What tools are needed to develop DApps on Ethereum?

Applications on Ethereum support the popularity of the entire Ethereum ecosystem market. So how do we develop applications on Ethereum?

Since 2017 and 2018, applications on Ethereum have continued to emerge, and now they come in various forms, but they can be classified into certain categories in terms of development.

The characteristics of blockchain determine that unlike general application development, blockchain applications need to be deployed on the chain, so the development tools on Ethereum are mainly tools for completing on-chain deployment.

In general, Internet application development has a front-end and a back-end. The front-end is only the part that users see, while the back-end is the management part of the application. For a dapp, there must be a front-end, and there must also be a chain-end, that is, the part that deploys smart contracts. Some applications have the back-end management part of the application front-end, while some applications do not. The difference lies in whether the part displayed on the front-end is optimized in the middle for a better experience.

The DeFi that we have seen so far, simple NFT Dapps basically only have the chain end and the front end. In this article, by consulting the official Ethereum, we will list the framework tools and non-framework tools used for smart contract deployment in Dapp development.

Smart Contract Development Framework

Hardhat (JavaScript)

One of the best frameworks currently, it supports fast testing, provides the most complete tutorials and the simplest integration. It is easy for developers of JS frameworks to get started, use Waffle and Ethers.js for testing, and can also be directly integrated with OpenZeppelin's upgradeable smart contract plug-in.

Truffle (JavaScript)

Truffle is the default development framework for Ethereum smart contracts, setting the standard for other tools. It is easy to integrate with tools such as Drizzle and Ganache. You can pay for an upgraded Truffle team account to access continuous integration, visual deployment, and monitoring of smart contracts. It can also be directly integrated with OpenZeppelin's upgradeable smart contract plugin.

Brownie (Python)

Brownie is the Truffle of Python. Written in Python, it is a very simple and clean framework that eliminates many of the hassles of using JavaScript. You can use this framework to easily process and deploy smart contracts.

Embark

Embark is an entire DAPP framework and a full-stack blockchain platform. For example, it is able to deploy Chainlink contracts to the Kovan network, with a UI that allows interaction with blockchains and contracts in the GUI. It is an ideal full-stack solution integration.

Waffle

Waffle is listed as a smart contract framework and can be used with any other framework. It is the more original, simpler, and customizable framework and is the default tool for Hardhat.

Dapp.tools

Dapp.Tools is written in Haskell and supports multiple plugins, such as OpenZeppelin. It is a simple but powerful framework that is friendly to the command line.

Epirus

Epirus is an open source project, like "Truffle", and also has a paid upgrade tool. It is a Web3 implementation using Java, and has support for Android. There are few smart contract platforms using Java in the industry. Epirus is conducive to attracting more Java engineers to enter the industry.

Non-framework development tools

OpenZeppelin

OpenZeppelin is a platform for creating tools for smart contract engineers. There are some default settings, such as ERC20 and ERC721 tools, where you can import their contracts and build tokens in seconds.

Another important aspect of OpenZeppelin is its upgradeable contracts feature. Deploying a running project means having to deploy a proxy contract in order to support any changes that need to be made.

Etherscan

Etherscan is the most popular block explorer. When a user wants to see a contract and what has been deployed, the ABI and the contract address are needed. It is usually easy for a user to find the contract address, but it is difficult to get the ABI. Most frameworks have some kind of verification plugin that allows you to verify the smart contract on Etherscan immediately after deploying it. Make sure you can use it in your application.

create-eth-app

create-eth-app is a platform that uses ReactJS to add a frontend to smart contracts. It uses a lot of new React tricks, such as State Hooks, to make it easier to build really powerful frontends.

eth.build

Eth.build is an educational sandbox focused on Web3.0, with the following features: code-free drag-and-drop programming, fully open source, and visual and intuitive understanding of how Ethereum works

Remix

IDE is a browser-based IDE used to develop smart contracts. It is also a commonly used IDE for developing Ethereum smart contracts. It is very friendly to novices. Because it is a browser-based IDE, there is no need to install it, nor to install the Solidity runtime environment. It can be used right after it is opened.