with CI/CD

The cloud for serious infra

PDF→markdown if you can get it running

Firebase but open-source and Postgres — the default BaaS

Browser automation king — testing and scraping

The spreadsheet — formulas and data

Collaborative docs — free and universal

Fastest path to a new doc — type the URL

Lifetime resume builder with AI

Resume vs job post skill matcher

Practice handwriting from your phone

Don't forget to text your friends

The deploy button for frontend — push and forget

The Heroku successor — deploy anything with great DX

Edge compute — your app running everywhere

Modern Heroku — simple and it just works

Self-hosted PaaS — Vercel but on your hardware

Infrastructure Swiss army knife — free tier is insane

The OG static host — still great for Jamstack

Cloud computing without the PhD — straightforward

X/Twitter growth machine — if you're serious about the platform

Async video communication — record and send

Write for an audience — but you don't own it

AI social content — generate and schedule

Personal CRM for managing contacts

Social analytics dashboard