Scripting software & tools
The editors, IDEs, runtimes, and utilities that pair well with the scripts on this site — curated, not hosted. Each link goes to the official source.
AkelPad
Free, lightweight, customizable Notepad replacement for Windows.
Bluefish
Cross-platform editor aimed at programmers, with strong web-language support.
CudaText
Cross-platform, plugin-based text editor with syntax highlighting for many languages.
EmEditor
Fast, lightweight text editor built for handling very large files.
Geany
Lightweight IDE-like text editor with built-in build/run support for many languages.
GNU Emacs
Highly extensible, classic text editor with a built-in Lisp scripting engine.
GNU nano
Simple, beginner-friendly terminal text editor, available on Windows via WSL/Git Bash.
Helix
Modal, terminal-based editor with built-in LSP support out of the box.
jEdit
Mature, plugin-extensible programmer's text editor written in Java.
Metapad
Minimalist, portable Notepad replacement for Windows.
Micro
Modern, easy-to-use terminal-based text editor.
Neovim
Modernized, extensible fork of Vim with a rich plugin ecosystem.
Notepad++
Lightweight, fast text editor for Windows with syntax highlighting for batch, VBScript, and more.
Notepad2
Fast, lightweight Notepad replacement with syntax highlighting.
Notepad3
A modernized, fast Notepad replacement with syntax highlighting, tabs, and no bloat.
Programmer's Notepad
Free, open-source text editor built specifically for programmers.
PSPad
Free programmer's editor for Windows with project support and syntax highlighting.
RJ TextEd
Free Unicode text/source editor with FTP support and project management.
Sublime Text
Fast, polished text editor with a slick command palette and multi-cursor editing.
TED Notepad
Free portable text editor with advanced text-manipulation tools.
TextPad
Long-running Windows text editor with strong regex search and syntax highlighting.
UltraEdit
Veteran commercial text/hex editor with powerful find-and-replace and scripting support.
Vim
Classic modal text editor, available on Windows via gVim — steep learning curve, huge payoff.
Visual Studio Code
Free, extensible code editor with first-class support for PowerShell, Python, and just about everything else.
Zed
Fast, modern collaborative code editor with growing Windows support.
Android Studio
Google's official IDE for Android development, built on IntelliJ.
Apache NetBeans
Free, open-source IDE with strong out-of-the-box Java support.
CLion
JetBrains IDE for C and C++ development.
Code::Blocks
Free, open-source, extensible C/C++ IDE.
DataGrip
JetBrains IDE for working with SQL and databases.
DataSpell
JetBrains IDE for data science, combining Jupyter notebooks with IDE tooling.
Dev-C++ (Orwell)
Lightweight, beginner-friendly C/C++ IDE for Windows.
Eclipse
Long-standing, extensible IDE originally for Java, with plugins for many other languages.
eric IDE
Full-featured Python IDE with integrated version control and unit testing.
GoLand
JetBrains IDE dedicated to Go development.
IntelliJ IDEA
JetBrains' flagship Java/Kotlin IDE, with a free Community edition.
JetBrains Fleet
JetBrains' lightweight, distributed-mode next-generation code editor/IDE.
JetBrains Rider
Cross-platform .NET IDE from JetBrains, a popular alternative to Visual Studio.
LINQPad
Scratchpad IDE for interactively running C#/F#/VB snippets and LINQ queries.
PhpStorm
JetBrains IDE dedicated to PHP development.
PowerShell ISE
Windows' built-in PowerShell script editor with a debugger and IntelliSense — still bundled with Windows.
PyCharm
Full-featured Python IDE from JetBrains with a free Community edition.
PyScripter
Free, open-source Python IDE built specifically for Windows.
Qt Creator
Cross-platform IDE for C++/QML development with the Qt framework.
RubyMine
JetBrains IDE dedicated to Ruby and Rails development.
Spyder
Scientific Python IDE with an integrated variable explorer, popular in data science.
Thonny
Python IDE built specifically for beginners, with a built-in step-through debugger.
Visual Studio
Microsoft's full-featured IDE for C#, VB.NET, and general .NET development.
WebStorm
JetBrains IDE focused on JavaScript/TypeScript development.
Wing IDE
Python-focused IDE with strong debugging and remote-development support.
WinVBA
Modernized replacement IDE for Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) development.
Alacritty
GPU-accelerated, minimalist terminal emulator focused on speed.
Clink
Adds Bash-style line editing and history to cmd.exe.
Cmder
Portable console emulator built on ConEmu, bundled with Git for Windows tools.
ConEmu
Highly configurable terminal emulator for Windows with tabs and split panes.
Fluent Terminal
Terminal emulator for Windows built with the Fluent Design System.
Git Bash
Bash emulation for Windows bundled with Git for Windows.
Hyper
Terminal built on web technologies (Electron), themeable and plugin-based.
KiTTY
Fork of PuTTY with extra features like session filters and portability.
MobaXterm
All-in-one terminal with X server, SSH, and tabbed remote sessions.
mRemoteNG
Open-source, tabbed remote connections manager (RDP, SSH, VNC, and more).
Nushell
Modern shell that treats data as structured tables rather than plain text.
PuTTY
Classic, lightweight SSH/Telnet client for Windows.
Tabby
Highly configurable terminal with SSH/Serial connections and themes.
WezTerm
GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminal emulator with a Lua config language.
Windows Terminal
Microsoft's modern, tabbed terminal app for PowerShell, CMD, and WSL.
.NET SDK
Build and run C# console scripts and apps — required for the C# scripts on this site.
Anaconda
Popular Python/R distribution bundling conda and hundreds of data science packages.
AutoHotkey
Free scripting language and runtime for Windows automation and custom hotkeys.
AutoIt
Scripting language and interpreter for automating the Windows GUI.
Bun
Fast all-in-one JavaScript runtime, bundler, and package manager.
Cygwin
POSIX-compatible environment and DLL providing a large Linux-like toolset on Windows.
Deno
Secure-by-default JavaScript/TypeScript runtime from the creator of Node.js.
Eclipse Temurin (OpenJDK)
Free, production-ready OpenJDK builds for Java development.
Elixir
Functional, concurrent language built on the Erlang VM.
Erlang/OTP
Runtime and toolset for the Erlang language, built for fault-tolerant systems.
FreeBASIC
Free BASIC compiler with modern language extensions.
GHCup (Haskell)
Official installer for the Haskell toolchain (GHC, Cabal, Stack).
Go
The Go programming language's official compiler and toolchain.
Julia
High-performance language for technical/scientific computing.
Kotlin Command-Line Tools
Official Kotlin compiler and command-line tools.
Lua
Lightweight, embeddable scripting language interpreter.
MinGW-w64
Windows port of the GCC compiler toolchain.
Miniconda
Minimal installer for the conda package/environment manager.
Node.js
JavaScript runtime, useful alongside JScript/WSH work and general tooling.
PHP for Windows
Official PHP interpreter builds for Windows.
PowerShell 7
The modern, cross-platform, open-source successor to Windows PowerShell 5.1.
Python
The official Python interpreter and installer for Windows.
R
Statistical computing language and environment, widely used for data analysis.
Ruby (RubyInstaller)
Official Ruby interpreter installer for Windows.
Rust
Rust's official toolchain installer, including the Cargo package manager.
Strawberry Perl
Full Perl distribution for Windows, including common CPAN modules.
Swift for Windows
Swift language toolchain, officially supported on Windows.
Tiny C Compiler
Extremely small and fast C compiler.
WSL
Windows Subsystem for Linux — run a real Linux kernel and distro alongside Windows.
Zig
Small, modern systems programming language and toolchain.
Apache Maven
Build automation and dependency management tool for Java projects.
apt-cyg
apt-get-style package manager for Cygwin.
Cargo
Rust's official package manager and build tool.
Chocolatey
Popular community package manager for Windows software installs and upgrades.
Chocolatey GUI
Graphical front-end for managing Chocolatey packages.
Composer
Dependency manager for PHP.
Conan
Decentralized, open-source package manager for C and C++.
Gradle
Build automation tool with strong Java/Kotlin/Android support.
Homebrew
Popular package manager, usable on Windows through WSL.
Nimble
Package manager for the Nim programming language.
npm
The default package manager for Node.js and the JavaScript ecosystem.
NuGet
The package manager for .NET, used to pull in libraries like System.Management for C# scripts.
OPAM
Source-based package manager for OCaml.
pip
Python's standard package installer.
pnpm
Fast, disk-space-efficient JavaScript package manager.
RubyGems
Ruby's standard package manager for distributing gems.
Scoop
Command-line installer for Windows that keeps things tidy in your user profile.
vcpkg
Microsoft's C/C++ package manager for cross-platform libraries.
winget
Microsoft's official Windows Package Manager, built into modern Windows.
Yarn
Fast, reliable JavaScript package manager, an alternative to npm.
AccessChk
Sysinternals tool for checking effective permissions on files, keys, and services.
API Monitor
Monitors and displays Win32 API calls made by applications.
Autoruns
Sysinternals tool showing every program configured to run at startup or logon.
BgInfo
Sysinternals tool that displays system info directly on the desktop background.
DebugView
Sysinternals real-time debug output viewer.
Dependency Walker
Scans Windows modules and lists their dependent DLLs.
Fiddler
Web debugging proxy for capturing and inspecting HTTP(S) traffic.
Handle
Sysinternals tool listing open handles for any process on the system.
ProcDump
Sysinternals command-line tool for creating process dumps on trigger conditions.
Process Explorer
Sysinternals tool for inspecting what processes and handles are doing on your system.
Process Monitor
Sysinternals real-time file system, registry, and process activity monitor.
PsExec
Sysinternals tool for executing processes on remote systems.
PsList
Sysinternals command-line tool for listing detailed process information.
Regshot
Compares registry snapshots to see what an installer or script changed.
Sysinternals Strings
Sysinternals tool for finding printable strings inside binary files.
Sysinternals Whois
Sysinternals command-line whois lookup client.
Sysmon
Sysinternals system activity monitoring service that logs to the Windows event log.
System Informer
Advanced task manager and process/system monitor (formerly Process Hacker).
TCPView
Sysinternals tool showing active TCP/UDP endpoints and their owning processes.
VMMap
Sysinternals tool for analyzing a process's virtual and physical memory use.
WinDbg
Microsoft's Windows kernel and user-mode debugger.
Wireshark
The standard open-source network protocol analyzer.
x64dbg
Open-source user-mode debugger for Windows binaries.
Aider
Open-source, terminal-based AI pair programmer that edits your local git repo directly.
Amazon Q Developer
AWS's AI coding assistant (formerly CodeWhisperer), integrated into popular IDEs.
Blackbox AI
AI coding assistant offering code generation, autocomplete, and chat.
ChatGPT
OpenAI's conversational AI, widely used for drafting and debugging scripts.
Claude
Anthropic's AI assistant, strong at reasoning through code and multi-file changes.
Codeium
Free AI-powered code completion and chat plugin for popular editors.
Continue.dev
Open-source AI coding assistant you can plug into VS Code or JetBrains IDEs.
Cursor
AI-first code editor built as a fork of VS Code with deep AI integration.
GitHub Copilot
AI pair programmer that suggests code and whole functions inline in your editor.
GitHub Copilot CLI
Brings Copilot-style AI command suggestions and explanations into the terminal.
JetBrains AI Assistant
AI assistant built into JetBrains IDEs for code generation and explanation.
Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft's AI assistant integrated across Windows, Edge, and Office.
Perplexity
AI answer engine useful for researching APIs, error messages, and syntax.
Phind
AI search engine built specifically for developer questions.
Replit AI
Replit's built-in AI assistant for writing and explaining code in the browser IDE.
Sourcegraph Cody
AI coding assistant with deep codebase-aware context.
Supermaven
Fast AI code completion tool with a large context window.
Tabnine
AI code completion tool with an emphasis on private/on-prem deployment.
Warp
AI-powered terminal with natural-language-to-command translation.
Windsurf
AI-native IDE from Codeium with agentic coding features.
Fork
Fast, friendly Git client for Windows and Mac.
Git
The de facto standard distributed version control system.
GitHub CLI
Official command-line tool for interacting with GitHub.
GitHub Desktop
Official GUI Git client from GitHub.
GitKraken
Popular cross-platform Git GUI client with a visual commit graph.
GitLab CLI (glab)
Official command-line tool for interacting with GitLab.
Helix Visual Client (P4V)
Perforce's official GUI client for Helix Core.
Mercurial
Distributed version control system, an alternative to Git.
Sourcetree
Free Git GUI client from Atlassian.
Sublime Merge
Git client from the makers of Sublime Text, built for speed.
TortoiseGit
Windows shell integration for Git, right-click access from Explorer.
TortoiseSVN
Windows shell integration for Subversion.
Automation Anywhere
Cloud-native RPA platform for enterprise process automation.
Blue Prism
Enterprise RPA platform focused on secure, governed automation.
Playwright
Modern browser automation library from Microsoft, supporting multiple languages.
Power Automate
Microsoft's automation platform for desktop and cloud workflows.
Puppeteer
Node.js library for controlling headless (or full) Chrome/Chromium.
Selenium
The standard framework/tool suite for automating web browsers.
SikuliX
Image-recognition-based GUI automation tool, useful when no API exists.
TestComplete
Commercial automated testing tool for desktop, web, and mobile apps.
UiPath
Enterprise robotic process automation (RPA) platform.
WinAppDriver
Microsoft's UI automation driver for testing Windows desktop apps.
Apache JMeter
Load-testing and functional API testing tool.
Bruno
Fast, open-source, offline-first Postman alternative that stores collections as files.
curl
The ubiquitous command-line tool for transferring data with URLs.
Hoppscotch
Lightweight, open-source API request builder with a web and desktop app.
HTTPie
Command-line HTTP client with a friendly, human-readable output format.
Insomnia
Open-source-friendly REST/GraphQL API client.
Karate
Open-source framework combining API test automation, mocking, and performance testing.
Postman
The most widely used API client for building, testing, and documenting APIs.
SoapUI
API testing tool with strong support for SOAP as well as REST.
Swagger UI
Renders interactive documentation directly from an OpenAPI specification.
Adminer
Single-file PHP database management tool supporting many database engines.
Azure Data Studio
Microsoft's cross-platform data tool for SQL Server, Azure SQL, and PostgreSQL.
DB Browser for SQLite
Visual tool for creating, designing, and editing SQLite database files.
DBeaver
Free, universal database GUI tool supporting nearly every major database.
HeidiSQL
Lightweight, free tool for managing MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, and MSSQL.
MongoDB Compass
Official GUI for exploring and manipulating MongoDB data.
MySQL Workbench
Official visual design and administration tool for MySQL.
Navicat
Commercial cross-platform database GUI supporting many database engines.
pgAdmin
The standard open-source administration tool for PostgreSQL.
phpMyAdmin
Web-based administration tool for MySQL/MariaDB, commonly self-hosted locally.
Redis Insight
Official GUI client for browsing and managing Redis data.
SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
Microsoft's official management tool for SQL Server.
SQLiteStudio
Free, open-source SQLite database manager with a plugin system.
TablePlus
Modern, native GUI for managing relational and NoSQL databases.
Toad for Oracle
Long-standing commercial GUI/IDE for Oracle database development.
Araxis Merge
Commercial visual file/folder comparison and merging tool.
Beyond Compare
Popular commercial file, folder, and data comparison tool.
Code Compare
Free diff/merge tool with deep source control and IDE integration.
DiffMerge
Free application for visually comparing and merging files.
KDiff3
Free diff and merge tool that handles two or three input files/directories.
Meld
Visual diff and merge tool popular for code and directory comparisons.
P4Merge
Perforce's free visual merge and diff tool.
WinMerge
Free, open-source visual text file and folder diff/merge tool for Windows.
Black
Uncompromising, opinionated Python code formatter.
EditorConfig
Maintains consistent coding styles across editors and IDEs via a simple config file.
ESLint
The standard pluggable linter for JavaScript and TypeScript.
Flake8
Wraps PyFlakes, pycodestyle, and McCabe complexity checking for Python.
markdownlint
Style checker and linter for Markdown/CommonMark files.
PHP_CodeSniffer
Detects violations of a defined coding standard in PHP code.
Prettier
Opinionated code formatter supporting many languages.
PSScriptAnalyzer
Static code checker for PowerShell scripts and modules.
Pylint
Comprehensive static analysis linter for Python code.
RuboCop
Static code analyzer and formatter for Ruby.
Ruff
Extremely fast Python linter and formatter written in Rust.
ShellCheck
Static analysis tool that finds bugs in shell scripts.
SonarLint
IDE extension that flags bugs and code smells as you type.
StyleCop
Static analysis tool enforcing C# style and consistency rules.
yamllint
Linter for YAML files, checks syntax and style.
Bazel
Google's fast, scalable, multi-language build and test tool.
CMake
Cross-platform build system generator used widely in C/C++ projects.
GNU Make (for Windows)
Classic build automation tool driven by Makefiles.
Grunt
JavaScript task runner for automating repetitive build tasks.
Gulp
Streaming task runner/build tool for the JavaScript ecosystem.
Just
Handy command runner for saving and running project-specific commands.
MSBuild
Microsoft's build platform for .NET and Visual Studio projects.
Ninja
Small, fast build system designed to be generated by other tools like CMake.
Nx
Smart, extensible build system for monorepos.
Task
Simple, YAML-based task runner, a modern alternative to Make.
Vite
Fast frontend build tool and dev server for modern JavaScript projects.
Webpack
Popular JavaScript module bundler and build tool.
act
Run your GitHub Actions workflows locally for fast iteration.
Ansible
Agentless configuration management and automation tool.
AWS CLI
Official command-line tool for managing AWS services.
Azure CLI
Official cross-platform command-line tool for managing Azure resources.
Azure PowerShell
PowerShell module set for managing Azure resources from PowerShell.
Chef
Infrastructure automation platform using a Ruby-based DSL.
Docker Desktop
Desktop application for building and running containers on Windows.
doctl
Official command-line tool for managing DigitalOcean resources.
Google Cloud CLI
Official command-line tool for managing Google Cloud resources.
HashiCorp Consul
Service mesh and service discovery tool.
HashiCorp Vault
Tool for securely storing and accessing secrets.
Helm
Package manager for Kubernetes, using "charts" to define applications.
Heroku CLI
Official command-line tool for managing Heroku apps.
Jenkins
The classic self-hosted automation server for CI/CD pipelines.
kubectl
The standard command-line tool for interacting with Kubernetes clusters.
Netlify CLI
Official command-line tool for deploying and managing Netlify sites.
Octopus Deploy
Deployment automation and release management tool.
Packer
Tool for building identical machine images for multiple platforms.
Podman Desktop
Desktop app for managing Podman containers, a daemonless Docker alternative.
Pulumi
Infrastructure-as-code tool that uses general-purpose languages instead of a DSL.
Puppet
Configuration management tool for automating infrastructure.
Salt
Event-driven automation and configuration management platform.
Terraform
Infrastructure-as-code tool for provisioning cloud resources declaratively.
Vagrant
Tool for building and managing portable virtual machine environments.
Vercel CLI
Official command-line tool for deploying projects to Vercel.
DocFX
Microsoft's documentation generator for .NET projects.
Docusaurus
Meta's tool for building optimized documentation websites quickly.
Doxygen
De facto standard documentation generator for C/C++ and many other languages.
GitBook
Documentation platform for creating and hosting product/project docs.
JSDoc
API documentation generator for JavaScript, based on inline comments.
MkDocs
Fast, simple static site generator for project documentation, configured in YAML.
Read the Docs
Free platform for hosting and versioning documentation, often paired with Sphinx.
Sphinx
Powerful documentation generator, the standard for Python project docs.
Behave
Behavior-driven development (BDD) test framework for Python.
Cypress
End-to-end testing framework built for modern web apps.
Jest
Popular JavaScript testing framework maintained by Meta.
Mocha
Flexible JavaScript test framework for Node.js and the browser.
MSTest
Microsoft's testing framework, built into the .NET SDK.
NUnit
Unit-testing framework for all .NET languages.
Pester
The standard unit-testing and mocking framework for PowerShell.
pytest
Python's most popular testing framework, known for its simple assertion syntax.
Robot Framework
Generic, keyword-driven automation framework for testing and RPA.
RSpec
Ruby's most popular behavior-driven development testing framework.
Vitest
Fast unit-testing framework powered by Vite.
xUnit.net
Free, open-source, community-focused unit-testing tool for .NET.
Advanced IP Scanner
Free, fast network scanner for Windows LANs.
Angry IP Scanner
Fast, cross-platform IP address and port scanner.
CurrPorts
NirSoft utility listing all open TCP/UDP ports and the owning process.
FileZilla
Free, open-source FTP/SFTP client and server.
iPerf
Standard tool for active network bandwidth measurement.
Ncat
Nmap project's modern Netcat replacement for reading/writing network connections.
NetLimiter
Network traffic control and monitoring tool for Windows.
Nmap
The standard open-source network discovery and security scanning tool.
PingPlotter
Visual traceroute and network troubleshooting tool.
SolarWinds Free TFTP Server
Free, simple TFTP server, handy for network device scripting.
TCPing
Command-line tool that pings a host over a TCP port instead of ICMP.
WinSCP
Popular free SFTP, FTP, and SCP client for Windows, with a scriptable .NET assembly.
7-Zip
The standard free, open-source file archiver with a very high compression ratio.
Bandizip
Fast, free archive manager with a clean modern interface.
FreeFileSync
Free folder comparison and synchronization tool, great for scripted backups.
NanaZip
Modern 7-Zip fork designed for Windows 11, with shell integration.
PeaZip
Free, open-source archive manager supporting a huge range of formats.
TeraCopy
Fast file-copy utility with pause/resume, useful in scripted file operations.
WinRAR
Long-standing commercial archive manager supporting RAR and many other formats.
WinZip
One of the original commercial Windows archive managers.
010 Editor
Professional hex editor with binary templates for parsing file formats.
Frhed
Free, open-source binary file editor for Windows.
HxD
Free, fast hex editor and disk/memory editor for Windows.
ImHex
Modern, feature-rich hex editor for reverse engineers and programmers.
WinHex
Advanced hex editor and disk/forensics tool for Windows.
GNU awk (for Windows)
Pattern-scanning and text-processing language, ported to Windows.
GNU grep (for Windows)
Classic pattern-matching command-line utility, ported to Windows.
GNU sed (for Windows)
Stream editor for filtering and transforming text, ported to Windows.
grepWin
Free Windows Explorer-integrated search tool with full regex support.
PowerGREP
Commercial grep tool for Windows with a powerful GUI for search-and-replace.
RegexBuddy
Commercial tool for building, testing, and debugging regular expressions.
RegexMagic
Generates regular expressions from examples without writing regex syntax by hand.
TextCrawler
Free find-and-replace tool with regex support across many files at once.