Best Free Web Development Tools - Part 1

If you are just getting started in the exciting field of web design and development, you may have noticed a couple of things. One, it is awesome and Two, software is expensive.  Unless of course you have discovered some of the Open Source alternatives, here is a round up of the ones which I believe to be the best "in no particular order" ..

The Gimp

WEBSITE

The GIMP is an alternative to Adobe's Photoshop and it rocks.  Its crazy name is an acronym for "GNU Image Manipulation Program".  It may take some time getting used to The GIMP, especially if you have already learned to use Photoshop.  But there are only a handful of things of things it cannot do and that list grows shorter everyday.

From the gimp.org website

GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a
freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition andimage authoring. It works on
many operating systems, in many languages.

Compatibility (Windows, Linux, Mac OSX)

Inkscape

WEBSITE

Inkscape is an alternative to Adobe's Illustrator.  If you have a logo to design or want to publish something for print media, you need a vector graphics editor.  Inkscape has all of the features you need to get you started.

From the inkscape.org website

An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to
Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable
Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha
blending, etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined
interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path
operations, trace bitmaps and much more. We also aim to maintain a
thriving user and developer community by using open, community-oriented
development.

Compatibility (Windows, Linux, Mac OSX)

Aptana Studio

WEBSITE

Aptana is a great tool for developing web applications.  It supports PHP, Ruby on Rails, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript and many others.  It has a built in FTP client and comes bundled with all of the popular AJAX libraries "eg. jQuery, Prototype, YUI".

From the aptana.com website

The Aptana Studio Community Edition provides a full-featured web
development environment. The Community Edition represents the core
pieces of the Aptana frameworks for editing, debugging,
synchronization, and project management.

Compatibility (Windows, Linux, Mac OSX)

KompoZer

WEBSITE

Kompozer is a WYSIWYG website development tool which allows you to edit a website without having to know what the code side looks like.  Great for those of you who don't know HTML and CSS yet.

From the kompozer.net website

KompoZer is a complete web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing.

KompoZer is designed to be extremely easy to use, making it ideal for non-technical computer users
who want to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know HTML or web coding.

Also available as a Portable App

Compatibility (Windows, Linux, Mac OSX)