A Curated List of Alibaba Open‑Source Developer Tools for Backend Engineers

From manual to automation, the evolution of technology is accompanied by the development of developer tools.

Alibaba opens its technical accumulation through open‑source, cloud services, and tools; this article selects several Alibaba developer tools to help developers improve efficiency and write code more elegantly.

Because developers work in many technical fields, the author, from a backend developer’s perspective, lists tools that may be useful, introducing each tool by name, usage scenarios, tutorial, and acquisition method.

1. Java Online Diagnostic Tool – Arthas

Arthas is an open‑source Java online diagnostic tool released by Alibaba in September 2018. It supports JDK 6+, Linux/Mac/Windows, and provides a command‑line interactive mode with tab auto‑completion to locate and diagnose problems.

Typical usage scenarios include identifying which JAR a class was loaded from, debugging code that does not execute, diagnosing issues without redeploying, monitoring JVM runtime status, etc.

Tutorial: Basic tutorial: https://alibaba.github.io/arthas/arthas-tutorials?language=cn&id=arthas-basics; Advanced tutorial: https://alibaba.github.io/arthas/arthas-tutorials?language=cn&id=arthas-advanced

Acquisition: Free, open‑source at https://github.com/alibaba/arthas

Developer group: DingTalk group 21965291

2. IDE Plugin – Cloud Toolkit

Cloud Toolkit is an IDE plugin that helps developers develop, test, diagnose, and deploy applications more efficiently. It enables one‑click deployment of local applications to any machine (local or cloud) and includes built‑in Arthas diagnostics, terminal commands, and SQL support.

Usage scenarios include reducing repetitive packaging, avoiding frequent context switches between Maven, Git, and other scripts, simplifying file uploads to servers, and streamlining deployment processes.

Tutorials: IntelliJ IDEA: https://help.aliyun.com/document_detail/98762.html; Eclipse: https://help.aliyun.com/document_detail/29970.html; PyCharm: https://help.aliyun.com/document_detail/112740.html; Maven: https://help.aliyun.com/document_detail/108682.html

Acquisition: Free, available at https://www.aliyun.com/product/cloudtoolkit

Developer group: DingTalk group 23341694

3. Chaos Engineering Tool – ChaosBlade

ChaosBlade follows chaos engineering principles and provides a rich set of fault injection scenarios to improve the fault tolerance and recoverability of distributed systems.

Typical scenarios address measuring microservice fault tolerance, validating container orchestration configurations, and testing PaaS robustness.

Tutorial: https://github.com/chaosblade-io/chaosblade/wiki/新手指南

Acquisition: Free, open‑source at https://github.com/chaosblade-io/chaosblade

Developer group: DingTalk group 23177705

4. Java Code Convention Scanning Plugin

This plugin detects non‑standard code patterns in Java projects and provides suggestions. It is implemented in Kotlin.

Tutorials: IDEA plugin documentation: https://github.com/alibaba/p3c/wiki/IDEA 插件使用文档; Eclipse plugin documentation: https://github.com/alibaba/p3c/wiki/Eclipse 插件使用文档

Acquisition: Free, open‑source at https://github.com/alibaba/p3c

5. Application Real‑Time Monitoring – ARMS

ARMS is an APM‑style monitoring tool offering front‑end, application, and custom monitoring options, enabling rapid construction of real‑time performance and business monitoring capabilities.

Typical scenarios include handling large numbers of alerts, responding to customer complaints quickly, and ensuring user experience despite high server costs.

Tutorials: Front‑end monitoring: https://help.aliyun.com/document_detail/106086.html; Application monitoring: https://help.aliyun.com/document_detail/63796.html; Custom monitoring: https://help.aliyun.com/document_detail/47474.html

Acquisition: Paid, product page https://www.aliyun.com/product/arms

Developer group: DingTalk group 21914303

6. Static Site Generator – Docsite

Docsite is a static open‑source solution that integrates website, documentation, blog, and community features. It supports React, static rendering, PC and mobile, internationalization, SEO, Markdown, global search, and customizable themes.

Tutorial: https://docsite.js.org/zh-cn/docs/installation.html

Acquisition: Free, project at https://github.com/txd-team/docsite

7. Android Rapid Compilation – Freeline

Freeline leverages cache files to compile code changes within seconds and deploy them to devices, dramatically reducing the time spent on full recompilation and installation during Android development.

Tutorial: https://github.com/alibaba/freeline/blob/master/README-zh.md

Acquisition: Free, project at https://github.com/alibaba/freeline

8. Performance Testing Service – PTS

PTS simulates massive user traffic for business scenarios, supports on‑demand task launching, eliminates setup and maintenance costs, and can convert JMeter scripts for load testing.

Tutorial: https://help.aliyun.com/document_detail/70290.html

Acquisition: Paid, product page https://www.aliyun.com/product/pts

9. Kubernetes Development Tool – KT

KT simplifies integration testing under Kubernetes, improving development efficiency for Kubernetes‑based projects.

Tutorial: https://yq.aliyun.com/articles/690519

Acquisition: Free, download https://yq.aliyun.com/download/3393

10. Architecture Visualization – AHAS

AHAS provides architecture visualization for container environments like K8s, along with fault‑injection high‑availability testing and one‑click flow‑control degradation features.

Tutorial: https://help.aliyun.com/document_detail/90323.html

Acquisition: Free, product page https://www.aliyun.com/product/ahas

11. Excel Processing – EasyExcel

EasyExcel is a Java framework for parsing and generating Excel files, dramatically reducing memory consumption compared to POI (from ~100 MB to kilobytes) and preventing out‑of‑memory errors.

Tutorial: https://github.com/alibaba/easyexcel/blob/master/quickstart.md

Acquisition: Open‑source at https://github.com/alibaba/easyexcel

12. iOS JSON Library – HandyJSON

HandyJSON is a Swift library for JSON serialization/deserialization that works with pure Swift classes without requiring NSObject inheritance or KVC.

Tutorial: https://github.com/alibaba/HandyJSON/blob/master/README_cn.md

Acquisition: Open‑source at https://github.com/alibaba/HandyJSON

13. Serverless Platform – EDAS Serverless

EDAS Serverless is a Kubernetes‑based serverless platform for applications and micro‑services, allowing users to deploy containers from images, WAR, or JAR packages without managing clusters.

Tutorial: https://help.aliyun.com/document_detail/102048.html

Acquisition: Free during public beta, details at https://help.aliyun.com/document_detail/97792.html

14. Database Connection Pool – Druid

Druid is a Java database connection pool offering powerful monitoring and extensibility.

Tutorial: https://github.com/alibaba/druid/wiki/%E5%B8%B8%E8%A7%81%E9%97%AE%E9%A2%98

Acquisition: Open‑source at http://central.maven.org/maven2/com/alibaba/druid/

15. Java Runtime – Dragonwell

Alibaba Dragonwell is an open‑source custom OpenJDK distribution optimized for Alibaba’s massive e‑commerce, finance, and logistics workloads, compatible with Java SE and supporting Linux/x86_64.

Tutorial: https://github.com/alibaba/dragonwell8/wiki/%E9%98%BF%E9%87%8C%E5%B7%B4%E5%B7%B4Dragonwell8%E7%94%A8%E6%88%B7%E6%8C%87%E5%8D%97

Acquisition: Open‑source at https://github.com/alibaba/dragonwell8

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