Top Developer Tools of 2018: A Comprehensive Overview

2018 is coming to an end, and the development industry has undergone many changes. After communicating with many development teams and observing their tool choices under rapid internet iteration, I have compiled a list of what I consider the best developer tools for 2018.

Elasticsearch – The parent company went public this year. Teams from BAT, TMD, startups all use ES. Beyond search, ELK is the best solution for log processing. ES replaces data warehouses for operational systems, appears in log analysis, operations, LBS search, and ranks just below Redis in DB-Engines.

gRPC – I strongly recommend using gRPC instead of building your own RPC framework. It offers high performance, stable interfaces, multi‑language support, and fits both async and sync micro‑service architectures. In the Java world, SpringBoot and Dubbo have their fans, but a stable, high‑performance RPC framework like gRPC is urgently needed.

CNCF – Although I originally considered Kubernetes, the CNCF ecosystem deserves mention. Projects such as Kubernetes, Prometheus, gRPC, Fluentd, Envoy, Harbor, OpenTracing are all under CNCF, forming a new infrastructure layer that abstracts storage, network, and OS in favor of cloud‑native containers.

Python – The only language tool on the list, not as popular as Java or JavaScript, but selected for its dominance in deep learning. Python is the de‑facto language for AI frameworks TensorFlow and PyTorch, making it essential for teams moving toward artificial‑intelligence research.

Mini‑Programs – Not tied to a single platform, mini‑programs integrate WebAPP technologies across WeChat, DingTalk, Alipay, etc. They are fast, lightweight, and tightly bound to platforms, benefiting from serverless and BaaS solutions like Parse or Firebase.

VSCode – After being an Emacs enthusiast, I switched entirely to VSCode. Its rich plugin ecosystem, stable performance, and excellent debugging support across languages make it a top‑choice IDE.

Vue.js – Most front‑end teams have migrated to Vue.js. While React and Angular still exist, Vue’s simplicity and efficiency have made it the default for modern front‑end development, especially in a decoupled architecture where the back‑end only provides APIs.

GraphQL – Gaining popularity, GraphQL addresses the high communication and management costs of REST. It lets clients define data shapes, simplifying front‑end development and reducing back‑end coordination.

Other Observations – Mobile development has become the primary focus for internet R&D teams. CNCF is emerging as a new infrastructure layer, while OpenStack is losing relevance. Open‑source projects such as MongoDB, Redis, and JDK have shifted to commercial licenses, highlighting the need for sustainable business models in open‑source ecosystems.

Note: The views expressed are personal and for reference only.