Chrome extensions have become essential tools for full-stack developers building modern web applications. Whether you're debugging React components, testing APIs against a headless CMS, or optimizing page performance, the right browser extensions can speed up your development workflow.

With nearly 112,000 extensions in the Chrome Web Store and only about 10,000 in Developer Tools, finding extensions that genuinely improve productivity requires filtering through many options. This guide focuses on extensions that solve real problems when you work with frameworks like React, Next.js, and Vue, along with headless CMS platforms like Strapi.

In brief

• React Developer Tools and Vue DevTools remain essential for framework-specific component debugging.
• AI-powered extensions like Qodo Merge represent an emerging 2026 trend.
• Lighthouse and native DevTools have evolved significantly, reducing reliance on many third-party extensions.
• December 2024 security incidents affected 2.6 million users across compromised extensions.

Why Chrome Extensions Matter for Developers

You face unique challenges that extensions help address. Context switching between debugging tools, documentation, and code editors fragments focus and reduces productivity. Browser extensions solve this by embedding functionality directly where you already work. They eliminate the need to launch separate applications for common tasks like API testing, JSON formatting, or accessibility audits.

Extensions like React Developer Tools enhance your development process when you work with frameworks and headless CMS platforms such as Strapi. The extension provides component tree visualization, props and state inspection, and hooks debugging that native DevTools cannot replicate.

For API management, extensions like JSON Formatter transform raw responses into readable, navigable structures: JSON Formatter leads with 2,000,000+ users and a 4.6/5 rating.

Native Chrome DevTools have improved substantially in versions 120-135, offering comprehensive performance profiling and network analysis. However, extensions complement these capabilities by providing framework-specific insights.

A strategic approach combines native tools for general debugging with targeted extensions for specialized workflows. Managing browser resource consumption matters when you run multiple extensions, so keeping your extension count minimal improves both performance and security.

If you're considering an upgrade to Strapi 5, exploring the integration of Strapi with React can help create dynamic applications. For more details, check the Strapi v5 documentation.

Framework-Specific Debugging Extensions

Native Chrome DevTools have improved substantially across versions 120-135, providing comprehensive performance profiling and network analysis. However, they cannot visualize framework-specific component hierarchies. React component trees and Vue component hierarchies still require dedicated extensions.

React Developer Tools

React Developer Tools 7.0.1, released October 20, 2025, provides full support for React 19 (released December 5, 2024). The extension supports inspection of new hooks that transform how you manage component state and server interactions.

The new useActionState hook helps manage form submission states and async operation results within components. useOptimistic enables optimistic UI updates that display changes immediately before server confirmation arrives. useFormStatus provides access to parent form submission states for building responsive form interfaces. The use hook reads resources like promises and contexts directly during render.

The Profiler tab provides component render timing analysis through detailed flamegraph visualization. Flamegraphs display hierarchical component relationships with precise timing measurements for each render. This visualization helps identify expensive renders by showing exactly which components consume the most rendering time. Ranked charts offer sortable lists by render duration for quick bottleneck identification.

For Next.js developers, React DevTools supports Server Components suspension debugging as of October 2025. The "Suspended by" section shows all suspension causes for inspected elements, clarifying why components await data during server rendering. Installation requires only clicking "Add to Chrome" from the Chrome Web Store; the extension automatically detects React applications.

Vue DevTools

Vue DevTools delivers essential component development capabilities for Vue.js applications of all sizes. The extension provides component hierarchy exploration that visualizes parent-child relationships across your entire application structure. You can navigate through deeply nested components while inspecting each component's internal state.

Vuex and Pinia state inspection differ in their approach to reactivity tracking. Vuex DevTools displays mutations and actions with full time-travel debugging capabilities. Pinia inspection offers a more streamlined view focused on store composition with support for multiple stores. Props reactivity tracking shows how data flows from parent to child components in real-time.

For developers building applications with Strapi as a headless CMS backend and Vue on the frontend, the extension helps debug how content flows from API responses through stores into component rendering. You can trace a content item from the initial Strapi REST API response through Pinia store mutations to final component display, identifying exactly where data transformation issues occur.

State Management Debugging

Redux DevTools remains mandatory for applications using Redux, offering action history with complete state snapshots at each step. Time-travel debugging lets you move backward and forward through application state, reproducing exact conditions that caused bugs. State diff visualization highlights precisely what changed between actions, making it easier to spot unintended mutations.

Zustand DevTools provides similar capabilities for the increasingly popular Zustand library. The extension displays store updates, tracks middleware execution, and supports persist middleware debugging for applications using local storage synchronization. MobX DevTools focuses on observable tracking, showing which observables trigger component re-renders.

Pinia DevTools, integrated with Vue DevTools, offers store-specific debugging for Vue 3 applications. Each state management approach requires its dedicated DevTools extension because native browser tools cannot interpret these library-specific patterns.

API Testing and GraphQL Development Extensions

When you work with headless CMS platforms, API testing extensions speed up development workflows by eliminating context switching between browser, Postman, and documentation.

Talend API Tester

Talend API Tester (600,000+ users, 4.8/5) offers a visual interface for testing REST and GraphQL APIs directly in Chrome. Dynamic variables enable environment switching between development, staging, and production Strapi instances. Response validation supports multiple assertion types including status codes, headers, body content, and response times.

The extension imports existing configurations from Postman Collections, Swagger, and OpenAPI specifications, allowing teams to migrate workflows without recreating request libraries. For headless CMS development, Talend excels at validating content type responses and testing authenticated endpoints with JWT tokens.

Altair GraphQL

Altair GraphQL Client (50,000+ users) serves developers working with GraphQL-based content platforms like Strapi's GraphQL plugin. Query composition features intelligent autocomplete that reads your schema, suggesting fields and arguments as you type. Header specification panels manage API authentication tokens, making it easy to test both public and protected endpoints.

Schema documentation exploration works offline after initial load, enabling development without constant network access. You can save collections of queries organized by content type for rapid testing during Strapi content model development.

GraphQL Network Inspector

GraphQL Network Inspector (100,000+ users) provides platform-agnostic network traffic inspection for any GraphQL implementation. The extension displays individual GraphQL requests alongside batched queries, revealing how your frontend combines multiple operations. Full compatibility with Apollo, Relay, and other GraphQL clients ensures consistent debugging regardless of your chosen client library. Network traffic analysis helps optimize query patterns by showing exact payload sizes and response times.

Performance Optimization and Auditing

Chrome's native Lighthouse integration provides strong performance profiling capabilities. However, understanding specialized performance extensions remains valuable when you seek deeper insights.

Lighthouse

Lighthouse 13.0, released October 20, 2025, integrates directly into Chrome DevTools through the Insights sidebar. The tool audits web pages for performance, SEO, accessibility, and best practices. The Insights sidebar consolidation eliminates the need for a separate Performance Insights panel, streamlining workflows.

Lighthouse measures three Core Web Vitals that Google uses for search ranking signals. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures the time from page load until the largest content element becomes visible, with top-performing sites achieving approximately 1,220 milliseconds. Interaction to Next Paint (INP) replaced Total Blocking Time to measure user interaction responsiveness more accurately. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) quantifies unexpected layout shifts throughout the entire page lifespan.

The scoring algorithm converts raw measurements to 0-100 scores using a log-normal distribution derived from HTTP Archive data. Control points set the 25th percentile at score 50 and the 8th percentile at score 90. Weighted combinations allocate 25% to LCP, 30% to INP, and 25% to CLS. Color coding indicates performance levels: 0-49 (Poor/Red), 50-89 (Needs Improvement/Orange), 90-100 (Good/Green).

Web Vitals Extension

The Web Vitals extension served nearly 200,000 users for tracking Core Web Vitals in real-time. While native DevTools now provides Web Vitals measurement through the Performance panel, the standalone extension remains available for quick real-time checks without opening DevTools. Field data integration in Chrome 131+ allows comparing local measurements against real-world user experiences from Chrome User Experience Report data.

AI-Powered Development Extensions

AI integration represents a major 2026 content gap: only 6% of analyzed sources cover AI extensions despite 85% of developers using AI tools for coding. This emerging category addresses the growing demand for intelligent development assistance.

Qodo Merge

Qodo Merge (formerly CodiumAI PR-Agent) provides AI-powered code review integrated directly in GitHub pull requests. With 4,000 users and 4.9 stars, the extension automates detection of bugs, security vulnerabilities, and best practices violations before human reviewers examine code. Bug detection identifies logic errors, null reference risks, and edge cases that manual review might miss.

Security vulnerability scanning checks for common issues like SQL injection risks and improper input validation. Best practices analysis ensures code follows established patterns and maintainability standards. The free tier supports open-source repositories, making it accessible for personal projects.

Several experimental AI agents represent the cutting edge of browser automation. Claude for Chrome enables autonomous browser interaction through natural language commands. You describe tasks in plain language, and the AI navigates pages, fills forms, and extracts information autonomously. Currently limited to 1,000 Max plan subscribers, this demonstrates the direction of AI-assisted development workflows.

Gemini Nano

Gemini Nano in DevTools provides AI-assisted debugging suggestions directly in the Chrome console. On-device processing means queries never leave your machine, eliminating latency and privacy concerns. The AI helps diagnose layout issues, CSS conflicts, and suggests potential fixes based on error patterns. 13,000+ developers joined the early preview program, indicating strong interest.

Project Mariner

Project Mariner offers autonomous Chrome browser control through natural language, navigating websites and interacting with elements based on verbal instructions. While still in prototype status, it represents Google's vision for AI-powered web automation.

JSON Viewing and Data Visualization

JSON visualization remains critical for efficient debugging workflows when you work with Strapi's REST or GraphQL API responses. Choosing the right viewer depends on your specific needs.

JSON Formatter

JSON Formatter by Callum Locke leads the market with 2,000,000 users and 4.6 stars. The extension provides automatic JSON prettification with syntax highlighting that color-codes strings, numbers, booleans, and null values. Dark mode support reduces eye strain during extended debugging sessions. Code folding enables collapsing large nested structures to focus on relevant sections. Performance optimization handles large API responses without browser slowdown.

JSON Viewer Pro

JSON Viewer Pro (300,000 users, 4.7/5) distinguishes itself with both tree and chart views for visualizing JSON structure through multiple paradigms. JSON Path navigation lets you copy the programmatic path to any property, which proves invaluable for constructing response parsing logic in code. When you click a deeply nested value, the extension copies the exact path like response.data.attributes.title for direct use in your application.

JSON Beautifier and Editor

JSON Beautifier and Editor (30,000 users, 4.8 stars, highest rated) uniquely offers editable syntax-highlighted views, allowing modification of JSON responses during testing without external tools. Large number support preserves precision for financial and scientific API work where JavaScript's default number handling causes precision loss. Three viewing modes (raw, code, parsed JSON) accommodate different debugging preferences.

Accessibility Testing Extensions

Specialized extensions like axe DevTools, WAVE, and BrowserStack Accessibility Toolkit provide WCAG 2.1/2.2 compliance testing that extends beyond Lighthouse's foundational accessibility audits.

axe DevTools

axe DevTools by Deque Systems provides WCAG 2.1 coverage with Intelligent Guided Testing that uses machine learning to identify complex accessibility issues requiring human judgment. Component-level testing focuses audits on specific page sections, ideal for Strapi-powered applications with dynamic content regions.

CI/CD pipeline integration supports Cypress, Selenium, and Jest, enabling automated accessibility checks in continuous integration workflows. Developer-friendly reports include code snippets showing exact issues and remediation guidance with priority rankings.

BrowserStack Accessibility Toolkit

BrowserStack Accessibility Toolkit offers the broadest standards coverage in a single tool: WCAG 2.1, ADA, AODA, Section 508, and EN 301 549. The Workflow Analyzer scans multiple pages dynamically, following user journeys through your application.

Assisted Testing guides you through keyboard navigation testing without requiring accessibility expertise. Scheduled scans enable continuous monitoring for ongoing compliance verification. Issue prioritization filters duplicates and ranks problems by severity.

WAVE Evaluation Tool

WAVE Evaluation Tool provides visual feedback by injecting icons and indicators directly into pages to highlight accessibility errors. Client-side operation means all processing happens in your browser, enabling secure testing of intranet and password-protected pages without sending data externally.

WCAG 2.2 alignment ensures coverage of the latest accessibility standards. The AIM Score provides quantitative accessibility assessment for tracking improvements over time.

Security-Focused Extensions for Developers

December 2024 security incidents require developer awareness. A targeted phishing campaign compromised 35 extensions, affecting 2.6 million users across the compromised extensions. Researchers identified 30+ additional malicious extensions on the Chrome Web Store during the same period. The ShadyPanda campaign revealed a 7-year operation that weaponized popular extensions after accumulating 4.3 million installations.

OWASP Penetration Testing Kit

OWASP Penetration Testing Kit is the only official OWASP browser extension, providing DAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing), IAST (Interactive Application Security Testing), SAST (Static Application Security Testing), and SCA (Software Composition Analysis) capabilities. Vulnerability detection covers SQL injection, command injection, XSS, and other common web security threats. JWT manipulation capabilities allow analyzing, crafting, and tampering with JSON Web Tokens to test authentication mechanisms. Swagger.IO integration enables testing API endpoints directly from documentation.

JS Vulnerability Detector

JS Vulnerability Detector scans JavaScript dependencies against the CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) database, identifying known vulnerabilities in third-party libraries. Multiple remediation options let you block vulnerable scripts, apply patches, or track issues for later resolution. Real-time scanning checks libraries as pages load, providing immediate security feedback.

StorageAce

StorageAce provides advanced cookie and storage management for security testing, including specialized JWT token handling. Easy extraction and analysis of tokens from browser storage helps identify authentication weaknesses. Cookie blocking with domain, name, and value filters enables precise security testing. Import/export in JSON and Netscape formats supports team collaboration on security test configurations.

Technology Detection with Wappalyzer

Wappalyzer detects technologies used on websites, currently tracking 7,645 web technologies across 106 categories. With 3+ million users and 4.6 stars, it provides insights into client-side and server technologies including content management systems, JavaScript frameworks, analytics tools, and CDNs.

The free tier offers only 50 lookups per month, roughly 1-2 websites per day if spread evenly. When you conduct frequent competitive analysis, client research, or technology audits, the free tier gets exhausted quickly. Those needing more frequent use should consider the Pro plan at $250/month, which includes 5,000 lookups and API access for automation workflows.

Detection relies on pattern matching in HTML source, HTTP headers, JavaScript libraries, meta tags, and cookie patterns. Backend technologies that don't expose identifying signatures may not be detected. React, Vue, and Angular detection works reliably, while pure API backends often remain undetected.

Tab Management and Workflow Organization

Managing dozens of open tabs across multiple projects creates cognitive overhead that specialized extensions address through intelligent organization.

Workona

Workona (200,000+ users, 4.6★) organizes tabs into project-based workspaces with cloud-synced access across devices. You can maintain separate workspaces for frontend development, backend APIs, and DevOps tasks without losing context when switching. Automatic session saving prevents work loss during crashes or unexpected restarts. Cross-workspace search locates tabs across all saved sessions instantly. Team collaboration features enable sharing workspace configurations with colleagues.

Session Buddy

Session Buddy (1,000,000+ users, 4.7★) provides automatic crash recovery for open tabs, capturing complete browser state for restoration. Session export creates backups that can be stored, versioned, or shared. Search within saved sessions locates specific tabs without manually browsing through collections. Organization by project or sprint keeps related resources grouped logically.

Tab Wrangler

Tab Wrangler (60,000+ users, 4.4★) provides lightweight automatic cleanup of inactive tabs after configurable time periods. Pinned tabs remain protected from auto-closing, preserving critical tools like Strapi admin panels, monitoring dashboards, and documentation. The corral of recently closed tabs enables quick reopening if needed. This approach reduces browser memory consumption while maintaining access to important resources.

Streamline Your Development with the Right Tools

The Chrome extension ecosystem has matured into a focused set of useful developer tools. Framework-specific debugging extensions like React Developer Tools remain essential for component inspection that native DevTools cannot replicate.

AI-powered tools like Qodo Merge represent an emerging category addressing the 85% of developers now using AI in their workflows. Native DevTools improvements in Chrome 120-135 mean you need fewer extensions than before, but the right ones still provide capabilities browser-native tools cannot match.

When you build content-driven applications, Strapi provides the flexible backend that complements these browser-based development tools:

• Auto-generated APIs: REST and GraphQL endpoints generated by Strapi's core framework
• TypeScript support: Fully typed APIs reducing debugging complexity
• Plugin architecture: Extend functionality with custom plugins
• Admin panel customization: Build custom admin interfaces
• Strapi Cloud: Managed hosting infrastructure for deployments

Explore the Strapi video library for tutorials on integrating these tools into your development workflow.

Get Started in Minutes

Run npx create-strapi-app@latest in your terminal and follow our Quick Start Guide to build your first Strapi project.

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