I'm on the hunt for some lesser-known software that even seasoned system administrators recommend for reliability and effectiveness. I'm open to options across various platforms like MacOS, Windows, and Linux. I'd love to hear about any smaller developers who create utilities relevant to our industry, such as their personal blogs, websites, or GitHub repositories. I have a soft spot for the kind of blogs where the authors are small teams sharing candid stories about their software, avoiding any heavy sales pitches, and discussing their design choices, challenges, and lessons learned. I'm specifically looking for tools that fly under the radar, excluding the common ones like Sysinternals. Please share your hidden gems!
5 Answers
If you're not using `restic` for backups yet, you're really setting yourself up for data loss! And don't overlook `direnv`—it saves you from the headache of managing environment variables manually!
Everything by voidtools is amazing! Their tools are super efficient for searching and organizing files. Totally worth checking out.
SecureCRT is another great tool if you need a reliable terminal emulator. It's worth looking into.
Check out Propertree for editing plist files on Windows. It's a lifesaver for managing Jamf from a Windows machine.
We use a tool called Fences on shared desktops to keep things tidy. It's not a hardcore sysadmin tool, but it makes managing messy desktops much easier, especially for kiosks.

I've recently started using this on my workstations too. It's exactly what I need to enhance my workflow—definitely a power-user gem!