I Built 14 Free Web Tools — Here's What I Learned

About a year ago, I started building small, free web tools. Not a SaaS. Not a startup. Just... tools. Useful things that solve one problem each, run in the browser, and don't require signups. Fourteen tools later, here's what I've learned. How It Started It started with image formatting. I needed to resize and convert images for a project, and every "free" tool online was either plastered with ads, required an upload to some random server, or had a 5-image daily limit. So I built FormatPic — a browser-based image formatter. Resize, crop, convert formats. Everything happens client-side. No uploads, no server processing. Your images never leave your browser. It took a weekend. People started using it. And I thought: what else can I build like this? The Tools Over the next several months, I built a bunch more: Compresso — Image compression, client-side. Handles JPEG, PNG, WebP with quality controls. QRCodeGen — QR code generator with customization (colors, logos, sizes). ToolCove — A coll