Toolbrew
Dev tools
online utility tools
SHOW HN2025
How HN took it
7 positive, 12 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 5 critical, out of 24 comments about the project. Thread score +0.14.
Privacy: 0 for, 4 againstDesign: 3 for, 0 againstIdea: 3 for, 0 againstExecution: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Clean design
From 2 comments
Nicely put-together collection of tools - thanks for sharing. Would be helpful if more input boxes could use relevant types (e.g. “number”, “url”, etc.) so the dedicated keyboard…
tagawa on HNReally nice project; my one request would be a way to "pin" or "favourite" tools since not every tool is likely to be useful for everyone.
chrysoprace on HN
Objections
Unclear why users should trust the site and its handling of inputs
From 3 comments
There is way too little on that site about why we should trust these tools. No way I’m going to download and run stuff from some random source that I know nothing about.
tomComb on HNHow can users be sure that their inputs are not being saved somewhere on the backend? If I paste a bunch of content into these forms, and it inadvertently has some sensitive data…
mayhemducks on HNHow can you ever be sure of that on any website that you don't fully host yourself?
squigz on HN
Embeds Google Tag Manager
From 1 comment
Embeds Google Tag Manager
crtasm on HN
YouTube downloader is buggy
From 1 comment
Ah it's buggy, youtube really doesn't like their videos being downloaded. Built it with yt-dlp library. Continuously tweaking it
andreisergo on HN
Requests
Network utilities such as DNS checker and ping
From 1 comment
Bunch of network utilities like DNS checker, ping, port scan etc
praveen9920 on HN
Link checker, JSON verifier, SSH key generator, image resizer, USB creator
From 1 comment
Nice. I like it, and will use it. Some ideas: link checker, JSON format verifier, HTTP request translator (curl, Python, etc.), SSH key generator, image resizer, PDF resizer,…
dominicq on HN
QR code generator
From 1 comment
QR code generator would be good. Many of the online generators don’t link directly where you ask, but through a tracking domain.
elondaits on HN
Pin or favourite tools
From 1 comment
Really nice project; my one request would be a way to "pin" or "favourite" tools since not every tool is likely to be useful for everyone.
chrysoprace on HN
Questions
Are user inputs saved on the backend?
From 1 comment
How can users be sure that their inputs are not being saved somewhere on the backend? If I paste a bunch of content into these forms, and it inadvertently has some sensitive data…
mayhemducks on HN
Is there an aggregator for independent tool sites?
From 2 comments
Is there a site that aggregates tools from independent sites?
lindnertim on HNSo many small free tools listed in this thread. It would really help if we could have an aggregator for these with powerful natural language search built-in.
freakynit on HN
Alternatives named
cobalt.tools
From 1 comment
there is also uh, god, I always forget its name whenever I want to use it.... AHHHHH YESS, I FINALLY REMEMBERED IT AFTER 5 minutes of thinking. https://cobalt.tools This has…
Imustaskforhelp on HN
CyberChef
From 2 comments
Does The Youtube downloader work? BTW this reminds me of excellent https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/
chanux on HNhttps://cyberchef.io allows you to combine a lot of these tools in sequence.
diego_moita on HN
intodns.com and ping.pe
From 1 comment
https://intodns.com/ https://ping.pe
indigodaddy on HN
tools.simonwillison.net
From 1 comment
simonw has also written a bunch of these sorts of tools Pretty expansive actually: https://tools.simonwillison.net/
indigodaddy on HN