IT-Tools: A Self-Hosted Swiss Army Knife for Developers

IT-Tools is a self-hosted collection of handy developer utilities — the kind of things you'd normally Google for and end up on some ad-laden website. Base64 encode/decode, JWT parsing, UUID generation, cron expression parsing, hash generators, color converters, and about 70 more tools, all in a clean web UI running on your own server.

Why Self-Host This?

You probably already use these tools multiple times a day through various websites. Self-hosting IT-Tools gives you:

• Privacy — No pasting API keys, JWTs, or connection strings into random websites
• Speed — Everything runs client-side in your browser, no network round-trips
• Availability — Works even when your internet is down
• No ads — Clean, fast interface without cookie banners and popups
• One bookmark — All your utility tools in one place

The privacy angle is the real win. How many times have you pasted a JWT token into jwt.io without thinking about it? That token might contain user data, and you just sent it to a third party.

Installation

# docker-compose.yml
services:
  it-tools:
    image: corentinth/it-tools:latest
    container_name: it-tools
    ports:
      - "8080:80"
    restart: unless-stopped

docker compose up -d

That's it. No volumes, no environment variables, no database. IT-Tools is a static site — everything runs in the browser. The Docker container is just a web server serving the files.

Access it at http://your-server:8080.

Available Tools

IT-Tools includes 70+ utilities organized by category. Here are the most useful ones:

Crypto / Security

• Token generator — Random strings, passwords, UUIDs
• Hash text — MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-512
• Bcrypt — Hash and verify bcrypt passwords
• UUID generator — v1 and v4 UUIDs
• ULID generator — Universally Unique Lexicographically Sortable IDs
• Encryption/Decryption — AES encryption for text

Converters

• Base64 — Encode/decode text and files
• URL encode/decode — Percent-encoding
• JSON ↔ YAML — Convert between formats
• JSON ↔ CSV — Tabular data conversion
• JSON ↔ TOML — Configuration format conversion
• XML ↔ JSON — Data format conversion
• Number bases — Binary, octal, decimal, hex conversion
• Color converter — HEX, RGB, HSL conversions
• Case converter — camelCase, snake_case, kebab-case, etc.

Web / Network

• JWT parser — Decode and inspect JWT tokens (without sending them anywhere)
• URL parser — Break down URLs into components
• Device info — Your browser's user agent, screen size, features
• MIME types — Look up MIME types by extension
• HTTP status codes — Quick reference for status codes
• Basic auth generator — Create Authorization headers

Developer

• Cron expression parser — Human-readable cron descriptions with next execution times
• JSON formatter/minifier — Pretty-print or compact JSON
• SQL formatter — Format SQL queries
• Regex tester — Test regular expressions with highlighting
• Diff text — Compare two text blocks
• Lorem ipsum — Generate placeholder text
• Markdown preview — Real-time markdown rendering

Math / Data

• Math evaluator — Calculate expressions
• ETA calculator — Estimate completion time from progress
• Percentage calculator — Common percentage calculations
• Chronometer — Stopwatch and timer
• Temperature converter — Celsius, Fahrenheit, Kelvin

Text / String

• Text statistics — Word count, character count, reading time
• Lorem ipsum — Placeholder text generation
• Emoji picker — Search and copy emojis
• String obfuscator — Obfuscate text using Unicode lookalikes

Image / Media

• QR code generator — Create QR codes from text/URLs
• SVG placeholder — Generate placeholder images
• Camera — Access webcam from the browser

Practical Use Cases

Daily Development

Keep IT-Tools open in a pinned browser tab. When you need to:

• Decode a Base64-encoded error message from logs
• Check what a cron expression actually means
• Generate a secure random password for a new service
• Parse a JWT to see what claims it contains
• Convert a color value between HEX and RGB

...you click one tab instead of Googling.

Security-Sensitive Work

Any time you'd normally paste sensitive data into an online tool:

• JWT tokens containing user data
• API keys that need Base64 encoding
• Passwords for bcrypt hashing
• Connection strings for URL parsing

With IT-Tools, the data never leaves your browser.

Team Environments

Deploy IT-Tools on your internal network and share the URL with your team. Everyone gets the same set of utilities without installing anything.

Running Behind a Reverse Proxy

Since IT-Tools is a simple static site, reverse proxy configuration is straightforward:

# Caddy
tools.yourdomain.com {
    reverse_proxy it-tools:80
}

Consider adding basic auth if you're exposing it externally, though all processing is client-side so there's no server-side data exposure risk.

Resource Usage

IT-Tools is exceptionally lightweight:

• CPU: Negligible (static file serving)
• RAM: ~10 MB
• Disk: ~50 MB (container image)
• Network: Only serves static files; all tool logic runs client-side

You can run it on the most resource-constrained hardware you have.

Verdict

IT-Tools is one of those "why didn't I set this up sooner" services. The setup takes 30 seconds, it uses essentially no resources, and it replaces dozens of bookmarks to sketchy online tools. The privacy benefit alone justifies it — once you have IT-Tools running, you'll stop pasting sensitive data into random websites.

Add it to your dashboard, pin it in your browser, and you'll wonder how you managed without it.