6 Top-Rated Tools for IT Professionals

Information technology (IT) professionals oversee a multitude of operations, from application development to system administration and network security. All to stay at the forefront of the fast-paced IT landscape and keep the business running. To handle multiple IT operations with little to no downtime, an array of tools are at their disposal.

Finding the right set of tools from a vast market pool can be daunting, but fear not. Drawing insights from search patterns and reviews from thousands of IT experts, we identified the most-viewed categories on GetApp.com and narrowed them to top three:

• Application development software

• Bug tracking software

• Cybersecurity software 

This article highlights six top-rated tools for IT professionals in the above IT software categories—two products from each category listed alphabetically—based on verified user reviews. Read more about our methodology at the bottom of this article.

1. Polypane

Polypane is a web development tool that builds and tests web applications and sites using accessibility tests, app simulators, and debugging tools. The tool allows you to view applications in different screen sizes and emulated browsers simultaneously to catch issues during the development process. If your application targets specific devices or screen sizes, the tool lets you create custom device profiles and test the user experience for them. 

You also get collaboration tools in Polypane to share the sizes you test on, or flag issues with annotated screenshots that you can share in email, chat, or project management software.

Product features of interest*:

• Responsive designing: Test your application’s responsiveness using a multi-pane view that simulates different device sizes and orientations. The keyboard and mouse interactions are synced between all viewports to scroll, hover, click, and form input at once.

• Accessibility enhancement: Check accessibility issues, including simulating color blindness, adjusting color contrast, text-overflow detection, image loading, etc. The feature provides a target and actual score for every issue to identify their priority level.

• Site quality: Test your forms, menus, and other interactive elements across the application for all devices. This includes highlighting missing values, duplicates, too long or short content. The feature provides previews of social media sharing cards for Twitter, Facebook, Slack, LinkedIn, Google Search, and other platforms in light and dark modes. 

Customer support options: Testimonials, blogs, FAQs, chat, online form, and how-to guides

Starting price: $9 per month

Billing cycle: Monthly

Who should consider Polypane?

As a software developer, you can consider Polypane to ensure that your application looks and functions well on a variety of devices and screen sizes. For front-end web applications, you can see the impact of your code changes in real time. This is helpful when tweaking CSS styles, layout, content, images, and other interactive user elements. 

*Analysis accurate as of October 2023

2. Softr

Softr no-code web application development tool assists you in creating unique and highly interactive applications without the need for traditional HTML (Hypertext markup language includes codes defining the layout and content of web pages and online applications.) coding. Softr provides a range of templates for common applications, including eCommerce, CRM, application tracking, inventory management, vendor management, project tracking, and more. You can start with one of the selected templates based on your requirements or build your application from scratch using the drag-and-drop editor.

A distinctive feature of Softr is its artificial intelligence-enabled (AI) app builder. You can define the functionality and layout of the application using prompts, and the tool will give you the final output, which you can further modify for precision.

Product features of interest*:

• SEO optimization: Optimize the content and layout of the application to improve its search engine ranking and visibility. This includes enhancing the load time, screen size optimization, and meta title and description. 

• Logic configuration: Set rules, conditions, and algorithms using a visual flowchart to define how the application operates. The feature allows setting up parameters in the application to tailor for specific user requirements and preferences. 

• Data management: Define the data structure of the application by creating databases and tables, and defining relationships between data. The feature allows importing or collecting data by integrating Airtable and Google Sheets. 

Customer support options: Live chat, FAQs, community forum, support guides, email, and how-to videos

Starting price: $49 per month

Billing cycle: Annual

Who should consider Softr?

Softr’s no-code development reduces the time to build, test, and deploy applications. This is useful for meeting tight project deadlines and quickly delivering applications to clients. The tool’s SEO optimizer, data manager, drag-and-drop editor, and pre-built templates further make it accessible to both seasoned developers and those with limited coding experience.

*Analysis accurate as of October 2023

3. Good Day

Good Day is a project management solution that offers templates for bug tracking. You can create tasks with identified bug descriptions, severity, and the element or module affected. These tasks are assigned to team members responsible for fixing them based on their queue to take timely action. The software allows team members to leave comments on tasks, which can be used for discussing the issue, suggesting solutions, or sharing progress updates.

Product features of interest*:

• Kanban board tracker: Visualize the bug queue for team members and allow them to update progress status in real time by dragging and dropping items into columns dedicated to different project stages, including delays, underway, complete, etc. 

• Issue categorization: Assign one or more tags to tasks and issues. These tags represent the priority status, project, bug type, and any other relevant information. The feature allows setting up automated rules based on tags. For example, tasks tagged as ‘Bugs’ are automatically assigned to a team member, or team members are notified via email when a task is assigned as ‘Urgent’.

• Reporting dashboard: Build charts, graphs, and tables to display the distribution of issues across different team members. Track the progress of each task to identify delays and take on-time action, such as providing relevant support documents or re-routing to a different team member. 

Customer support options: Live chat, help desk, and knowledge base

Starting price: $4 per user per month

Billing cycle: Monthly

Who should consider Good Day?

Consider Good Day for its flexibility in customizing workflows to adapt to diverse bug-tracking requirements and inter-team collaboration. The tool’s tracking template, workflow automation, and reporting capabilities make it suitable for small IT teams collaborating with other non-technical teams within an organization to identify and eliminate application issues.

*Analysis accurate as of October 2023

4. Shake

Shake provides bug and crash reporting features for mobile applications to identify, track, and resolve issues reported by the users within the organization. They can create requests with details, including the bug type, description, and any relevant attachments (screen recordings or images). These requests are assigned a severity level (impact and urgency), based on which they are assigned to the available team member.

Shake software can automatically detect and report application crashes and errors while monitoring its performance. When detected, the software generates a detailed crash report, including device information, operating system, app version, and the reason for the crash. Crashes can also be categorized based on type and severity for on-time resolution.

Product features of interest*:

• Data retention: Backup the bug and crash data, including identified issues, resolutions, delays, etc., automatically for performance audits. The feature allows storing data from 1 month to 2 years or custom settings. 

• Activity history: Record the actions and events related to specific bugs or crashes in the chronological order of their occurrence to get a comprehensive view of the issue’s lifecycle. 

• Screen recording: Capture a 30-second recording of the app’s behavior leading to a bug or crash. This includes interactions, error messages, and any unusual behavior. The feature allows attaching the recording to the issue ticket. 

Customer support options: Live chat, blog, how-to documents, and help center

Starting price: $160 per month

Billing cycle: Monthly

Who should consider Shake?

Shake is worth considering when you are looking to rescue your IT team from time-consuming research, debugging, and communication bloat. With features like activity history, screen recording, and detailed issue reports, you can speed up issue identification in web and mobile applications and provide on-time and adequate support.

*Analysis accurate as of October 2023

5. FlashStart

FlashStart cybersecurity solution leverages artificial intelligence for advanced investigation of domain activity to generate blocklist and risk reports. You can leverage AI domain name system (DNS) filtering to block access to specific websites, such as gambling, adult content, or social media. The tool’s AI DNS can examine up to 200 thousand websites every day, support 24 languages, and recognize 90 categories of websites based on their content.

You can integrate FlashStart with Microsoft Active Directory, which is a list of all employees within the organization. This helps set different rules for individuals and groups to allow access to specific platforms. For example, you can allow marketing teams to use social media sites but block them for the front office team.

Product features of interest*:

• App blocker: Choose which apps people can use and when (specific hours during the day). The feature allows grouping people who can use certain apps. 

• Network usage reports: Monitor which websites are visited the most by the employees and which utilize the internet heavily. The feature allows generating usage reports and visualizing them using charts and graphs to highlight the key points. 

• Safe search: Filter search results to hide or block specific web pages and images. The feature allows configurIng the level of filtering, which can be strict or relaxed, based on the specific needs and concerns.

Customer support options: Chat, video courses, FAQs, guides, online tickets, call, and email

Starting price: Available upon request from the vendor

Billing cycle: N/A

Who should consider FlashStart? 

Consider FlashStart when looking to keep a watchful eye on how employees behave online. This includes the websites they visit, the kind of content they access, and their overall internet usage. You can filter and control the type of content employees can access and for how many hours or days. This safeguards the network against cyber threats and malicious content while improving time management and maximizing productivity.

*Analysis accurate as of October 2023

6. Perimeter 81

Perimeter 81 offers features for secure access management for you to deploy, manage, and scale a secure remote work environment. The tool follows a zero-trust security model to configure strict access controls for users to access business data and external websites. The tool verifies the identity and device security of every user, granting access on a least-privilege basis (The practice of providing individuals, processes, or systems with the minimum level of access or permissions required to perform their tasks and no more.).

Using Perimeter 81, you can monitor the traffic and network activity of all connected devices (desktop, laptop, smartphone, and tablet). This includes data packets and interaction between devices and servers within the network. You can utilize the tracked data to identify security events and incidents and alert teams for potential threats, including unusual user activity and breaches.

Product features of interest*:

• Activity monitoring dashboard: Oversee and manage the devices logged in to the organization’s network and the user activity on those devices, including logins. The dashboard also includes user profiles with information about user roles, permissions, and access history.

• Device check: Assess a device for its compliance with the predefined security requirements of the organization. This includes anti-virus, operating system, application used, and other security vulnerabilities. The feature includes sending users detailed reports of non-compliance issues and steps for eligibility.

• User management: Control user access to the organization’s network using two-factor authentication (SMS push, Google Authenticator, DUO), single sign-on (Okta, Azure, G-Suite), user configuration profiles, virtual private network (VPN), and sign-out with admin provided code. 

Customer support options: Call, email, chat, knowledge base, FAQs, how-to videos, glossary, and technical implementation guides

Starting price: $8 per user per month

Billing cycle: Annual

Who should consider Perimeter 81? 

Consider Perimeter 81 to build a secure remote employee network without worrying about non-compliance or cybersecurity threats such as phishing and malware. You can provide your employees with secure remote access to business data and ensure compliance with industry regulations, simplifying resource and user management.

*Analysis accurate as of October 2023

IT software costs vary based on the software type, core IT management features, user count, business type, integrations, and storage. Most IT tools offer a free trial (no-cost trial plans ranging from 14 to 30 days) or a forever free version with limited features. Besides these, typical pricing plans include:

• Entry-level plans: Offer basic IT features and are suitable for small teams or businesses.

• Mid-tier plans: Cover all basic and some advanced features and are ideal for teams that have outgrown basic IT solutions but don’t require the full range of functionality offered by enterprise-level tools.

• High-end plans: Include unlimited access to advanced features and are ideal for large enterprises with cross-functional teams.

Note: The table provides per-month pricing details for each category.

Before finalizing any IT management software, consider asking vendors these questions to select the best IT software for your business needs.

• What are the reporting and analytics capabilities of the software?

Reporting and analytics is a common functionality required in application development, bug tracking, and cybersecurity tools to monitor app development progress, issue resolution time, and network security checks. Besides, check the analytics dashboard for report generation using specific metrics and visualization tools such as charts and graphs to highlight the trends and patterns for audits.

• Does the software integrate with existing business tools?

Integration with other software tools in the business suit is another common selection criterion for IT tools. Despite their varying roles in assisting the IT teams, these tools commonly integrate with project management software, database management software, cloud software, and security software. However, there may be specific integration requirements, such as simulators for app development, code review and testing for bug tracking, and incident response for cybersecurity. You must identify such integration requirements for your business’s IT team during selection.

• Can the software accommodate the requirements of growing teams?

Scalability is essential for growing IT teams with a flexible work environment based on the project size, team size, resource allocations, complexity, and compliance. Choose a tool that can scale with your needs, accommodating the changing needs without any downtime or data processing errors.