Issue #399  (Cloudways Review, JS Libs, Media, Git/CLI)03/11/21

The following intro is a paid product review for Cloudways, a managed cloud hosting platform for digital agencies, developers, and e-commerce businesses.

As you are likely aware, there are tons of choices on the market for hosting providers. Since every app or website has different needs, hosting isn't an easy decision to make.

Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting provider you'll want to consider for the following reasons, which I'll expand on below:

• Simplicity (i.e. easy to get up and running)
• Performance
• Expert 24/7 Support
• Team Collaboration Features

Firstly, what do I mean by "simplicity"? When you create an account (you can start a free trial, no credit card required) you'll be presented with a straightforward way to set up your server and start deploying your applications:

I love this initial screen! Even for someone who's not tech-savvy, it's all pretty easy to understand and start (if you can't read the above image, view the full-size image here).

Once your server (and the app) has been launched, you'll get a clean, easy-to-follow layout with your server details and available tools – including monitoring tools, server-level settings and packages, security tools, backups, and more.

Another thing I mentioned above that's a great selling-point is Cloudways' performance. All the Cloudways plans are on dedicated servers so you get top-notch speed. Other key performance features include:

• A built-in CDN
• SSD-based hardware
• PHP8-ready (proven to be better for performance but you can choose from 5.6 and up)
• Support for HTTP/2

There's a lot more on the performance of the servers, which you can check out on the Cloudways features page.

Strong 24/7 support is another must-have for anyone running dynamic, high-traffic websites. Cloudways offers the following support features to put your mind at ease:

• 24/7 live expert chat support, 365 days a year
• An online ticketing system for tracking and quickly resolving complex issues
• Built-in monitoring tools to help the Cloudways team proactively begin resolving any issues before you even contact them
• A strong knowledge base and an active community

Their team collaboration tools are another reason you'll want to consider using Cloudways as your hosting platform. Here are some of the features available:

• Git integration and auto-deployment from remote repositories
• Quick app and server cloning for creating staging environments
• Ability to add team members and specify their roles on any server or app
• Ability to group different websites or apps as "Projects", which you can then assign to specific team members

Some additional things that I like about Cloudways:

• Easy, free, one-click SSL certifications via Let's Encrypt
• Protection against bot traffic, brute force login attacks, and denial-of-service attacks
• Lots of add-ons and other cloud services (e.g. migration tools, DNS services) with full control to you and any assigned team members

Cloudways offers seamless vertical scaling and no locked-in contracts – just pay as you go, so you can affordably grow your business as you need, paying only for what you use.

In conclusion, I'll just say that I was personally really impressed with the user-friendly interface for accessing and working with the various server settings and related tools. This was my first time trying out Cloudways and I didn't once feel lost or lacking in control. Very impressive!

As I mentioned, you can try Cloudways today with a free trial, with no credit card required. It's a short trial, but it's enough to allow you to poke around the different parts of the control panel and the server settings so you can get a feel for what you're getting into. I'm sure you'll be pleased with how easy it is to use.

And as a bonus: If you sign up for Cloudways, use the promo code WTWCW for a $25 credit.

Now on to this week's tools!

JavaScript Libraries and Frameworks

rubico
A library founded on the principles that asynchronous code should be simple, functional style should not care about async, and functional transformations should be composable, performant, and simple to express.

Saruni
The simplest way to write and deploy fast, scalable full-stack web applications in JavaScript.

CASL
An isomorphic authorization JavaScript library that restricts what resources a given user is allowed to access.

Budibase
Brings together everything that’s required to build internal tools, such as; dashboards, admin panels, CRMs, approval apps, employee wikis, and everything in between.

ReScript
A JavaScript-like language that attempts to improve on JavaScript with a great type system and a lean build toolchain.

Total.js Platform
A collection of libraries, packages, UI components, and more written in JavaScript. The basis of the platform is a server-side framework and client-side library called jComponent.
 
Forgo
A 4KB library that makes it super easy to create modern web apps using JSX (like React). Unlike React, there are few framework-specific patterns and lingo to learn.

Venom Bot
A high-performance system developed with JavaScript to create a bot for WhatsApp with support for creating any interaction such as customer service, media sending, AI sentence recognition, and more.

Amplication
An open‑source development tool that helps you develop quality Node.js applications with GraphQL and REST APIs, without spending time on repetitive coding tasks.

Lots on the Release Radar:

• Prisma has been at version 2+ since mid-2020
• Angular is at version 11+
• Stimulus is at version 2+
• Keystone is now in the "Next" phase, with lots of small releases
• Next.js is at version 10+
• Relay by Facebook is at version 11+
• React is at version 17+
• Nebular for Angular at version 7+

Media Tools (SVG, Images, etc.)

Jitter
A design tool for motion. Animate your designs easily and export your creations as videos or GIFs, all in the browser.

Google Fonts Icons
Search Material icons in various styles, now part of the Google Fonts project.

AVIF Converter
Convert any image to AVIF, the new file format that has a little bit of browser support.
 
SVG Repo
Browse 300,000+ SVG vectors and icons. Each one you select lists the license and it appears most of these are free for commercial use.

Facet
An AI-native, API-first image editor providing content-aware image editing right to your browser.

SVGX
A native desktop SVG manager for Windows and Mac for bookmarking, searching for, previewing, optimizing SVGs, and lots more.

Online GIF Tools
An ad-free collection of useful browser-based utilities for working with animated (and static) GIFs.

Mock Magic
A tool to build device mockups, just drop in your design, select the device, color, then download the PNG.

statosio.js
An add-on function for D3.js to generate simple charts and diagrams, in a fast and reliable way.

Styled Icons
Popular icon packs like Font Awesome, Material Design, Octicons, etc., available as React Styled Components, built in TypeScript.

SVG Jar
The easiest way to add SVG images to Ember apps.
 

Git, GitHub, and CLI Tools

SigNoz
An open source observability platform that helps developers find issues in their deployed applications and solve them quickly.

JAMBook.io
A dashboard for GitHub writers that tracks how many words you write a day and provides a dashboard view of your writing streak.

GitHub Skyline
View a 3D model of your any user's GitHub contribution graph for any year from 2008 to 2020.
 
Octohook
A no-code web application that helps you visualize, debug and redistribute your webhooks via powerful workflows.

TechStack
Visualize your tech stack by simply pasting your package.json file and having it generate a beautiful bar of tech logos from your dependencies, which you can then use in your README.md.

Merge Chance
Type in a GitHub repo name including the owner and this tool will tell you what percentage of pull requests from outsiders get merged.

github1s
One second to read GitHub code with VS Code. Just add "1s" after "github" in the repo's URL to view the repository using a VS Code-like environment.

git-peek
The fastest way to open a remote git repository in your local text editor.

Terminex
A simple cross-platform terminal built with HTML, CSS, JS, and Electron.

Metrics
Customize and generate a "metrics" card from your GitHub account that you can embed in your GitHub profile README.
 

A Tweet for Thought

How about a meme that only writers will truly understand.

 

Send Me Your Tools!

Made something? Send links via Direct Message on Twitter @WebToolsWeekly (details here). No tutorials or articles, please. If you have any suggestions for improvement or corrections, feel free to reply to this email.
 

Before I Go...

If you're fed up with bloated commercial laptop options, you might want to keep tabs on the Framework Laptop project. In their own words: "The time has come for consumer electronics products that are designed to last, without sacrificing performance, quality, or style."

Thanks to all for subscribing and reading!

Keep tooling,
Louis
webtoolsweekly.com
@LouisLazaris