5+1 Tools To Make You A Better Fullstack Developer

I KNOW I KNOW, no tool will actually make you a better developer, but maybe a more productive one!...

I KNOW I KNOW, no tool will actually make you a better developer, but maybe a more productive one! This blog post isn't focused on a specific area but includes a bit of everything, from Cloud Hosting to AI!

And with that, lets go!

Sliplane.io 

Sliplane is a fully managed container hosting solution that simplifies Docker deployment and management. It offers:

• Automatic building and deployment of containers from GitHub repositories
• Continuous deployment on every push
• Unlimited container hosting on each server for a fixed monthly fee
• Built-in features like domains, vertical scaling, SSL, and security updates

I think the best part about sliplane.io is that you can deploy as many containers as you want without paying extra, allowing you to try out new ideas without the fear of breaking the bank (looking at you, AWS). Want to try out a new database? There's probably a Docker image for that!

Try Sliplane for free 

Cursor.sh

Honestly if you haven't used or heard about Cursor yet, you are probably living under a rock :D

Cursor is (in my opinion, YMMV) the best AI integration in any IDE, at least in February 2025, at the current pace of AI development this will probably change quickly :)

Anyway, here's the pitch: Cursor.sh is an AI-powered code editor based on VSCode that enhances productivity for fullstack developers. It offers features like:

• AI-assisted code completion and generation
• Intelligent code refactoring suggestions
• Built-in chat interface for code-related queries
• Seamless integration with various programming languages and frameworks (so your AI got the right documentation integrated)

Honestly, after writng the list of features it doesn't sound much different than something like Github Copilot, but for some reason Cursor works (at least for my usecases) much better. Check it out!

DeepSeek

After all the Drama and excitement about DeepSeek in the last week its finally time to actually see what its good for. In my testing, I really like DeepSeek for harder coding problems that GPT fails at. For example recently I built a eBPF based Firewall for sliplane.io and DeepSeek did a pretty good job (it didnt work, but 10x better than ChatGPT lol).

I think the good part is that you can see the chain of thought and you can exactly see where it went wrong, go back and reprompt it. Less guess work why your LLM is doing stupid things :D

Anyway, its also good for some other things like:

• Deep code analysis and performance optimization suggestions (I used it to optimize my Kernel boot times)
• Intelligent code review assistance (LGTM is now LGTD hehe)

GitHub Code Search

GitHub Code Search is a powerful tool for searching code within GitHub repositories. If you are ever building something with a badly documented library, try to search for it on Github Code Search. For example, I recently did some Stripe Integration work and wasn't sure what the value for the BillingThresholds should be, so I searched for it on Github Code Search and found a bunch of examples.

The query language is pretty powerful, but just searching for good keywords with a language filter on usually does the trick for me!

Outerbase

Outerbase combines database management with data visualization and some AI sprinkled in. If you ever worked in a company with non-technical people, you've probably been asked a lot to build some kind of dashboard or query some data for them (if not, damn congrats!). I think the cool part about Outerbase is that everything looks freaking sweet out of the box and definitely better than anything you could plot in Excel or Google Sheets quickly. The AI part also helps to move quickly!

Time :)

In all seriousness, nothing will make you a better developer than actually building something and putting in the time. Tools are a multiplier of your skills and can help you get there faster, not more!