CoolSites

The ultimate curated directory of 470 free tools, open source software, AI projects, and hidden gems across 25 categories — built for sysadmins, devs, creators, homelabbers, and the endlessly curious.

Browse the Directory

Features

• 470 curated sites across 25 categories — every entry hand-picked and described
• Instant search — filter by name, description, category, URL, or tags
• Category filters with live counts — drill into any category instantly
• Grid and list views — toggle between card layout and compact list
• Keyboard navigation — press / to focus search, Escape to clear
• One-click URL copy — share any link without opening it first
• Zero dependencies — single HTML file, no frameworks, no build step, no backend
• OLED dark theme — deep blacks, glassmorphism, ambient glow effects
• Responsive — works on desktop, tablet, and mobile
• Favicon detection — auto-fetches site icons via Google's favicon API
• Staggered card animations — smooth entrance animations on load and filter
• Self-hostable — drop index.html anywhere and it just works

Categories

Category	Sites	Highlights
Desktop Software	35	DevToys, PowerToys, Files, Everything, ShareX, VLC, Ventoy, HWiNFO
AI & ML	32	Ollama, Open WebUI, LM Studio, ComfyUI, Hugging Face, Groq, Dify
Homelab	31	Uptime Kuma, Proxmox, Tailscale, Pi-hole, Jellyfin, Immich, Paperless-ngx
Dev Tools	29	Regex101, Hoppscotch, CodePen, StackBlitz, Zed, Cursor, Playwright
Creative	26	Blender, Figma, Photopea, Excalidraw, Penpot, Coolors, fffuel.co
Fun & Culture	26	Neal.fun, Radio Garden, Shadertoy, Geoguessr, xkcd, Noclip, Wiby
Productivity	24	Obsidian, Notion, Linear, Cal.com, Stirling PDF, NocoDB, Typst
Security	21	CyberChef, Have I Been Pwned, VirusTotal, OWASP ZAP, Qualys SSL Labs
Sysadmin	21	Grafana, Netdata, Prometheus, Terraform, Wazuh, Cockpit, btop
Education	21	freeCodeCamp, Khan Academy, MIT OCW, CS50, LeetCode, Nand2Tetris
News & Reference	20	Hacker News, ArchWiki, Stack Overflow, AlternativeTo, free-for.dev
CLI Tools	20	fzf, ripgrep, bat, eza, lazygit, lazydocker, neovim, starship
OSINT	19	Shodan, Censys, Wayback Machine, SpiderFoot, TinEye, BuiltWith
Privacy	18	Mullvad, Tor, Signal, ProtonMail, SearXNG, uBlock Origin, Tails
IP & Network	15	BGP.Tools, IPinfo.io, ping.pe, Robtex, HackerTarget, ViewDNS
AI Creative	15	Midjourney, Suno, Runway, ElevenLabs, Remove.bg, Recraft, Pika
File Tools	15	Cobalt, yt-dlp, FFmpeg, HandBrake, Pandoc, Croc, PDF24
Networking	13	Wireshark, nmap, PuTTY, mRemoteNG, NetBox, Netbird, WinSCP
Data & Viz	12	Metabase, Apache Superset, Datawrapper, D3.js, Mermaid Live, Kepler.gl
Speed Tests	10	Cloudflare, Fast.com, Waveform Bufferbloat, LibreSpeed, M-Lab
DNS Tools	10	whatsmydns.net, DNSViz, MXToolbox, DNS Leak Test, Zonemaster
Automation	10	n8n, Node-RED, Huginn, Apache Airflow, Pipedream, Make, Temporal
Music & Audio	10	Ardour, LMMS, Vital, Mixxx, MuseScore, Bandlab, Freesound
Containers	9	Docker, Podman, k3s, Lens, Helm, ArgoCD, Harbor, Rancher
Gaming	8	RetroArch, itch.io, Lichess, Board Game Arena, OpenTTD, RPCS3

Quick Start

CoolSites is a single HTML file — no build tools, no dependencies, no server required.

GitHub Pages (recommended)

1. Fork this repository
2. Go to Settings > Pages
3. Set source to main branch, root folder
4. Your directory is live at https://yourusername.github.io/CoolSites/

Local

git clone https://github.com/SysAdminDoc/CoolSites.git
cd CoolSites
open index.html

Or just download index.html and open it in any browser.

Self-hosted

Drop index.html into any web server's document root. Works with Nginx, Apache, Caddy, or even python3 -m http.server.

How It Works

┌─────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────┐
│   SITES Array    │────>│   Filter Engine  │────>│   Card Renderer  │
│                  │     │                  │     │                  │
│  470 entries     │     │  Category match  │     │  Grid / List     │
│  Name, URL,      │     │  + Fuzzy search  │     │  + Animations    │
│  Desc, Tags      │     │  across fields   │     │  + Favicons      │
└─────────────────┘     └─────────────────┘     └─────────────────┘

Everything lives in a single index.html:

• CSS — custom properties, glassmorphism, OLED dark theme, responsive grid
• HTML — semantic structure with header, hero search, filter bar, card grid, footer
• JavaScript — the SITES data array, category mapping, search/filter logic, and card rendering

No external API calls (except Google Favicons). No tracking. No cookies. No analytics.

Adding Sites

Edit the SITES array inside index.html:

{
  name: "Tool Name",
  url: "https://example.com",
  description: "What it does and why it's cool.",
  category: "Category Name",
  tags: ["tag1", "tag2", "tag3"]
},

If you're adding a new category, also add it to the CATEGORY_MAP object and create a corresponding CSS class:

// In CATEGORY_MAP:
"New Category": "cat-newcat",

// In CSS:
.cat-newcat { background: rgba(R, G, B, 0.15); color: #hex; }

Tech Stack

Component	Technology
Structure	Semantic HTML5
Styling	Vanilla CSS with custom properties
Logic	Vanilla JavaScript (ES6+)
Fonts	Outfit (display) + JetBrains Mono (monospace)
Icons	Inline SVGs + Google Favicon API
Hosting	GitHub Pages (static)

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. To add a site:

1. Fork the repository
2. Add your entry to the SITES array in index.html
3. Ensure the URL is valid and the description is concise
4. Submit a pull request

Guidelines:

• Every site should be free (or have a meaningful free tier)
• Descriptions should explain what it does and why it's notable
• Prefer open source when alternatives exist
• No affiliate links, no sponsored content, no ads

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

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Browse the full directory — 470 sites and counting.