# Free Tools to Help with Your Everyday Software Testing Needs **URL:** \ **Category:** Archive\ **Tags:** tools\ **Created:** [18 December 2018 15:30 UTC](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/free-tools-to-help-with-your-everyday-software-testing-needs/21272 "2018-12-18T15:30:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![heather\_reid](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/club.ministryoftesting.com/heather_reid/32/29_2.png) [@heather\_reid](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/u/heather_reid)\ **Post date:** [18 December 2018 15:30 UTC](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/free-tools-to-help-with-your-everyday-software-testing-needs/21272/1 "2018-12-18T15:30:00Z")
I read this a blog post about free tools to help with testing and help software testers > **[Fifteen Free Tools to Help With Testing](http://thethinkingtester.blogspot.com/2018/12/fifteen-free-tools-to-help-with-testing.html)** > > There are a great many articles, blog posts, and presentations that discuss automation frameworks and strategies.  But even the most robust ... We have a few posts about tools already on the Club > [@30 Days of Agile Testing, Day 20: What is in your toolkit?](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/30-days-of-agile-testing-day-20-what-is-in-your-toolkit/10495): > > For [task 20](https://dojo.ministryoftesting.com/lessons/30-days-of-agile-testing) we are asked what is in ours and our teams toolkit. My toolkit is pretty varied depending on what I’m doing on any given day: Screen recorder (as I’ve mentioned before this is one of my biggest assets while testing), I use this every day! Webdriverio with Mocha ZAP FoxyProxy (I use this with both ZAP and JMeter) JMeter Virtualbox (I make mistakes a lot, I like to be able to scrap Virtual Machines and start from scratch) Docker (I’ve finally started this after I asked the [question](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/getting-started-with-docker/662) … > [@30 Days of Automation in Testing Day 7: How do you choose which tools to use in testing?](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/30-days-of-automation-in-testing-day-7-how-do-you-choose-which-tools-to-use-in-testing/16496): > > [image] Success in any test automation depends on identifying the right tool for automation. Selecting the “correct” Testing Tool for your project is one of the best ways to achieve the project target. Step 1) Identify the requirement for tools How can you select a testing tool if you do not know what you are looking for? Step 2) Evaluate the tools and vendors Analyze the commercial and open source tools that are available in the market, based on the project requirement.Evaluate t… > [@What tools and things do you use to help you with exploratory software testing?](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/what-tools-and-things-do-you-use-to-help-you-with-exploratory-software-testing/61): > > I’m curious to know what tools testers are using to help them do exploratory testing. Please don’t answer with ‘my brain’. Am looking for practical things to help testers do better exploratory testing. Thank you (in advance). But I was wondering what **free** \* tools you would recommend to help software testers, QA people, developers, and others with software testing? **Note** \*: I say free meaning not tools that have a free trial. Tools that are 100% free or open source or have a fully free tier. ---
**Author:** ![brian\_seg](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/club.ministryoftesting.com/brian_seg/32/409_2.png) [@brian\_seg](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/u/brian_seg)\ **Post date:** [19 December 2018 13:21 UTC](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/free-tools-to-help-with-your-everyday-software-testing-needs/21272/2 "2018-12-19T13:21:34Z")
I use a lot of mindmaps to keep my thoughts organized. For that: XMind. Since my IoT application uses serial communication: Visual Studio community edition (C#) Since I like Python for simple scripts, I have Visual Studio configured for Python as well. I sometimes prefer to use Python’s Idle editor. (Got to be a habit when my sysadmin didn’t allow me to change things in a previous job) For screenshots, I use Greenshot. For editing screenshots (i.e. “Look at the problem HERE!”), [Paint.net](http://Paint.net) For analyzing logs, Notepad++ For API tests, Postman ---
**Author:** ![juanalvarezarquillos](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/club.ministryoftesting.com/juanalvarezarquillos/32/6072_2.png) [@juanalvarezarquillos](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/u/juanalvarezarquillos)\ **Post date:** [19 December 2018 21:12 UTC](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/free-tools-to-help-with-your-everyday-software-testing-needs/21272/3 "2018-12-19T21:12:40Z")
- Visual Studio Code: To create little python tools to help me while testing. Incredible free IDE from MS without eating too many resources as IntelliJ, Eclipse and the likes. - Postman: To first testing the services APIs before automating the API tests. - An online certificate decoder service like “sslshopper” to check the certificates dates, CNs, SANs, etc - An online JSON decoder, beautifier, uglify, etc service. - KeePass: Many users and passwords to remember :)…and the nice feature to “auto” input the user/password in the browser page! ---
**Author:** ![msx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@msx](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/u/msx)\ **Post date:** [21 December 2018 08:59 UTC](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/free-tools-to-help-with-your-everyday-software-testing-needs/21272/4 "2018-12-21T08:59:51Z")
Free software that I use regularly as tester as like as for other tasks: • Notepad++: for all files you may edit, esp. with XML-Tools (pretty-print!) by the way Notepad+ can replace many of the tools the author of the fifteen-free-tools blog post suggests! • AutoIt: esp. for automating WIN-UI tasks like stepwise performance tests (automated testcase by compiling .exe) • AutoHotkey: esp. for automated string manipulationg task in our bugtracking system • Sikuli: for quick regression testing (as non-dev I could not find a easy solution to automate with other scripted tools due to many “black-box” components) • GoldenDict: translating tool I use not primary for testing but for documentation and support tasks also with dictionaries created with babylon builder on my own to have immediately access to things like our products terms (translations) database, internal IDs to descriptive terms ect. • TNTscreencapture: does what is says • Bandicam: for creating short screen videos, but as freeware with watermark • DiffPDFportable: already saved a lot of time (but to admint rarely used) • Sysinternals Suite: indispensable with tools like perfmon, PsExec, zoomit, autoruns, Bginfo • www.di.fm: can help a lot to make your brain stay focused on track 😉(e.g. with Chillout dreams; Nightcore) regards Mathias ---
**Author:** ![conrad.braam](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/club.ministryoftesting.com/conrad.braam/32/660_2.png) [@conrad.braam](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/u/conrad.braam)\ **Post date:** [29 September 2020 08:11 UTC](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/free-tools-to-help-with-your-everyday-software-testing-needs/21272/5 "2020-09-29T08:11:38Z")
I am pretty sure @FriendlyTester had a exploratory test helper app at some point being promoted - anyone got the link? Sorry for the necro.