These aren’t trending repos that disappear in a week. These are tools backend developers actually use in production.
1. httpie/cli — Better than curl
A human-friendly HTTP client for the terminal. Syntax-highlighted output, JSON support, and intuitive syntax.
# Instead of: curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"name":"test"}' http://api.example.com
http POST api.example.com name=test⭐ 33K+ stars
2. jqlang/jq — JSON Swiss Army knife
Process JSON from the command line. Filter, transform, and extract data from API responses.
curl api.example.com/users | jq '.[] | {name, email}'⭐ 30K+ stars
3. wagoodman/dive — Explore Docker images
See what’s in each layer of your Docker image. Find wasted space and bloat.
dive myapp:latest⭐ 45K+ stars
4. louislam/uptime-kuma — Self-hosted monitoring
Beautiful uptime monitoring for your services. Supports HTTP, TCP, DNS, and more. Notifications via Slack, Discord, email. ⭐ 57K+ stars
5. minio/minio — S3-compatible object storage
Run your own S3 locally or in production. Same API as AWS S3, so your code works with both. ⭐ 47K+ stars
6. traefik/traefik — Modern reverse proxy
Auto-discovers services, handles SSL certificates, and routes traffic. The Nginx alternative that configures itself. ⭐ 51K+ stars
7. grafana/grafana — Dashboards for everything
Visualize metrics from Prometheus, PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, and 100+ data sources. The standard for monitoring dashboards. ⭐ 64K+ stars
8. PostHog/posthog — Open-source product analytics
Self-hosted alternative to Mixpanel/Amplitude. Event tracking, funnels, session recordings. No data leaves your servers. ⭐ 21K+ stars
9. benbjohnson/litestream — SQLite streaming replication
Continuously replicate your SQLite database to S3. Turns SQLite into a production-viable database with backups. ⭐ 11K+ stars
10. FiloSottile/age — Simple file encryption
Modern replacement for GPG. Encrypt files with a single command, no configuration.
age -r age1ql3z7hjy54pw3hyww5ayyfg7zqgvc7w3j2elw8zmrj2kg5sfn9aqmcac8p secrets.txt > secrets.txt.age⭐ 17K+ stars
Honorable mentions
- nektos/act — Run GitHub Actions locally
- jesseduffield/lazydocker — Terminal UI for Docker
- dbgate/dbgate — Cross-platform database manager
Star the ones you’ll use. Ignore the rest. The best tool is the one you actually reach for.
Related: Git Cheat Sheet