Top 10 Alibaba Developer Tools to Boost Your Backend Efficiency

We have selected some of the most popular developer tools from Alibaba's ecosystem, filtering those with universal applicability for external developers, aiming to help improve development efficiency.

1. Java Project Scaffold – Java Initializr

Official site: https://start.aliyun.com/bootstrap.html

Overview: Released in 2020 by Alibaba's middleware team, this customized Java project scaffold enables rapid application setup.

The tool generates project frameworks to reduce setup cost and offers a simple, fast configuration experience. It supports all features of the official Spring scaffold, adds rich typical configurations and usage examples, provides multiple standard architecture choices, and runs in a browser‑based environment for low‑friction trial.

2. Java Online Diagnostic Tool – Arthas

Official site: https://arthas.aliyun.com/en-us/index.html

Overview: 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 why class‑related exceptions occur.

Understanding why modified code is not executed, possibly due to commit or branch issues.

Debugging problems in production without adding logs and redeploying.

Investigating data‑processing issues that only appear in the live environment.

Obtaining a global view of system runtime status.

Monitoring real‑time JVM performance.

Arthas supports JDK 6+, runs on Linux/Mac/Windows, uses an interactive command‑line mode, and offers rich tab‑completion to simplify problem location and diagnosis.

3. Java Toolset – Dragonwell

Official site: https://www.aliyun.com/product/dragonwell

Overview: Alibaba Dragonwell is a free, production‑ready OpenJDK distribution with long‑term support, performance enhancements, and security fixes. It is widely used across Alibaba’s e‑commerce, finance, logistics, and other domains, serving as the foundation for all Java business within the Alibaba ecosystem.

Dragonwell is fully compatible with the Java SE standard and can be used on Linux, Windows, and macOS for developing Java applications.

Features:

Safety & Stability: Close collaboration with the OpenJDK community ensures timely upstream updates and selective back‑porting of important features, already deployed at large scale within Alibaba.

Standard Compatibility: Fully adheres to Java SE specifications and passes JCK compatibility tests.

Outstanding Performance: As the cornerstone of Alibaba’s Java applications, Dragonwell incorporates extensive real‑world practice and innovations.

4. Java Code Convention Scan Plugin

Official site: https://github.com/alibaba/p3c

Overview: Based on the Alibaba Java Development Manual, this IDE plugin (for IDEA and Eclipse) automatically scans code, categorizes violations as Blocker, Critical, or Major, and provides real‑time inspection. It also supports batch one‑click fixes for historical code, improving code quality and team development efficiency.

5. Application Real‑Time Monitoring – ARMS

Official site: https://www.aliyun.com/product/arms

Overview: ARMS (Application Real‑Time Monitoring Service) is an APM product covering front‑end, application, and Prometheus monitoring. It supports browsers, mini‑programs, mobile apps, distributed services, and container environments, offering full‑stack performance monitoring and end‑to‑end tracing.

Typical usage scenarios:

Receiving dozens of alerts at 10 PM with no clear action plan.

Facing customer complaints before the issue is identified.

Spending large sums on servers without guaranteeing user experience.

6. Performance Testing Tool – PTS

Official site: https://www.aliyun.com/product/pts

Overview: PTS (Performance Testing Service) is a cloud‑native testing tool for users of any technical background. It offers performance testing, API debugging, and monitoring with an internet‑style UI, allowing easy simulation of massive concurrent user traffic and seamless integration with monitoring and flow‑control services.

Typical usage scenarios:

Simulating realistic high‑concurrency traffic before a major promotion.

Evaluating product behavior during traffic spikes after a version release.

Ensuring product delivery quality under load.

7. Architecture Visualization Tool – AHAS

Official site: https://www.aliyun.com/product/ahas

Overview: Application High Availability Service (AHAS) focuses on improving application and business high availability. It provides three core capabilities: architecture discovery, fault‑injection high‑availability testing, and flow‑control degradation protection, helping boost stability and resilience across marketing and core business scenarios.

Typical usage scenarios:

During service‑mesh migration, visualizing resource composition and interactions.

Introducing realistic fault scenarios and rehearsal models.

Obtaining low‑threshold flow‑control and degradation features.

8. Data Processing Tool – EasyExcel

Official site: https://github.com/alibaba/easyexcel

Overview: EasyExcel rewrites POI’s handling of Excel 2007+ files, dramatically reducing memory consumption (e.g., a 3 MB file that requires ~100 MB with POI SAX now uses only a few megabytes) and preventing out‑of‑memory errors even for very large files, while providing a simple model‑conversion API.

9. iOS‑Side Tool – HandyJSON

Official site: https://github.com/alibaba/HandyJSON

Overview: HandyJSON is a Swift library for JSON serialization/deserialization that works with pure Swift classes without requiring NSObject inheritance or explicit mapping functions. It automatically maps JSON keys to model property names and supports most Swift types, custom parsing rules, and type adaptation.

Features:

Serialize models to JSON and deserialize JSON to models.

Use model property names as JSON keys without extra configuration.

Support for most Swift types.

Compatible with class and struct model definitions.

Customizable parsing logic.

Automatic type conversion (e.g., Int in JSON to String property).

10. Database Component – Druid

Official site: https://github.com/alibaba/druid

Overview: Druid is a JDBC component library that includes a connection pool, SQL parser, and other utilities. It is widely used across many business and technical products, having endured the most demanding online scenarios, making it a trustworthy technology solution.