Built by One Person. Free for Everyone.

Our Story

Tooliest started in April 2026 with a straightforward goal: build something real that I could call entirely my own. I was a first-semester computer science student in Kathmandu with no professional development background, no team, and a clear frustration with how online tools worked — constant signup prompts, paywalls halfway through a task, and files being uploaded to servers I knew nothing about.

I decided to build a platform where every tool is free, works immediately in the browser, and keeps your data on your device where it belongs. Using AI development tools — primarily Codex and Claude Code — I went from zero to a working set of tools in roughly one week. That pace would have been impossible without AI assistance, and I have never pretended otherwise.

By May 2026, Tooliest had grown to 103+ tools across 17 categories, covering text processing, SEO, PDF workflows, developer utilities, finance calculators, color and CSS tools, image handling, and AI-assisted writing. The project is indexed in Google Search Console and receiving organic search traffic from the US, UK, Germany, and Poland — mostly for the SEO and developer tools that seem to have the clearest search intent.

It is still early. But it is mine, and it is genuinely free.

Who's Behind Tooliest

My name is Anurag. I am 20 years old, based in Kathmandu, Nepal, and currently in my first year of a Bachelor of Information Technology Management (BITM) program at Shanker Dev Campus, Tribhuvan University. I have eight semesters ahead of me and no illusions about how much I still have to learn.

Before Tooliest, my only professional experience was a sales and marketing internship at RewaSoft. I am not a seasoned developer with a decade of production code behind me. I built Tooliest as a student, using AI tools to write code I could not have written manually at this stage of my learning — and I think that context is worth being honest about, because it is part of why the tool works the way it does.

My longer-term direction is toward AI engineering and cybersecurity — I am currently figuring out exactly where those two interests intersect for me. Outside of building things, I play guitar, watch movies, and play video games when I am not in front of a screen for work purposes.

You can see my personal portfolio and other projects at anuragbhattarai.com.np. The Tooliest codebase is public on GitHub. You can reach me directly through the contact page.

How Tooliest Works Technically

Every standard tool on Tooliest runs as a client-side application. The JavaScript executes in your browser, the input is processed locally, and the output is returned to your screen without leaving your device. This applies to text tools, converters, formatters, PDF tools, image tools, and most calculation tools.

AI-assisted tools work differently. When you use an AI feature — the resume builder, paraphraser, email writer, or similar — the text you submit for that specific AI request is sent through a Cloudflare-hosted proxy to a model provider. The proxy does not log your content and does not expose API keys in the page. A daily rate limit (15 AI requests per tool per day) is enforced server-side through Cloudflare KV storage to prevent abuse and control costs. These AI tools are labeled clearly across the site so you always know when a request is leaving your browser.

The site runs on Cloudflare Pages with a GitHub repository as the source. Most of the build pipeline is static — HTML pages are generated at build time from a central tools data file, with individual tool UIs loaded as JavaScript modules. Progressive Web App support means many non-AI tools continue working offline once the page has loaded.

What Tooliest Covers

Tooliest currently has 103+ tools organized into 17 categories. The categories that have the most tools and the deepest content are:

• SEO Tools — robots.txt generator, sitemap generator, meta tag generator, schema markup generator, keyword density checker, slug generator, and more. These are the tools that have shown the earliest organic search traction.
• Developer Tools — JSON formatter and validator, Base64 encoder/decoder, hash generator, regex tester, JWT decoder, code screenshot generator, and several others aimed at day-to-day development workflows.
• PDF Tools — PDF splitter, merger, compressor, page extractor, watermark tool, and format converters. All process files locally without uploading to servers.
• AI Writing Tools — text summarizer, paraphraser, email writer, blog idea generator, AI meta writer, and an AI resume builder with live ATS scoring and cover letter generation.
• Text Tools — word counter with readability scoring, case converter, diff checker, lorem ipsum generator, character counter, and others.
• Finance and Math — compound interest calculator, loan and mortgage analyzer, SIP investment calculator, retirement calculator, BMI calculator, and unit converters.
• Image, Color, and CSS Tools — image compressor, resizer, converter, color picker, palette generator, gradient builder, box shadow generator, and CSS utilities.

How Tooliest Stays Free

Tooliest is currently applying for Google AdSense. If approved, advertising revenue will cover the hosting and AI proxy costs that keep the platform running. This is the honest monetization plan at this stage of the project — a student running a utility site with real infrastructure costs needs a sustainable model, and ad revenue is the most straightforward one that does not require users to pay or share data beyond what a standard analytics setup involves.

Over time, if specific premium features — advanced AI workflows, batch processing, or professional export options — justify a paid tier, some tools may have optional upgrades. The standard versions of all existing tools will remain free. No existing tool will be moved behind a paywall after launching free.

You can review the Privacy Policy for the full picture of what data Tooliest collects and how it is handled. The short version: standard analytics (Google Analytics), browser storage for your preferences and AI quota tracking, and optional ad cookies if you accept them. The consent banner lets you reject non-essential tracking if you prefer.

How Tools and Content Are Reviewed

Every tool on Tooliest is reviewed against its actual workflow before it is published. I test the tool directly through the live site — entering real inputs, checking edge cases, and verifying the output is accurate for the use case the tool is meant to serve. When something is wrong, I direct the AI development tools to fix the specific issue rather than regenerating the whole implementation.

Content pages — the educational sections below each tool, the guides, and pages like this one — go through the same review. I read every section before it is committed to the repository. The standard I use is simple: does every sentence tell the reader something true and useful? If a section is vague, padded, or inaccurate, it goes back for revision before it is published.

If you find something outdated, incorrect, or misleading on any tool or guide page, the contact page goes directly to me. I would rather fix a page that is wrong than leave it up.

How Content Is Created on Tooliest

Tooliest uses AI tools as part of the content creation process — specifically Claude (Anthropic) and ChatGPT (OpenAI) for drafting educational content and tool descriptions. I want to be direct about this because it is relevant to how you should evaluate what you read on this site.

The process works like this: I provide the AI with specific, detailed prompts that include the tool's actual features, the target audience, and requirements for factual accuracy and specific examples. The AI produces a draft. I read the entire draft personally before it is committed to the site. If a section is inaccurate, generic, or unhelpful, I revise the prompt and regenerate rather than publishing something that does not meet the standard I set for the page.

What I do not do: I do not run AI output through paraphrasing tools or AI humanizers before publishing. That process — which I used early in the site's development — produces text that sounds vaguely human but strips out all the specific information that makes content useful. The content you read on Tooliest now is the direct output of carefully prompted AI generation, reviewed by a person before it goes live.

When a page's content involves financial, legal, medical, or employment-related information, additional disclaimers are added to reflect the limits of what an AI-assisted utility site can responsibly advise. Those disclaimers are genuine, not boilerplate.