We all know that Macs aren’t the most affordable computers on the market. Purchasing one can take a big chunk out of a web designer’s budget and leave little to purchase software. Thankfully, there are alternatives to the expensive software that we need to do our job. Here are 14 Mac applications that will have you doing everything from editing images to writing code, and they won’t cost you a dime.
MAMP
The abbreviation “MAMP” stands for: Macintosh, Apache, Mysql and PHP. With just a few mouse clicks, you can install Apache, PHP and MySQL for Mac OS X. It is a must have for developing and test websites on your local machine.
GIMP
GIMP is a versatile graphics manipulation package. It’s considered by many to be an excellent alternative to Photoshop.
Cyberduck
Cyberduck is an open source FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Cloud Files and Amazon S3 browser for the Mac. It features an easy to use interface with quickly accessible bookmarks.
svnX
SvnX is an open source GUI for most features of the svn client binary. It allows you to browse your working copies, spot changes and operate on them but also to browse logs and revisions of your repositories.
Paparazzi
Paparazzi! is a small utility for Mac OS X that makes screenshots of webpages. It’s written in Objective-C using the Cocoa API and the WebKit framework.
FileZilla
FileZilla is a free open source ftp application. Both client and server are available.
TextWrangler
TextWrangler is the powerful general purpose text editor, and Unix and server administrator’s tool. Its great for writing and editing code and features syntax coloring and function navigation for HTML/XHTML, XML, PHP, JavaScript, Perl, Python, Ruby, Lua, Java, ANSI C, C++, Objective-C, and more.
Inkscape
Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.
KompoZer
KompoZer is a complete web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing. Think of it as a Dreamweaver alternative.
Simple CSS
Simple CSS allows you to easily create Cascading Style Sheets from scratch, and/or modify existing ones, using a familiar point-and-click interface. With it, you can manage multiple CSS projects and import your existing style sheets.
VirtualBox
VirtualBox is a powerful virtualization app that allows mac users to set up a Windows environment on their machine, which makes cross platform/browser testing pretty simple.
MindNode
MindNode is an elegant and simple-to-use mindmapping applications. It’s a great little app for brainstorming and managing your projects.
Skitch
Skitch is an app that takes screenshots a couple of steps further by giving you the ability to sketch and make notes on the image and then share it through skitch.com. It is a great way to collaborate on projects or to explain ideas to a client.
Pixus
Pixus is an Adobe Air app that lets you measure the screen objects in pixels using both mouse and keyboard control.