Curated lists

Themed top-N lists drawn from RepoPilot's analyzed corpus and ranked by popularity and health signals. Each entry links to its full verdict, and the signals refresh as repos are re-analyzed.

CLI tools

Best Rust CLI toolsHand-picked Rust-built command-line utilities — battle-tested, actively maintained, and a pleasure to install. Verdicts reflect dependency health and activity at last analysis.8 picks

React

React state management librariesThe realistic shortlist for React state in 2026: from the workhorses (Redux Toolkit, Zustand) to the atom-based newcomers (Jotai, Recoil) and the proxy crowd (Valtio, MobX). Pick on team familiarity, not benchmark micro-wins.7 picks
React UI component librariesThe realistic shortlist for React UIs in 2026. shadcn/ui owns the copy-paste primitive lane, MUI and Mantine cover the batteries-included end, Radix is the headless layer the new generation builds on, Ant Design holds the enterprise crown, HeroUI rounds out the Tailwind-native field.7 picks

AI / ML

Python LLM and agent librariesThe Python LLM ecosystem moves fast. These are the libraries with enough adoption to bet on, plus the experimental DSL shops worth watching. Health signals matter more than star counts in a space this churn-y.8 picks

Go

Go HTTP routers and web frameworksGo's stdlib net/http is great, but these libraries earn their keep — Gin for traditional MVC, Echo for batteries-included, Fiber for raw speed (built on fasthttp), Chi for stdlib-compatible middleware.6 picks

Databases

Vector databases for production RAGThe vector DB shortlist for serious workloads. All five are self-hostable; Qdrant and Weaviate lead on filtering ergonomics, Pinecone on managed-service polish, Chroma on dev-loop simplicity, Milvus on scale.6 picks

TypeScript

Web

Static site generatorsThe realistic shortlist for SSGs in 2026. Hugo for speed and zero deps, Astro for component-driven content, 11ty for plain HTML/JS purity, Jekyll for the legacy ecosystem, Zola for Rust simplicity.6 picks

Testing

Node.js and JS test runnersVitest has eaten Jest's lunch for new projects; Jest stays for migration pain. Playwright is the e2e default; Cypress holds the longer-running shops. Use this list to short-circuit the testing-framework debate.6 picks

Python

Python web frameworksThe full Python web spectrum in 2026. Django for batteries-included monoliths, FastAPI for typed async APIs, Flask for the classic micro-framework, Litestar for the FastAPI-alternative crowd, Starlette underneath both. Picks reflect actual maintenance and ecosystem depth, not benchmark theatre.8 picks

Build tools

JavaScript bundlers and build toolsThe build-tool shortlist for JS in 2026. Vite for dev-loop, esbuild for raw speed, swc and oxc for the Rust-rewrite contenders, webpack and Rollup for the workhorses, Parcel for zero-config. Pick on what your framework defaults to first; bare-metal choice only matters for libraries and bundle-anxious shops.8 picks

Runtimes

JavaScript runtimesThree serious contenders, one default. Node for ubiquity and ecosystem, Bun for cold-start + bundled-tooling speed wins, Deno for a stdlib-rich + secure-by-default break from the npm baggage. Most production shops are on Node; pick a challenger when its specific strengths matter for your workload.3 picks

Auth

TypeScript authentication librariesAuth in TS got better in 2026. Auth.js (née NextAuth) still owns the Next ecosystem, Better Auth is the new-school alternative with first-class TypeScript, Lucia for the DIY-session crowd, Clerk and Supabase Auth for managed-service teams. The split is mostly about how much infra you want to own.5 picks

Date utilities

JavaScript date and time librariesThe Moment.js era is over. date-fns leads on tree-shake-friendly utility functions, Day.js for the Moment-API-compatible drop-in, Luxon for serious timezone work, Temporal for the future (when it lands in V8). Skip Moment for new code.4 picks

CSS

CSS frameworks and CSS-in-JSTailwind has eaten the utility-CSS lane, but the runtime crowd is still strong. styled-components and Emotion for runtime CSS-in-JS, vanilla-extract for zero-runtime typed styles, Panda CSS for the build-time Tailwind alternative, UnoCSS for the atomic-engine purists.6 picks

Node

Node.js HTTP clientsNative fetch is great enough for most things in 2026, but the libraries earn their keep for retries, interceptors, and ergonomics. axios for the API-first style, ky for tiny + fetch-based, got for the feature-rich, undici under the hood, ofetch for the Nuxt/Nitro-friendly default.5 picks

Observability

Self-hosted observability stacksDatadog is expensive; here's what serious teams self-host instead. Grafana + Prometheus is the classic combo (still the default), SigNoz and OpenObserve are the integrated-stack newcomers, Sentry for errors, OpenTelemetry collectors underneath all of it.6 picks

AI & LLM

Data

Tooling

Backend

Frontend

DevOps

Mobile

Cross-platform mobile frameworksBuild for iOS and Android from one codebase — the JS routes (React Native, Expo, Ionic) and the Dart one (Flutter).4 picks