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Dev only

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Dev only means the software runs on a developer machine or in a CI pipeline: bundlers, linters, formatters, test runners and local mail catchers. What it produces, such as bundled files or a test report, may reach the live site, but the software itself does not. It places no requirement on the host. Vite, ESLint and Vitest are examples.

87 projects run only in development, never on the live site, listed alphabetically. Mostly build tools, developer tools and site and docs generators, of 13 categories in all. 106 records do not record this field, and cannot appear here either way. For 133 the question does not apply. Counts only projects with momentum; the full list has the rest.

0–9

  • @wordpress/env

    Command-line tool that sets up a local WordPress environment for building and testing plugins and themes, Docker-based by default, published from the Gutenberg monorepo.

A

  • asdf

    Command-line version manager for language runtimes and developer tools, configured per project in a .tool-versions file.

  • Autoprefixer

    PostCSS plugin that parses CSS and adds vendor prefixes to rules, using browser support data from Can I Use.

  • axe-core

    JavaScript accessibility testing engine that checks websites and other HTML-based user interfaces inside automated tests.

B

  • Babel

    JavaScript compiler that rewrites next-generation JavaScript into code that runs in the browsers and runtimes a project targets.

  • BackstopJS

    Visual regression testing tool that captures screenshots of a web app over time and compares them against approved references.

  • Bagatto

    Static site generator in which each site is a Janet program that declares its data and its output files.

  • Beasties

    Build plugin that inlines a page's critical CSS and lazy-loads the rest of its stylesheets.

  • Biome

    Toolchain for web projects with a formatter and a linter, usable from the command line and through a language server.

  • Browserify

    Bundler that lets browser code use Node.js-style require() calls to load npm modules into a single script.

  • Bull Board

    Dashboard UI for Bull and BullMQ job queues, mounted into an existing Node server or run as a standalone CLI or Docker image.

  • Bun

    Fast all-in-one JavaScript and TypeScript runtime that also ships a package manager, test runner and bundler as one executable.

C

  • ClickHouse

    Column-oriented SQL database management system for analytical queries, available as open-source server software and as a cloud service.

  • cssnano

    Modular CSS minifier, built on the PostCSS ecosystem, that compresses stylesheets with a set of optimizations and presets.

D

  • DBeaver

    Desktop database management tool and SQL client for many SQL and NoSQL databases, with a free community edition.

  • Docker Desktop

    Desktop application that installs the Docker Engine, Docker CLI and Docker Compose on macOS, Windows and Linux for building and running containers.

E

  • esbuild

    JavaScript and TypeScript bundler and minifier, shipped as a native binary with a JavaScript API.

  • ESLint

    Pluggable linter for JavaScript that reports and fixes problems in source code through configurable rules and plugins.

F

  • Faircamp

    Static site generator that builds a website from a folder of audio files, for audio producers.

  • favicons

    Node.js module that generates favicons and their associated icon and web app manifest files from a source image.

  • FlyEnv

    Native local development environment for Windows, macOS and Linux that runs runtimes, databases and web servers on the host, with local sites, HTTPS and an MCP server for AI coding agents.

G

  • GraphQL Code Generator

    Plugin-based command-line tool that generates typed code from a GraphQL schema and its operations.

H

  • HastySite

    Static site generator written in Nim that builds a site from Markdown contents and Mustache templates.

  • Histoire

    Vite-based tool that builds interactive story books of components for Vue, React and Svelte.

K

  • Kart

    Python static site generator that uses Jinja2 templates and Markdown, with blog and tag index support.

  • Keystatic

    Content management tool that edits Markdown, YAML and JSON files in a codebase, through the local file system or GitHub.

L

  • Ladle

    Component workshop that runs React component stories in a Vite dev server and builds them into a static app.

  • Laradock

    Docker Compose setup and CLI that starts a pre-configured local stack of PHP, web server and service containers for PHP projects.

  • Laravel Herd

    Desktop app for macOS and Windows that runs local PHP and Laravel sites on their own domains, with PHP versions and local services managed from one window.

  • Laravel Vite Plugin

    Vite plugin that configures Vite for use with a Laravel backend server.

  • Lerd

    Open-source local PHP development environment for Linux and macOS that runs sites, PHP versions and services as rootless Podman containers.

  • Less

    Backwards-compatible language extension for CSS that compiles Less stylesheets to plain CSS with Node.js or in the browser.

  • Lighthouse

    Open-source automated tool that audits web pages and web apps for performance, accessibility, SEO and best practices.

  • Lightning CSS

    CSS parser, transformer, bundler and minifier written in Rust, usable from JavaScript, Rust or a standalone CLI.

  • Linaria

    Zero-runtime CSS-in-JS library that extracts styles written in JavaScript into CSS files at build time.

  • Local

    Free desktop application for developing WordPress sites on the developer's own computer.

M

  • Makko

    Markdown-based static site generator for blogs and websites, written in Zig.

  • MAMP

    Local web server environment for macOS and Windows with Apache or Nginx, PHP and MySQL, and MAMP PRO, a commercial app for running several local sites.

  • Material for MkDocs

    Documentation framework on top of MkDocs that builds static documentation sites from Markdown.

  • Metro

    JavaScript bundler for React Native projects, with a development server and a build API.

  • mise

    Command-line tool that installs a project's dev tools, sets its environment variables and runs its tasks from one mise.toml file.

N

  • Nift

    Dependency-aware command-line build tool and template language that generates websites from HTML, content and data files.

  • nvm

    POSIX shell script that installs and switches between multiple Node.js versions for one user.

  • Nx

    Monorepo task runner and build system for TypeScript and polyglot codebases, with caching and affected-only runs.

P

  • Panda CSS

    Styling engine that generates atomic CSS at build time from type-safe TypeScript style definitions.

  • Pandoc

    Haskell library and command-line tool that converts documents between markup formats.

  • Pest

    Testing framework for PHP that is built on PHPUnit and adds an expressive syntax for writing tests.

  • pgAdmin

    Open-source administration and development tool for PostgreSQL, run as a desktop application or as a web application.

  • PGlite

    Embeddable WebAssembly build of PostgreSQL, packaged as a TypeScript and JavaScript library for the browser, Node.js, Bun and Deno.

  • PHPUnit

    Unit testing framework for PHP, installed with Composer and run from the command line.

  • Playroom

    Design environment that renders JSX from a team's own component library across themes and screen sizes.

  • Playwright

    Browser automation and end-to-end test framework that drives Chromium, Firefox and WebKit through one API.

  • Pollen

    Book-publishing system written in Racket that embeds code in text documents for multiple-output publishing.

  • PostCSS

    Tool for transforming CSS with JavaScript plugins.

  • Prettier

    Opinionated code formatter for JavaScript and many other languages that rewrites source to a consistent style.

  • pyenv

    Shell-based version manager that switches between multiple installed Python versions.

R

  • React Cosmos

    Sandbox for developing and testing React UI components in isolation, with file-based fixtures, a playground interface and a static export.

  • reveal.js

    Open-source HTML presentation framework for building slide decks that run in a web browser.

  • Rolldown

    JavaScript and TypeScript bundler written in Rust with a Rollup-compatible API, designed as the bundler of Vite.

  • Rollup

    JavaScript module bundler that compiles ES module source into bundles for browsers, Node.js and other platforms.

  • Rsbuild

    Build tool for modern web applications that runs on Rspack and supports React, Vue, Svelte and other frameworks.

  • Rspack

    Fast Rust-based bundler for the web with a modernized webpack API.

S

  • Shiki

    Syntax highlighter for JavaScript runtimes that colors code with the TextMate grammars used by VS Code.

  • Slidev

    Markdown-based slides maker and presenter that builds slide decks as web pages with Vue and Vite.

  • Stirling PDF

    Open-core PDF editing and processing platform for self-hosted servers and a hosted service, with a REST API.

  • Style Dictionary

    Build system that exports design tokens defined once in JSON or JavaScript to platform formats such as CSS, iOS, Android and JavaScript.

  • Stylelint

    CSS linter that reports errors and enforces conventions in stylesheets, with rules, plugins and shareable configs.

  • SVGO

    Node.js library and command-line application that optimizes SVG files by removing redundant information, with a browser bundle and a webpack loader.

  • SWC

    Rust-based platform that compiles, bundles and minifies JavaScript and TypeScript, with npm packages for its JavaScript APIs.

T

  • Tailwind CSS

    Utility-first CSS framework that generates styles from class names used in HTML and other templates.

  • Terser

    JavaScript minifier and compressor for ES6+ code, used from the command line or through the Node.js API.

  • Tome

    Drupal module that generates static HTML from a Drupal site and keeps its content as files.

  • Topcoat

    Rust framework that renders full-stack web apps as HTML on the server, with client reactivity compiled from the same Rust code.

  • tsdown

    Bundler for TypeScript and JavaScript libraries that emits ESM, CJS, IIFE or UMD bundles and declaration files, built on Rolldown.

  • Turbopack

    Incremental bundler for JavaScript and TypeScript, written in Rust, that ships inside Next.js.

  • Turborepo

    Build system written in Rust that runs the package.json scripts of JavaScript and TypeScript monorepos with caching and parallel execution.

  • TypeDoc

    Documentation generator that builds HTML or JSON API documentation from the comments of TypeScript projects.

  • TypeScript

    Programming language that adds static types to JavaScript, with a compiler (tsc) that converts its code to JavaScript.

V

  • vanilla-extract

    Build-time CSS tool that lets styles be written in TypeScript, with locally scoped class names and CSS variables.

  • Velite

    Content layer library that turns Markdown, MDX, YAML and JSON files into typed data for a JavaScript or TypeScript application.

  • Vercel CLI

    Command-line interface of the Vercel hosting platform, used to deploy projects, run them locally and manage them from a terminal.

  • Vite

    Frontend build tool and dev server for web applications, with a development server and a production bundler.

  • Vitest

    Testing framework for JavaScript and TypeScript projects, built on Vite.

  • Vue (Official)

    Language tooling for Vue single-file components, with the Vue (Official) VS Code extension, a language server and the vue-tsc type checker.

W

  • wasm-pack

    Command-line tool that builds Rust crates into WebAssembly packages for JavaScript, with npm publishing support.

  • webpack

    JavaScript module bundler that packs application modules and assets into optimized output for browsers and other runtimes.

X

  • XAMPP

    Free distribution of Apache, MariaDB, PHP and Perl for setting up a local development server on Windows, Linux and macOS.

Which of these is best?

We can't tell from here. What suits an editor-heavy marketing site can be wrong for a static documentation site. The list is alphabetical and nobody paid for a place on it.