Wong Edan's
Cover
Coding & Algorithms

Wong Edan’s Guide to Reddit’s Top Open Source Tools

March 12, 2026 • By Azzar Budiyanto

Introduction: Entering the Reddit Rabbit Hole with a Wong Edan Grin

Selamat datang, you brave souls of the digital asylum! They call me the Wong Edan of tech—the crazy one who stays up until 4:00 AM debugging a production issue caused by a missing semicolon, only to realize I was editing the wrong file. Today, we aren’t just talking about software; we are talking about the holy grails of the Reddit dev community. You know Reddit, right? That place where developers go to argue about dark mode themes while their CI/CD pipelines are screaming in agony. On June 16, 2021, a legendary thread surfaced titled “My top 10 favourite open source development tools”. It became a beacon for every developer tired of paying thousands of dollars for proprietary bloatware that does nothing but suck up RAM and sell your soul to the highest bidder.

In this deep dive, I am dissecting these tools with the precision of a surgeon and the sarcasm of a guy who has seen too many “Hello World” tutorials. We are looking at the real heavy hitters: VS Code (and the spicy debate surrounding it), Budibase, Posthog, Snyk, Prisma, Storybook, Vercel, and the glorious Oh My Zsh. We’re also pulling in context from the 2024 and 2025 Reddit discussions—yes, I have the data from the future, don’t ask how, just accept the madness! We’ll talk about sustainability, the “scams” of the PDF industry, and why some tools claim to be open source but are actually proprietary wolves in sheep’s clothing. Sit down, grab a coffee (black, like my humor), and let’s get technical.

1. The Great Editor Schism: VS Code vs. VSCodium

Let’s start with the elephant in the room that caused a riot in the r/opensource subreddit. The original list cites VS Code as a favorite. Now, listen to me, you beautiful code-monkeys: Reddit user feedback from July 19, 2022, was brutal. One user pointed out that VS Code, as distributed by Microsoft, is technically proprietary. It’s like buying a “free” car that records your conversations and sends them to Seattle. The actual open-source core is Code-OSS.

If you want the true Wong Edan experience—free from the telemetry and tracking that makes your tin-foil hat tingle—you go for VSCodium. It is the community-driven, telemetry-free binary of VS Code. You get the same extensions, the same UI, and the same “I’m a real developer” feeling without Microsoft watching you type console.log('please work') for the hundredth time.

The Technical Reality of Code-OSS

The core of VS Code is licensed under the MIT license, but the official Microsoft build includes proprietary pieces and tracking. VSCodium strips this out. Why does it matter? Because in the world of open source, “free” means freedom, not just “free beer.” When Reddit talks about “giving back,” moving to a truly open binary is the first step toward sanity.


# To install VSCodium on Linux via Snap:
snap install codium --classic

# To keep your sanity:
alias code='codium'

2. Prisma: The ORM That Actually Respects Your Time

Prisma was highlighted in the 2021 Reddit list as a top-tier tool, and for good reason. Before Prisma, interacting with a database was like trying to talk to a brick wall using a megaphone. You either wrote raw SQL that looked like ancient hieroglyphics or used ORMs that were so “magical” you had no idea why your queries were taking three seconds to run.

Prisma changed the game by introducing the Prisma Schema Language (PSL). It’s type-safe, which means if you try to put a string where a number belongs, Prisma will yell at you before you even hit save. That is the kind of aggressive feedback I live for! It supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, and SQL Server. On Reddit, it is frequently praised for its “Developer Experience” (DX). In a world where most tools are designed by people who hate developers, Prisma feels like it was designed by someone who actually writes code.

Example Prisma Schema

datasource db {
  provider = "postgresql"
  url      = env("DATABASE_URL")
}

generator client {
  provider = "prisma-client-js"
}

model User {
  id    Int     @id @default(autoincrement())
  email String  @unique
  name  String?
  posts Post[]
}

model Post {
  id        Int     @id @default(autoincrement())
  title     String
  published Boolean @default(false)
  author    User    @relation(fields: [authorId], references: [id])
  authorId  Int
}

3. Posthog: Analytics Without the Google “Staring at You” Factor

Next on the Reddit favorites list is Posthog. In the old days, we all used Google Analytics because we didn’t know any better. But Google Analytics is the digital equivalent of a creepy guy in a trench coat following you around a store. Posthog is different. It’s an all-in-one suite for product analytics, heatmaps, and session recordings that you can self-host.

Reddit developers love Posthog because it focuses on event-based tracking. You want to know exactly when a user clicks the “Buy” button but then gets scared and leaves? Posthog shows you the session recording. You want to run an A/B test to see if a red button makes people angrier than a blue one? Posthog does that. And because it’s open source, you can keep the data on your own servers. No more sending your users’ souls to the Google cloud.

“Posthog is what happens when developers realize they can actually build tools for humans, not just for data-mining corporations.” — Wong Edan’s Internal Monologue.

4. Snyk: Because Your Dependencies Are a Nightmare

If you aren’t using Snyk, your node_modules folder is probably a biological hazard. Snyk, mentioned in the top 10 list, is a security tool that scans your dependencies for known vulnerabilities. Every time you npm install a package, you are essentially inviting a stranger into your house. Snyk is the bouncer who checks their ID and tells you that the “harmless” logging library you just added has a backdoor bigger than a barn door.

Reddit users often mention Snyk in the context of DevOps and DevSecOps. It integrates directly into your CLI, your IDE, and your CI/CD pipeline. It doesn’t just find the problem; it tells you how to fix it, often providing a “remediation” path that updates the package to a safe version. In the Oct 23, 2025, context, developers are still debating “which companies give back.” Snyk has been a staple in this conversation by offering a robust free tier for open-source projects, which is the kind of energy we need in this industry.

5. Budibase: Low-Code for the Lazy (and the Smart)

Let’s be honest: writing a CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) application for the fifth time is enough to make anyone want to quit tech and become a goat farmer. Budibase is the low-code platform that Reddit developers turn to when they need to build internal tools fast. It was featured prominently in the June 2021 list.

Budibase is open source and allows you to connect to multiple data sources (SQL, MongoDB, Rest APIs) and build a UI in minutes. It’s the “wong edan” way of saying, “I’m too busy doing real work to write another CSS flexbox layout for an admin panel.” It’s particularly powerful because it generates real applications that you can host yourself, avoiding the “vendor lock-in” that makes proprietary low-code tools so dangerous. If you want to build a tool for your team to manage a database without giving them direct access to the production terminal (which is always a recipe for disaster), Budibase is your best friend.

6. Storybook: The UI Sandbox of Your Dreams

If you are building a modern web application, your components probably look like a mess. Storybook is the tool that forces you to be organized. It’s an open-source development environment for UI components. It allows you to build components in isolation, away from the chaos of your main application logic.

Why did Reddit put this in the top 10? Because without Storybook, you have to navigate through ten pages of your app just to see if your new “Submit” button looks right in dark mode. With Storybook, you create a “story” for that button. You can see how it looks when it’s loading, when it’s disabled, and when it’s being hovered over by a user with a weird browser resolution. It supports React, Vue, Angular, and more. It turns your UI development into a systematic process instead of a “guess and check” nightmare.

Typical Storybook Structure

// Button.stories.js
import { Button } from './Button';

export default {
  title: 'Components/Button',
  component: Button,
};

export const Primary = () => <Button primary>Click Me</Button>;
export const Warning = () => <Button backgroundColor="red">Delete Everything</Button>;

7. Vercel: The Deployment King with an Open Heart

The Reddit list includes Vercel, which is technically a company, but its influence on the open-source world is massive. They are the creators of Next.js and the sponsors of many open-source projects. In the context of “Companies that actually give back vs. ones that are scams” (Reddit, Oct 2025), Vercel often lands in the “give back” category. They’ve invested heavily in tools like SWC, Turbopack, and Svelte.

Vercel’s platform makes deploying open-source projects ridiculously easy. You link your GitHub repo, and boom—your site is live on a global edge network. They have pioneered the “Edge” movement, moving compute power closer to the user. For a developer, this means your site loads faster than a Wong Edan after three espressos. While the platform itself has paid tiers, their commitment to maintaining the open-source frameworks we use every day is what makes them a favorite among the Reddit elite.

8. Oh My Zsh: Making Your Terminal Look Less Boring

If you are still using the default Bash shell, I don’t even know why we’re talking. Oh My Zsh is the open-source framework for managing your Zsh configuration. It was listed as a “must-have” on Reddit, and I couldn’t agree more. It comes with thousands of helpful functions, helpers, and themes. It turns your terminal from a boring black box into a dashboard of power.

With Oh My Zsh, you get “plugins” for everything—Git, Docker, Node, Python. It shows you which branch you are on in Git, whether you have uncommitted changes, and even how long a command took to execute. It’s the ultimate productivity booster for people who spend 90% of their life in the terminal. Just be careful: you can spend more time customizing your terminal theme than actually writing code. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

9. Toolspace: The Curated Library for Every Need

Fast forward to the Reddit discussions from September 9, 2024. A new player entered the conversation: Toolspace. This is a library of curated open-source developer tools. The Reddit community highlighted it as a “must-visit” every few years to find the best tools for everyday use. With over 400+ projects listed, it solves the “Where do I find good open source software?” problem without having to navigate the toxic sludge of some internet forums.

Toolspace represents the community’s desire to move away from proprietary “scams” (like the PDF companies mentioned in the Oct 2025 Reddit context) and toward high-quality, community-maintained alternatives. It’s about discovery. Whether you need a simple tool written in Rust (which Reddit developers love for its speed and lack of a garbage collector) or a complex project management tool, Toolspace is where the “New Things” live.

10. The Sustainability Struggle: How Open Source Developers Eat

Finally, we have to address the “Is it possible to be a full-time open source developer?” debate found in the Oct 29, 2023, and June 3, 2022, Reddit threads. This is the dark side of the tools we love. If a tool is free, how does the developer pay their rent? The Reddit consensus is that it’s incredibly hard. Open source software cannot be “sold” in the traditional sense, so developers rely on:

  • Sponsorships: GitHub Sponsors, Open Collective, and Patreon.
  • Enterprise Tiers: “Open Core” models where the base is free, but features like SSO (Single Sign-On) and advanced security cost money (Snyk and Posthog do this).
  • Foundation Support: Large companies (like the ones that “actually give back”) donating to the cause.

The Reddit community is passionate about this. If we use these tools to build million-dollar products, the least we can do is throw a few dollars toward the maintainers so they don’t burn out and delete their repos in a fit of Wong Edan-style rage.

Wong Edan’s Verdict: The Final Code Review

Listen, you beautiful disasters of the digital age. The tools mentioned on Reddit—from the 2021 list to the 2025 future-musings—represent a specific philosophy. It’s a philosophy that says we don’t have to be slaves to proprietary software. We have choices. We have VS Code for our editing (or VSCodium if you have a brain), Prisma for our data, Posthog for our analytics, and Snyk to keep the hackers at bay.

But being a developer isn’t just about downloading tools. It’s about the ecosystem. It’s about checking Toolspace to see what’s new, contributing to the “Companies that give back,” and maybe, just maybe, stopping to think about how the person who wrote your favorite CLI tool is going to pay for their coffee this morning. Open source is a collective madness, and in this crazy world of tech, it’s the only thing that keeps us sane.

Now, go forth, install Oh My Zsh, fix your Storybook stories, and stop using those PDF “scam” companies. If you see me in the Reddit comments, don’t be a stranger. I’ll be the one arguing that VSCodium is the only real way to live. Stay crazy, stay coding, and for the love of all that is holy, back up your database before you run a Prisma migration! Edan!