How to Use IT-Tools: The Beginner's Guide (First Deploy, the Favorites Tour, the Privacy Lesson, and the Reverse-Proxy Rule)

CodexFuse Team · 2026-11-01T01:48:08.249Z · 15 min read

Learn how to use IT-Tools: deploy the self-hosted developer toolbox with Docker, tour the favorites, keep sensitive inputs private, and secure it behind a reverse proxy.

If you paste a JWT into a random decoder site, hash a password on the first Google result, or format a customer's JSON on a stranger's web page, learning how to use IT-Tools is the ten-minute project that ends that habit. IT-Tools is the free, open-source collection of more than 80 developer utilities you run on your own hardware: JWT decoders, hash generators, JSON formatters, UUID tools, cron parsers, and dozens more, all in one clean interface. This IT-Tools tutorial is the it-tools for beginners walkthrough: the first Docker deploy, the port-mapping rule that trips up every newcomer, the favorites tour across the five tool categories, the privacy lesson that explains why frontend-only matters, and the reverse-proxy rule that keeps your instance from becoming a public liability. New to containers entirely? Start with our Docker beginner guide — IT-Tools rides on Docker the way nearly every self-hosted app does.

How Do You Use IT-Tools?

IT-Tools is a self-hosted toolbox for developers: you run one Docker container, open it in your browser, and use any of its 80-plus utilities without creating an account or sending data anywhere. Follow this ten-step arc and you will have a working, secured instance:

1. Get a Docker host. Any small VPS or home server with Docker Engine installed is enough.
2. Run the first command. docker run -d --name it-tools -p 8080:80 corentinth/it-tools:latest starts the official image.
3. Open it. Visit http://localhost:8080 (or your server's IP on port 8080).
4. Pin a version tag. Replace :latest with a dated release tag in production so updates never surprise you.
5. Move to a compose file. One small YAML file makes the deployment repeatable and version-controlled.
6. Use your first tool. Paste a token into the JWT decoder — it decodes entirely in your browser.
7. Star your favorites. Click the star on the tools you use weekly; they pin to the top of the sidebar.
8. Put it behind a reverse proxy. Serve it over HTTPS with Nginx Proxy Manager, Traefik, or Caddy.
9. Add basic auth. IT-Tools ships with no login screen, so the proxy's access list becomes your lock.
10. Set an update rule. Re-pull the image on a schedule so your toolbox never drifts months behind.

What Is IT-Tools?

IT-Tools is an open-source web app that bundles over 80 handy utilities for developers and IT professionals into one searchable interface, and it runs entirely in your browser. The project is built with Vue 3 and TypeScript by Corentin Thomasset, published under the GPL-3.0 license, and it has collected more than 41,000 GitHub stars since its creation in April 2020 — a sign of how universal the "I need a quick base64 encode" problem is. You can try the maintainer's hosted copy at it-tools.tech, but the real point of this guide is the it-tools self hosted path: your own container, your own version, your own data boundary.

What you get is a side panel of categorized tools. The five categories you will reach for constantly are crypto (JWT decoder, hash text, HMAC, bcrypt, RSA key pairs, password strength), converters (JSON to CSV/YAML/TOML, base64, URL encoding, color formats), web (URL parser, user-agent parser, HTTP status codes, MIME types, Open Graph inspector), text (regex tester, diff viewer, slug generator, case converter), and generators (UUID v4, ULID, QR codes, BIP39 mnemonics, lorem ipsum). The catalog grows roughly monthly as community pull requests land, so treat any exact count as a snapshot.

Why Self-Host Your Developer Utilities?

Self-hosting IT-Tools fixes the exact moment most developers get careless: the inputs to everyday utilities are usually the things you least want a third party to log. The list of daily developer utilities — JWT decoder, hash generator, JSON formatter, regex tester, base64 encoder, UUID generator, cron parser — is identical on every dev's screen, and the inputs are tokens with user IDs, hashes derived from passwords, JSON dumps with personal data, and internal URLs. Pasting those into the first organic result is a gamble on a stranger's logging policy.

The maintainer has been clear that everything runs client-side, even on the hosted version, and that design is trustworthy. What is less trustworthy is the long tail of look-alike utility sites that copy the UX, rank from a few SEO posts, and quietly send every JWT you decode to a logging endpoint. Two agencies have been audited where engineers had bookmarked one of those clones for years before anyone questioned it. Self-hosting removes the category: the JavaScript bundle you run is the image tag you pulled, pinned and frozen.

What Do You Need Before Installing IT-Tools?

You need a Docker host, ten minutes, and optionally a domain name. Any small VPS works — if you have not picked one yet, read our what is VPS hosting explainer first — or use a home server or NAS you already run. Install Docker Engine from the official Docker repository, never from a package manager's stale default repo or a random install script.

A domain is optional for a first run on your local network, but it becomes worth having the moment you want HTTPS and a memorable address. You will also want a reverse proxy on the same host (Nginx Proxy Manager, Traefik, or Caddy all work) for the HTTPS step later. IT-Tools itself needs no database, no environment variables, and no persistent volumes — it is a static bundle served by Nginx inside the container.

How Do You Install IT-Tools with Docker?

You install IT-Tools with a single docker run command, and the container is ready in under a minute. The official image is corentinth/it-tools, and the canonical first-run command is:

docker run -d \
  --name it-tools \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  -p 8080:80 \
  corentinth/it-tools:latest

The port mapping is the rule every beginner should memorize: the container serves the app on port 80 internally, so you map it to 8080 on the host (or straight to 80 if the box runs nothing else). Note that this mapping varies by image tag across community images, so always confirm the internal port in the image docs before changing it. Open http://localhost:8080 and the toolbox is live. If the box only runs IT-Tools and sits on a private network, you can map straight to port 80 and skip the proxy entirely.

For anything you will keep, move the one-liner into a compose file. Our Docker Compose generator builds the YAML from a run command in seconds, but here is the entire IT-Tools deployment by hand:

services:
  it-tools:
    image: corentinth/it-tools:latest
    container_name: it-tools
    ports:
      - "8080:80"
    restart: unless-stopped
    labels:
      - "com.centurylinklabs.watchtower.enable=true"

The Watchtower label keeps the container auto-updated on a daily schedule — read our Watchtower beginner guide for the full update-automation setup. Bring the stack up with docker compose up -d and you have a repeatable, version-controlled deployment. Want a management UI for the container alongside it? Our Portainer beginner guide covers that next step.

Which IT-Tools Should You Favorite First?

Favorite the five tools you will open more than once a week, because the favorites bar becomes your personal toolbar. Users can star the tools they use most, and favorites are stored in local browser storage — convenient, but remember they are per-browser, so set them up again on a new machine. This twelve-tool starter set spans all five categories and covers the daily work of most developers:

The it-tools jwt decoder is the single best demonstration of the privacy point: decode a production token on the hosted version and you are trusting a bundle; decode it on your pinned self-hosted copy and you are trusting your own infrastructure. The same logic applies to the it-tools hash generator — a hash derived from a password should never touch a third-party server.

How Does the IT-Tools Privacy Model Actually Work?

IT-Tools is frontend-only: every one of its 80-plus tools runs as client-side JavaScript in your browser, and nothing you type is sent to a backend, even on the hosted version. There is no API mode, no rate limiting, and no audit log — that is deliberate, and it is also the double edge. The privacy you gain is real: a JWT you decode never leaves your machine. The capability you lose is equally real: if a customer ticket requires "show me what you decoded and when," this is the wrong tool — that belongs in a logged internal system. IT-Tools is the engineering-bench equivalent of a calculator app, not a system of record.

Self-hosting still matters on top of the frontend-only design because the JavaScript bundle itself is a trust boundary. If the hosted distribution were ever compromised, a malicious bundle could exfiltrate inputs despite the honest architecture. Hosting the container yourself locks the version to whatever image tag you pulled — pin a dated tag, verify it once, and the trust boundary stops moving. These are offline dev utilities in the strongest sense: once the static bundle loads, the tools work with zero network calls.

How Do You Put IT-Tools Behind a Reverse Proxy?

You put IT-Tools behind a reverse proxy with TLS and basic auth, because the app ships with no login screen of its own. In Nginx Proxy Manager, add a proxy host pointing tools.yourdomain.com at http://it-tools:80, request a Let's Encrypt certificate, and force SSL. Traefik and Caddy follow the same pattern with their own labels or config blocks.

The step beginners skip — and the one this guide insists on — is basic auth. The tools themselves are harmless: they run in the visitor's browser, store nothing, and have no admin panel. But a public IT-Tools instance under your domain becomes a phishing-grade asset. An attacker can clone the page, swap your URL into a phishing email ("decode this JWT to confirm your account"), and the victim sees a familiar URL on a familiar brand serving a real-looking utility. Some of these tools — the QR code generator, the URL parser, the Open Graph inspector — are exactly what a phishing flow could link to as part of an "account verification" pretext. This exact attack has been seen against self-hosted PDF converters and code playgrounds; the mitigation costs five minutes (basic auth, or a VPN-only DNS record) and removes the category. For internal-only deployments, Authentik-backed SSO or split-horizon DNS that only resolves inside your VPN are the cleaner patterns.

IT-Tools vs OmniTools: Which Self-Hosted Toolbox Should You Pick?

IT-Tools and OmniTools are the two leading self-hosted developer toolboxes, and they are alternatives with different philosophies, not upgrades of each other. OmniTools (by iib0011) is the younger challenger: about 10,500 GitHub stars since June 2024, MIT licensed, and marketed as no-ads, no-tracking, fast utilities straight from the browser. IT-Tools is the established incumbent: over 41,000 stars since April 2020, GPL-3.0, with the deeper catalog and the larger contributor community.

Hold OmniTools as the comparison member, not a rival to fight: install both for an afternoon, favorite the same five tools in each, and keep the one whose UI stays out of your way. For most teams the deciding factors are the license (GPL-3.0 vs MIT matters to legal departments) and catalog depth. Everything else in this guide — the deploy, the privacy model, the reverse-proxy rule — applies to either.

What Are the Limits of IT-Tools?

The limits of IT-Tools are the honest trade-offs of a frontend-only static app: no server side means no features that need a server. There is no authentication built in, no user accounts, no audit trail, and no API mode — your reverse proxy provides the access control. Adding your own custom tool is a fork-and-rebuild workflow, not a plugin system: clone the Vue 3 repo, add a component under src/tools/, register it, and rebuild your own Docker image. For one or two internal utilities that is worth doing; for more, you want a dedicated internal tools project.

The no-volumes simplicity is a feature with a catch: there is nothing to back up, which means there is also nothing to restore. If you customize the deployment or pin favorites via a shared profile, that state lives in browser localStorage or your compose file — plan accordingly. The resource footprint, measured at a real deployment, is refreshingly small:

Update discipline is simple: re-pull the image on a schedule (the Watchtower label in the compose file above does this daily) or pin a dated tag and bump it monthly. Either way, never let a utility box drift half a year behind — the catalog grows monthly and so do the browser-side fixes.

Where Does CodexFuse Fit Next to IT-Tools?

IT-Tools is your private self-hosted workbench; CodexFuse is the hosted suite for everyday work — different jobs, not rivals. Keep IT-Tools for anything sensitive: decoding production JWTs, hashing secrets, formatting customer data. Use CodexFuse's hosted tools for the quick everyday tasks where you want zero setup and a polished result. The line is simple: if the input would embarrass you in someone else's logs, it belongs in your IT-Tools container; if it is a routine public-safe task, the hosted suite is faster. Run both, and the "paste it into Google" habit dies in both places.

Sources

• GitHub — CorentinTh/it-tools repository (stars, license, creation date, activity, homepage), fetched 2026-11-01
• GitHub — CorentinTh/it-tools releases API (latest dated release tag), fetched 2026-11-01
• GitHub — iib0011/omni-tools repository (stars, license, creation date, description), fetched 2026-11-01
• Webnestify — "IT Tools: Self-Hosted Dev Utilities, No Privacy Trade-Off" (privacy arc, 80+ tool catalog, compose deployment, 8080:80 mapping, ~40–60 MB idle footprint, basic-auth rule, frontend-only limits), fetched 2026-11-01
• Paul's Blog — "Deploy Self-Hosted IT-Tools With Docker To Optimize Workflow" (docker-run arc, official corentinth/it-tools image, favorites feature, Docker-run-to-compose tool), via live SERP 2026-11-01
• OpenSourceProjects.dev — IT-Tools overview (Vue 3 + TypeScript, browser-local execution, tool categories), via live SERP 2026-11-01
• DB Tech Reviews — "Unlocking Developer Efficiency: The IT-Tools Open Source Toolkit" (80+ applications, favorites in local browser storage, it-tools.tech access), via live SERP 2026-11-01
• Sliplane — "Self-hosting IT Tools the easy way" (no built-in auth, client-side execution, no env vars, official image), via live SERP 2026-11-01
• Sealos — IT-Tools app-store template (official site it-tools.tech, source repository), via live SERP 2026-11-01

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I use it-tools.tech or self-host IT-Tools?

The hosted version at it-tools.tech is fine for non-sensitive work — everything runs client-side either way. Self-host when your inputs are sensitive (tokens, secrets, customer data) or when you want to pin the exact bundle version you trust. The deploy takes about ten minutes, so the cost is low and the supply-chain guarantee is real.

Does IT-Tools send my data to any server?

No. All 80-plus tools execute as JavaScript in your browser; nothing is posted to a backend, even on the hosted version. The remaining trust question is the bundle itself, which is exactly why self-hosting with a pinned image tag is the recommended setup for sensitive work.

Can I add my own custom tools to IT-Tools?

Yes, but it is a fork-and-rebuild workflow, not a plugin system. Clone the Vue 3 repository, add a tool component, register it, and build your own Docker image. For one or two internal utilities this is practical; beyond that, consider a dedicated internal tools project.

How much server does a self-hosted IT-Tools instance need?

Roughly nothing: the container is an Nginx static-file server in front of a prebuilt Vue bundle, idling around 40–60 MB of memory with effectively zero CPU between requests. It runs unnoticed alongside a reverse proxy and a dozen other small containers on the smallest VPS.

Can I run IT-Tools on a Synology NAS or other home server?

Yes. Any host that runs Docker can run the official image — NAS guides deploy it through Portainer or the NAS Docker UI with the same -p 8080:80 mapping. The only extra step on a home network is deciding how you reach it: VPN-only, or a reverse proxy with HTTPS and basic auth.