Every two years or so I publish a list of the utilities I find indispensable. It is interesting to me which ones last year after year (e.g., Evernote) and which fall off the list—often because the functionality I want has been absorbed into Microsoft software I’m already using.
Here is 2026’s list…
Lists are always subjective, but it is helpful, I think, to exchange favorites now and again. Here’s my list in no particular order
- Visual Studio 2026 – goes without saying that this is the world’s best IDE for .NET developers. I use it 8-12 hours a day; it just keeps getting better, especially with CoPilot.
- Copilot – AI done right. Integrated with Visual Studio, this add-on is the most powerful and useful tool I have. It can get in the way a little, but when it does its stuff, watch out. Point it at a class and ask for documentation and/or unit tests and watch it go! More powerful is CoPilot Agents which will cook up substantial amounts of excellent code. But kids, don’t try this at home—it needs adult supervision.
- ExamDiffPro – there are lots of comparison/merge utilities. Get a good one.
- Tweaks by Mads Kristensen — small but very valuable addition to VS
- Evernote: I use it to log everything I do, including every fix for recurring issues. It is quick, powerful, and easy to use. Although it has limitations, overall, I’ve found it helpful and reliable and it now holds thousands of notes for me. It does have a new transcription ability, but I find it somewhat limited (no summary, etc.) for that I use…
- TalkNotes. This incredibly flexible iOS utility does just what it says: it takes notes and then will produce those notes in any number of ways, including custom reports. I use only a small portion of its potential, but they are critical to my workflow. (1) I use it to summarize meetings and tell me the action items, and (2) I dictate to it as I work so that I can ask, “What did I do 5 minutes ago that made this all break?” Note: this application type is exploding and there are many great competitors. One I have my eye on is Wave, which offers the ability to make inquiries about your meeting and which uses generative AI to provide meaningful answers.
- WhisprFlow – by far the best dictation software I’ve seen. Only caveat is that this is for relatively brief dictation – enough to send a message, not enough to replace TalkNotes or Wave. On the other hand, WhisprFlow is available on iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows and works well on all (I don’t have Android, so can’t swear to that).
- Roboform my password manager. I’d be lost without it. There are many, but this one is extremely straightforward and has been reliable for a very long time.
- BlueSky—the single best social media site for .NET programmers
- A note about Resharper. Many C# developers find it indispensable. Probably because I never became really proficient with it, and because VS has so many refactorings built in, I do not have it on my computer. But you may want to.
Note that nearly all of these are free. I do remember the days when a program like Lotus 123 cost something in the hundreds of dollars. It makes me laugh when I see people look at an app and say, “$4, naah, too expensive.” On the other hand, watch out for the AI apps, they can be over $100 / year.
I am not affiliated with any of these.
