My Top Dev Tools for Cloud Development in 2025!
In the last episode of The Cloud Handbook, we talked about DynamoDB streams, their use cases, and patterns. This week I want to share all the tools I use for my cloud development. I would also love to know what are your favorite stacks in the comment.
I do a lot of cloud development at work. As we know cloud development is complicated. There are lots of moving things you need to know while building cloud-native apps.
Choosing the right tools will make your life easier. Here are my top tools to build on AWS.
AWS SAM
AWS Serverless Application Model or SAM is an open-source serverless framework that helps you build serverless applications on AWS. It lets you define your resources in a template and allows you to develop, provision, and manage serverless apps on AWS using CLI.
It consists of two parts:
AWS SAM Template: gives you the short-hand syntax to write infrastructure in code. It is an extension of CloudFormation.
AWS SAM CLI: It’s a developer tool that helps you develop, test, debug, and deploy your serverless apps on AWS.
I use SAM heavily for building, testing, and debugging serverless apps on AWS.
I wrote a short getting started guide a few years ago, you can read it here: Getting Started with AWS SAM.
Serverless Framework
Although I am heavily dependent on AWS SAM for most of my projects, I sometimes use this popular Serverless Framework. It is more mature and comes with lots of features and flexibility over AWS SAM.
AWS Toolkit for VSCode
This extension from AWS is very useful to visualize things and quickly test, debug, and deploy within VSCode.
You can also use Application Composer to create serverless apps visual way.
Redshift - view database objects and run SQL queries in a notebook interface
CloudFormation - view CloudFormation stacks
API Gateway - invoke an API gateway endpoint
S3 - view and create S3 folders and buckets, download and upload files, and edit supported files
You can do so much within VSCode without having to log in to AWS Console using this extension.
Amazon Q
Amazon Q is a generative AI assistant for software development.
Some features include:
Inline code suggestion
Chat: Generate code, explain code, and get answers to questions about software development.
Security Scan
Agent for Software development and code transformation
Amazon Q in CLI
LazyVim
I use NeoVim as a code editor. LazyVim comes with a bunch of useful plugins.
I wrote this article a few years back for anyone who is getting started with Vim: Mastering the Vim language
Postman
Postman is a great tool to test and debug your APIs. The latest features are very useful. You can use it on the web, vscode extension, or native apps for your operating system.
Draw.io
I love learning everything in the visual way. It works great for me. I always try to visualize things and keep it simple. Draw.io is the exact tool that helps me to achieve it.
Excalidraw
I use Excalidraw for my blog diagrams. The simplicity of this app is really good.
Other tools I use:
Terraform (still learning)
Docker
Git/GitHub
Notion
Tech I am willing to use in the future:
SST
Ampt
AWS CDK
Pulumi
Cloud Resources I consume on a daily basis from
📚 Let’s start with the books I read.
I have always been of big fan of reading books. Here are the books I recommend.
Serverless Architecture on AWS
🎤 Best event talks I have watched.
Best practices for serverless developers
Architecting your serverless applications for hyperscale
Advanced data modeling with Amazon DynamoDB
Building Distributed Applications with Event-Driven Architecture
Or look out for great talks at the AWS Event Channel and GOTO Conference.
👨🏽🎓 Courses I have taken
Solutions Architect - Knowledge Badge Readiness Path
AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate
AWS Certified Solution Architect Professional
AWS Certified Developer Associate
And some few on CloudAcademy.
🎙️ Podcasts I listen to
Serverless Chat — Everything Cloud, serverless, news and updates around it.
AWS FM — AWS, Community, and Fun.
Software Huddle — Software engineering, databases, cloud, and more.
Ready, Set, Cloud — Serverless, cloud, news, updates, and more.
▶ YouTube Channel I follow for tutorials and updates
Tech World with Nana— Mostly talks about DevOps, Cloud, and K8s.
Be a Better Dev — AWS tutorials, best practices,
FooBar Serverless — Serverless queen. Talks mostly about everything AWS serverless.
Yan Cui TheBurningMonk — Podcasts, interviews, anything aws serverless.
Tech with Lucy — Cloud career guide, journeys, share her experiences.
🦹🏻 Community Heroes I follow
Andrew Brown: Andrew Brown is an AWS Hero and makes courses around cloud technology. He also publishes free AWS certification courses on the FreeCodecamp YouTube channel.
Yan Cui—Independent consultant, Yan is a Serverless Hero and advocate in the serverless community. He is the author of multiple books, workshops, and speakers.
Sandro Volpicella—Author of AWS Fundamentals book. He writes, posts, and blogs about AWS technologies regularly on various social platforms.
Alex Debrie—Independent consultant, DynamoDB expert, AWS Serverless Hero, speaker, and podcast host. Talks everything around data, serverless, and AWS.
Tobias Schmidt—I follow him for everything about AWS and beautiful infographics
Lucy Wang — Ex-AWS Solution architect sharing her experiences through youtube videos, and newsletters.
Jeremy Daly — Serverless Hero, blogger, and founder of Ampt.
Jones Zachariah Noel— Advocates for Freshwork, talks about AWS, and writes The Serverless Terminal newsletter.
Lee James Gilmore — Serverless Advocate, Blogger, Speaker, Architect.
Marcia Villalba — Advocate for AWS, makes videos on her YouTube channel about everything about AWS.
…and others few.
Finally…
Let me know your tools stack in the comment.
See you in the next one!