Top 12 'Bug-Squashing' Chrome Extensions to buy for Developers to Ship Cleaner Code in 2025
Ah, the developer's life. A beautiful cycle of caffeine, code, and the occasional "why isn't this working?!" monologue at 2 AM. We’ve all been there, hunting for a phantom bug that turns out to be a misplaced semicolon or a sneaky caching issue. In the quest to ship robust, high-quality applications, our integrated development environment (IDE) gets most of the glory, but there's a secret weapon hiding in plain sight: your web browser.
Specifically, the Google Chrome browser, armed with a powerful ecosystem of extensions. These aren't just fancy add-ons; they are tactical tools that integrate directly into your workflow, helping you inspect, debug, and optimize your code in real-time. Think of them as your personal "bug-squashing" squad, working tirelessly to catch issues before they ever make it to production. Here on the Goh Ling Yong blog, we're all about working smarter, not just harder, and leveraging the right tools is a cornerstone of that philosophy.
So, as we look ahead to 2025, what should be in your developer toolkit? We’ve curated a list of the top 12 essential Chrome extensions that will help you write cleaner code, debug faster, and ultimately, become a more efficient and effective developer. Let's dive in!
1. React Developer Tools
React Developer Tools is the official, non-negotiable extension for any developer working with the React library. Maintained by the React team itself, it provides an unparalleled level of insight into your component-based architecture. It adds two new tabs to your Chrome DevTools: "Components" and "Profiler." The Components tab lets you inspect the entire component hierarchy, view and edit their current props and state, and even find the component responsible for rendering a specific part of the UI.
This extension transforms debugging from guesswork into a precise science. Instead of littering your code with console.log() statements to track state changes, you can simply watch them update live in the Components tab. The Profiler is your go-to for diagnosing performance issues, allowing you to record user interactions and see exactly which components are re-rendering too often, helping you optimize your application for a snappier user experience.
- Pro Tip: Enable the "Highlight updates when components render" setting in the extension's options. This will visually flash a colored border around any component that re-renders on the page. It’s an incredibly intuitive way to spot performance bottlenecks caused by unnecessary updates.
2. Vue.js devtools
What the React DevTools are for React, the Vue.js devtools are for the Vue.js ecosystem. If you're building with Vue, this extension is your best friend. It seamlessly integrates into your browser, providing a powerful suite of debugging tools specifically tailored for Vue's reactive nature. You can explore your component tree, inspect component data, props, and computed properties in real-time, and see a live-updating view of your application's state.
One of its most celebrated features is its integration with Vuex, Vue's official state management library. The devtools offer a "time-travel debugging" capability, allowing you to step backward and forward through mutations to see exactly how your application's state evolved over time. This is invaluable for tracking down complex state-related bugs that are otherwise difficult to reproduce. It also provides tools for tracking events, routing, and performance, making it a complete debugging powerhouse.
- Pro Tip: Use the "Inspect DOM" icon within the Vue devtools to click on an element on your page and be taken directly to the Vue component that rendered it. This saves a ton of time hunting through your component tree.
3. VisBug
Ever wished you could just click and drag elements on a live webpage to fix a layout issue? VisBug makes that a reality. Billed as a "Firebug for designers," this open-source extension brings an incredible set of visual editing and inspection tools directly to your browser. It overlays a toolbar on any webpage, allowing you to move elements, edit text, change colors, measure distances, and inspect styles with point-and-click simplicity.
For front-end developers, this is a game-changer for "pixel-perfect" implementation. Instead of the slow cycle of tweaking a CSS value in your editor, saving, and refreshing the browser, you can visually manipulate the layout until it's perfect, and then see the exact CSS changes you need to make. It's fantastic for quick prototypes, debugging tricky alignment issues, or just understanding how a complex layout is constructed without digging through lines of CSS.
- Example: You're struggling with a flexbox or grid alignment issue. With VisBug, you can activate its guides to see all the layout boundaries and gaps, then simply drag an element into the correct position to understand the styling required.
4. Lighthouse
While Lighthouse is built directly into Chrome DevTools, the extension offers a convenient way to run audits with a single click. Lighthouse is Google's automated tool for improving the quality of web pages. It runs a comprehensive audit against your site, grading it on five key categories: Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, SEO, and Progressive Web App (PWA) capabilities.
The real value of Lighthouse isn't just the score; it's the actionable report it generates. If your performance score is low, it will tell you exactly why—maybe you have render-blocking resources or oversized images. If you have accessibility issues, it will pinpoint the elements with insufficient color contrast or missing ARIA labels. Using Lighthouse regularly during development helps you build a culture of quality, catching and fixing issues long before they impact your users or your search engine ranking.
- Pro Tip: Always run Lighthouse in an incognito window. This prevents other Chrome extensions from interfering with the audit and ensures you get the most accurate performance metrics possible.
5. Axe DevTools - Web Accessibility Testing
In 2025, web accessibility (a11y) is not a feature; it's a fundamental requirement. Axe DevTools is the gold standard for accessibility testing. Developed by Deque Systems, it's a powerful engine that runs in your browser and analyzes your page against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). It catches a significant percentage of common accessibility violations automatically.
As developers, we might not always spot a missing alt tag or a <div> being used as a button, but these are critical bugs for users who rely on screen readers. Axe finds these issues, highlights them directly in the DevTools, and provides clear explanations and links to remediation advice. Integrating Axe into your regular development process, much like I advise mentees on the Goh Ling Yong blog, ensures you're building an inclusive web for everyone.
- Example: You run an Axe scan and it flags a form input for not having a corresponding
<label>. This is an easy fix that makes a world of difference for assistive technology users. Axe doesn't just find the bug; it teaches you how to write more accessible code for the future.
6. Redux DevTools
For applications with complex state management, particularly in the React world, Redux DevTools is an absolute lifesaver. It provides a debugging platform for Redux applications that is so powerful it can feel like magic. The extension visualizes the flow of actions and the resulting state changes in your application, making it easy to understand how your app behaves over time.
Like the Vue devtools, Redux DevTools features powerful time-travel debugging. You can rewind and "replay" actions to trace bugs to their source. You can even "hot reload" state or cancel actions in real-time to test different scenarios without ever refreshing the page. For any non-trivial application using Redux (or other compatible state management libraries like NgRx for Angular), this tool moves from "nice to have" to "cannot live without."
- Pro Tip: Use the "Skip" action feature to temporarily disable a specific action in a sequence. This is incredibly useful for isolating a problematic action when debugging a long chain of events.
7. JSON Viewer Pro
As developers, we spend a lot of time looking at JSON, whether it's from an API response or a configuration file. By default, Chrome displays raw JSON as a wall of unformatted text, which is nearly impossible to read. JSON Viewer Pro is a lightweight and highly effective extension that solves this problem beautifully. It automatically formats JSON into a clean, color-coded, and collapsible tree structure.
This simple utility drastically improves the experience of working with APIs. You can easily navigate complex nested objects, copy paths to specific keys, and even switch between a raw and a parsed view. It includes themes, syntax highlighting, and the ability to handle large JSON files without freezing your browser. It’s a small tool that removes a massive daily frustration.
- Pro Tip: Use the built-in search functionality to quickly find keys or values within a large JSON response. The search highlights all matches, saving you from manually scanning through hundreds of lines.
8. Wappalyzer - Technology profiler
While not a direct "bug-squashing" tool, Wappalyzer is an indispensable intelligence-gathering extension. It acts as a technology profiler, instantly identifying the web technologies used on any website you visit. With a single click, you can see the site's CMS, JavaScript frameworks, analytics tools, web server, and more.
This is incredibly useful in several scenarios. When you're brought onto a new project, you can get a quick overview of the tech stack without digging through the codebase. When debugging a competitor's site or a third-party integration, Wappalyzer tells you what you're up against. It provides context, which is the first and most critical step in any debugging process.
- Example: You're trying to debug a weird rendering issue on a client's WordPress site. Wappalyzer immediately tells you which page builder plugin and caching plugin they're using, pointing you directly to the likely source of the conflict.
9. Clear Cache
This is the simplest extension on the list, but it might just save you the most time and sanity. Clear Cache does exactly what its name implies: it clears your browser cache with a single click from the toolbar. Every developer has experienced the pain of spending an hour debugging an issue only to realize that the browser was serving an old, cached version of a CSS or JavaScript file.
Instead of navigating through Chrome's settings menus every time, this extension reduces the process to a fraction of a second. You can configure what data you want to clear (cache, cookies, local storage, etc.) and it streamlines one of the most common and repetitive tasks in web development.
- Pro Tip: Set up a custom keyboard shortcut for the extension (e.g.,
Cmd+Shift+RorCtrl+Shift+R) in Chrome's extension settings (chrome://extensions/shortcuts). This allows you to nuke the cache without even touching your mouse.
10. CSS Peeper
CSS Peeper is a fantastic tool for front-end developers who need to quickly inspect and extract styles from a webpage. While Chrome DevTools is powerful, it can be cumbersome for just grabbing a color palette or a list of assets. CSS Peeper presents this information in a beautifully organized and accessible panel.
When you activate it on a page, it immediately shows you a comprehensive list of all the colors used in the site's CSS, neatly organized into a palette. You can also easily view and download all the images and other assets embedded on the page. Clicking on any element will give you a clean, easy-to-read breakdown of its CSS properties, including font sizes, margins, and dimensions. It's the perfect bridge between design inspection and code implementation.
- Example: A designer gives you a mockup, and you need to implement a button style. Instead of manually using a color picker and measuring padding, you can find a similar button on an existing site, use CSS Peeper to inspect it, and get all the relevant CSS properties in a single, copy-paste-friendly block.
11. Web Vitals
Performance is user experience. In 2025, with Google's Core Web Vitals (CWV) being a critical factor for both UX and SEO, you need to be constantly aware of them. The Web Vitals extension does just that, providing real-time feedback on LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), FID (First Input Delay), and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) for any page you visit.
The extension displays a simple ambient badge (green, yellow, or red) in your toolbar, giving you an at-a-glance health check of the page you're on. Clicking it provides a more detailed breakdown of the metrics. This is essential during development, as it allows you to see the immediate performance impact of your code changes. Did that new hero image you just added tank your LCP score? This extension will tell you instantly.
- Pro Tip: Use the extension's "HUD overlay" feature in the options. This will display the Core Web Vitals scores in a small, persistent overlay at the corner of your screen, giving you constant visibility as you interact with your application.
12. Sizzy
Responsive design is notoriously difficult to test thoroughly. Manually resizing your browser window is imprecise, and while Chrome's built-in device mode is good, it only shows you one device at a time. Enter Sizzy, the ultimate responsive design tool. While this is a paid tool (with a free trial), its productivity boost is well worth the investment.
Sizzy is a browser specifically designed for developers, but its Chrome extension brings some of its magic to your regular workflow. The full application lets you view a site on multiple, fully interactive device screens at once. You can see how your layout looks on an iPhone, a Google Pixel, and an iPad simultaneously. You scroll one, and they all scroll together. This allows you to catch responsive bugs across a range of viewports in a fraction of the time it would take to test them individually.
- Example: You push a CSS change that fixes a layout issue on a 420px wide screen, but you don't realize it completely breaks the layout at 390px. With Sizzy, you'd see this breakage instantly on the adjacent device preview, allowing you to write a more robust media query.
Conclusion: Your Toolkit for a Bug-Free Future
Writing clean, bug-free code is a craft, and every craftsperson needs a good set of tools. The twelve Chrome extensions we've covered are more than just browser add-ons; they are productivity multipliers. They automate tedious tasks, provide critical insights, and empower you to build higher-quality, more performant, and more accessible web applications.
By integrating even a few of these tools into your daily workflow, you can shift from a reactive "bug-hunting" mindset to a proactive "quality-building" one. You'll spend less time debugging and more time creating amazing user experiences.
Now it's your turn. What are your go-to Chrome extensions for development? Did we miss a hidden gem on our list? Share your favorites in the comments below! And if you found this list helpful, be sure to subscribe for more developer tips and productivity guides.
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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