Boost Your Development Efficiency: 15 Must‑Use Alibaba Backend Tools

From manual to automated, from repetitive to innovative, the evolution of technology is accompanied by the development of developer tools. Alibaba shares many of its internal tools as open‑source, cloud services, or plugins to help developers improve efficiency and write code more elegantly. This article presents a selection of Alibaba developer tools from a backend developer’s perspective, each described with 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.

Typical usage scenarios include:

Identifying which JAR a class was loaded from and troubleshooting class‑related exceptions.

Verifying whether recent code changes have been executed.

Debugging issues in production without adding logs or redeploying.

Diagnosing problems that cannot be reproduced offline.

Obtaining a global view of system runtime status.

Monitoring real‑time JVM metrics.

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

Source (open‑source): https://github.com/alibaba/arthas

2. IDE Plugin – Cloud Toolkit

Cloud Toolkit is an IDE plugin that helps developers develop, test, diagnose, and deploy applications more efficiently. It supports one‑click deployment to local or cloud machines and includes built‑in Arthas diagnostics, terminal commands, and SQL execution. Versions are available for IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse, PyCharm, and Maven.

Typical usage scenarios include:

Reducing repetitive packaging after each code change.

Switching frequently among Maven, Git, and various ops scripts.

Uploading files via SCP, logging into servers with XShell or SecureCRT, and managing deployment packages.

Transferring files to specific server directories without juggling multiple FTP/SCP tools.

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

Free download: https://www.aliyun.com/product/cloudtoolkit

3. Chaos Engineering Tool – ChaosBlade

ChaosBlade follows chaos‑engineering principles to inject a variety of fault scenarios (latency, exceptions, specific return values, parameter changes, repeated calls, try‑catch block failures) into distributed systems, improving fault tolerance and recoverability.

Typical usage scenarios include:

Assessing microservice fault‑tolerance.

Validating container orchestration configurations.

Testing PaaS‑level robustness.

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

Source (open‑source): https://github.com/chaosblade-io/chaosblade/wiki/新手指南

4. Java Code Convention Scanning Plugin

This plugin detects non‑standard code patterns in Java projects and provides suggestions. It is implemented in Kotlin and works as an IDE extension.

Tutorials: IDEA – https://github.com/alibaba/p3c/wiki/IDEA插件; Eclipse – https://github.com/alibaba/p3c/wiki/Eclipse

Source (open‑source): https://github.com/alibaba/p3c

5. Application Real‑Time Monitoring – ARMS

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

Typical usage scenarios include:

Handling a flood of alerts (e.g., 37 alarms at 10 pm) with no clear action plan.

Responding to customer complaints that arise before the issue is identified.

Ensuring user experience despite high server costs.

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

Commercial product: https://www.aliyun.com/product/arms

6. Static Site Generator – Docsite

Docsite provides a unified solution for websites, documentation, blogs, and communities. It supports React, static rendering, PC and mobile, internationalization, SEO, Markdown, global search, theme customization, and page customization.

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

Source (open‑source): https://github.com/txd-team/docsite

7. Android Instant‑Compile Tool – Freeline

Freeline leverages cache files to compile and deploy code changes to devices within seconds, dramatically reducing the time spent on full recompilation and installation. The quickest way to use it is via the Android Studio plugin.

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

Source (open‑source): https://github.com/alibaba/freeline

8. Performance Testing Tool – PTS

PTS simulates massive user traffic for business scenarios, allowing on‑demand testing without the overhead of building and maintaining test environments. It supports conversion of JMeter scripts and native JMeter engine execution.

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

Commercial product: https://www.aliyun.com/product/pts

9. Cloud Development Tool – KT

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

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

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

10. Architecture Visualization – AHAS

AHAS provides architecture visualization for container environments such as Kubernetes, along with fault‑injection high‑availability testing, one‑click flow control, and degradation capabilities, helping to quickly and cost‑effectively improve application availability.

Typical usage scenarios include:

Visualizing resource composition and interactions during service‑oriented refactoring.

Introducing realistic fault scenarios and rehearsal models.

Obtaining low‑threshold flow‑control and degradation features.

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

Free product: https://www.aliyun.com/product/ahas

11. Data Processing Tool – EasyExcel

EasyExcel is a Java framework for parsing and generating Excel files. It rewrites POI’s handling of Excel 2007+ files, reducing memory consumption from ~100 MB to kilobytes, and avoids out‑of‑memory errors even with large spreadsheets. It also supports the older 2003 format via POI’s SAX mode.

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

Source (open‑source): https://github.com/alibaba/easyexcel

12. iOS JSON Library – HandyJSON

HandyJSON is a Swift library for JSON serialization/deserialization. Unlike many Swift JSON libraries, it works with pure Swift classes, requires no NSObject inheritance, and does not need a mapping function; simply conform a model to the HandyJSON protocol and the library maps JSON keys to properties automatically.

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

Source (open‑source): https://github.com/alibaba/HandyJSON

13. Serverless Platform – EDAS Serverless

EDAS Serverless is a Kubernetes‑based serverless platform for applications and microservices. Users can deploy containerized applications via images, WAR, or JAR packages without managing clusters, with native support for Spring Cloud, Dubbo, and other mainstream frameworks.

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

Free during public testing: 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 features.

Tutorial: https://github.com/alibaba/druid/wiki/常见问题

Source (open‑source): http://central.maven.org/maven2/com/alibaba/druid/

15. Java Runtime – Dragonwell

Alibaba Dragonwell is an open‑source distribution of Alibaba’s customized OpenJDK (AJDK), optimized for large‑scale e‑commerce, finance, and logistics workloads. It is compatible with Java SE and currently supports Linux/x86_64 platforms.

Tutorial: https://github.com/alibaba/dragonwell8/wiki/阿里巴巴Dragonwell8用户指南

Source (open‑source): https://github.com/alibaba/dragonwell8