50+ Free Mac Apps For Web Designers And Developers (Huge Toolkit)

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When it comes to the world of Mac, "free" is not a frequently used word as most of the softwares are paid.

For web designers and developers which require many applications (like an IDE, image editor, FTP and DB manager, etc.) for the job, they can sum up to a serious budget.

However, to the contrary, there are some free (even open source) and high quality Mac applications for web designers/developers which can easily create an alternative.

WRD brings you a huge list of (50+) these free Mac apps which can easily be as powerful as the paid apps you may be using. Just check them out and bookmark for using in the future (if not starting to use instantly):

Image And Graphic

Pencil

An open source application (works on Windows and Linux besides Mac OS X) that enables us to create hand-drawn animations (cartoon) using both bitmap and vector graphics.

Inkscape

Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor which works in all major platforms and offers the features of a high-quality vector drawing application.

With a slick interface, the software supports lots of advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.) and editing nodes or performing complex path operations can be simply handled.

GIMP

GIMP is probably the most popular open source image editing software around.

It is very powerful, works with layers just like Photoshop and can be extended with lots of free-to-use plugins.

P.S. Also check the GIMP on OS X project which has pre-built application bundles .

DrawBerry

If you don't need any high-level vevtor drawing applications, DrawBerry can be the right tool.

With the standard features like layers, inspectors, various tools and workspace, DrawBerry is a an easy-to-use drawing solution.

Google SketchUp

An easy-to-use and powerful 3D modeling program built by Google.

It is possible to create anything from simple drawings to advanced ones and it comes with a 3D Warehouse that includes lots of free models.

Blender

A feature-rich and open source application for 3D modeling, texturing, skinning, lighting, animations and much more.

It works in all major platforms and also comes with features for realtime 3D/game creation including a "graphical logic editor", Python scripting API for advanced scenarios or a physics engine.

Pixen

A Mac OS X pixel editor that has a Photoshop-like interface and pretty lightweight.

It has realtime tiled editing and powerful palette control. Also, different tools can be assigned to left and right mouse control for a faster usage.

Paintbrush

A simple paint program, similar to Windows Paint, for quickly creating and editing images.

The most frequent use would probably be resizing or cropping images. And, it can open + save in all major formats.

Seashore

The app is built around GIMP's technology, uses the same file format and has gradients, textures + anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes.

It is open source, supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing.

Colorate

This is a tool for creating harmonized color palettes and color schemes.

By selecting a color from the color panel or any other resource, Colorate can automatically create a palette (and saved in the library).

NodeBox

Using NodeBox, you can create static animated and interactive 2D visuals using Python and export them as a PDF or a QuickTime movie.

ImageOptim

A tiny application for optimizing images (.PNG, .JPEG, .GIF) without any loss in the quality by removing unnecessary comments/color profiles and compressing them.

ImageOptim is open source and the interface allows drag 'n' drop which is a real time-saver.

ColourMod Dashboard

A Mac OS X dashboard widget for quickly picking colorsand converting Hex values to RGB, CMYK or HSV.

SiteCapture

SiteCapture can take screenshots of web pages using the WebKit engine.

It is possible to define a custom list (any number of web pages) or get the URLs from Safari bookmarks.

Paparazzi!

A tiny utility for taking full-sized screenshots of web pages.

There are settings for the default file/name format, size of the screenshot and the ability for importing Safari bookmarks.

Free Ruler

A ruler which can be used horizontally or vertically and be used independently or simultaneously.

An interactive tick mark auto-follows the mouse for easier tracking, ruler can be resized for big-sized measurements and it supports multiple units.

FTP And Storage

Cyberduck

An open source application which enable us to manage files in almost any remote locations including FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Cloud Files, Amazon S3, Windows Azure and even Google Docs

It also has a seamless integration with any editor for editing remote files.

FileZilla

One of the most popular free FTP applications around which supports FTP, FTP over SSL/TLS (FTPS) and SFTP.

It is a cross-platform app, works with IPv6 addresses, multilingual and has a powerful site + queue manager.

Chatbox

Chatbox is a free app for the popular file storage/sharing solution Dropbox for commenting and/or discussing about files.

If you are a team of designers/developers who host project files on Dropbox, then the application is a must-have.

OneButton FTP

An FTP application which focuses on simplicity, has file queuing and drag 'n' drop support.

The application is no longer developed/improved but still available and functional.

SvnX

An open source interface for SVN for browsing working copies, browsing logs and revisions of the repositories.

It supports all major SVN commands, drag 'n' drop between repository browser and Finder is possible and integrates with FileMerge.

GitX

A Mac OS X interface to Git repositories with a detailed history and commit viewer.

It allows exploring the tree of any revision and integrates with QuickLook.

IDEs & Text Editors

Some of the applications are also mentioned in a previously published WRD article: 16 Stable & Free IDEs For Designers/Developers. Feel free to check it if you are searching for IDEs that will run on other operating systems.

Aptana Studio

Aptana Studio is a very impressive and open source development tool that supports HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and Ruby, Rails, PHP & Python on the server side.

It has a "code assist" feature where you can find out details about functions, elements, etc.

You can stay synchronized with the server via FTP, SFTP and control your code with the help of an integrated debugger.

There are many other features that will ease the development process including Git integration or a built-in terminal.

Komodo Edit

Komodo Edit is an open source application that has support for PHP, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Perl, Tcl, XML, HTML 5 and CSS 3.

It has syntax coloring, folding, background syntax checking, auto-complete and calltips.

There are lots of extensions created by the community that will help you customize it more.

Code::Blocks

A flexible IDE, focused on C/C++ code, that can be extended very easily with its powerful plugin support.

It has syntax highlighting, code folding, auto-completion and a tabbed interface.

There is also a task manager to simplify working on the same project for multiple users.

Aptana RadRails

Similar to Aptana Studio, RadRails is also a great code editor that is open source. With only one difference, it is focused on Ruby on Rails applications.

It includes support for project navigation, smart code assistance, visual debugging and structure outlining.

Eclipse

Eclipse is a free, state-of-the-art Java development environment (there are also JS, PHP and C/C++ versions).

It has a very active community and many open source plugins + developer tools built around the ecosystem.

CodeLite

An open source IDE for C/C++ which can be easily extended with plugins.

It has a XML-based syntax highlighting for most of the popular languages and has a powerful code-completion mechanism.

NetBeans

It consists of an open-source IDE and an application platform that enable developers to rapidly create web, enterprise, desktop, and mobile applications.

Java is the main platform and it also supports JavaFX, PHP, JavaScriptx, Ruby +Ruby on Rails, Groovy and Grails and C/C++.

Xcode

Xcode is the "Mac way" of building for Apple-powered platforms.

It includes features to complete all the build, debug and test cycles.

A graphical editor (Interface Builder) helps designing every aspect of your iOS or Mac OS Xapplication’s graphical user interface.

For iPhone developers, there is a full-featured simulator for a complete testing of the output and much more.

MochaCode

A Java IDE that offers a complete "Mac" user experience with text editors, keyboard shortcuts, toolbars, etc., all behaving exactly as you would expect from a Mac application

There is a powerful code assistant with auto-complete and a library displaying any parameters related to the code.

Kod

Kod is a text editor built for programmers with syntax highlighting, tabbed windows and an integrated scripting environment based on Node.js.

The styling of the editor can be completely customized with CSS3.

Geany

Geany is a simple-yet-powerful IDE that support all major filetypes.

It supports code-folding, auto-completion, code navigation and new features can be added with the plugin support

KDevelop

The IDE supports many programming languages like C, C++, Fortran, Java, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby.

It has built-in project management, debugger and can be extended with plugins.

WebScripter

An IDE with syntax highlighting, scriptable macros and code completion.

It is not developed further but still functional.

TextWrangler

A full-featured text-editor which can compare two versions of a text file, find the differences and merge them.

With syntax highlighting, it integrates with native Perl environment and has a built in function scanner allowing easy navigation of source code.

Vico Editor

Another editor for programmers with integrated SFTP and powerful keyboard management.

Simple CSS

A CSS authoring tool for creating and editing CSS files easier.

Besides writing CSS rules from scratch, a visual builder helps selecting the values for properties.

Less.app

This app simplifies using {Less} by auto-compiling *.less files into standard CSS.

Others (Virtualization, Db & Font Managers, etc.)

VirtualBox (Virtualization)

The ability to install another OS under Mac is very handy specially for IE-testing of websites and using Windows-specific apps.

VirtualBox is a free virtualization software for Mac (works on other operating systems as well) that is easy-to-run and uses a fair amount of CPU + memory.

Sequel Pro (MySQL Manager)

A complete MySQL database manager that can connect to any number of databases and has features like:

a query editor
import/export of databases/tables
paginated data browsing
and much more.

LittleIpsum (Lorem Ipsum Generator)

A lorem ipsum generator which can create words, sentences or paragraphs and sits in the menu bar for quick access.

FontDoc (Font Management)

A simple but very useful application for browsing the fonts installed.

It can display all fonts with a custom text in any size and a must-have for anyone with a huge font collection.

Dashalytics (For Google Analytics)

A Dashboard widget which offers a quick access to Google Analytics and displays all major reports.

It lists all websites listed under the mentioned Analytics account and the stats of the website to be viewed can be changed anytime.

WidSense (For Google Adsense)

A Dashboard widget for reaching Google AdSense data instantly.

For any given ad, it shows the number of pageviews, clicks and budget spent.

Flaex (SWF Extractor)

Compiled Flash files (.SWF) are normally locked and resources used inside can not be reached however this application is for extracting images, sounds, videos, etc… from any .SWF file.