About

Small tools, done properly.

Duck Tools is a collection of focused browser utilities for the jobs you do every week: shrinking an image, making a QR code, cutting out a background. No upload, no waiting for a server. An account is optional — we email a one-time sign-in link, there is no password.

Why it exists

Most “free online tools” quietly upload your file to someone else’s computer, wrap the result in ads and trackers, and hope you don’t notice. Browsers today can do this work themselves — with WebAssembly for codecs and WebGPU for machine learning — so there is no good reason for your files to leave your device.

Duck Tools is our attempt to build that better version: a clear catalogue, honest labels about where processing happens, and tools that are genuinely good at one thing.

What’s here today

17 tools are live, each with its own page. We only list tools that actually work. Anything still on the roadmap is clearly marked “coming later” and is never presented as finished.

How it’s built

The site is a static build (Astro) served by nginx. Interactive tools are React islands that load only when you open them, so the homepage stays tiny. There is no file-upload API. Domain, DNS and IP tools ask our servers for the name or address you type. Sign-in is optional and passwordless.

Open-source projects doing the heavy lifting, with thanks:

• qr-code-styling(MIT) — QR rendering.
• jSquash (Apache-2.0) — MozJPEG, libwebp and PNG codecs compiled to WebAssembly.
• Transformers.js(Apache-2.0) and ONNX Runtime Web (MIT) — on-device model inference.
• BEN2 (MIT) — the background-removal model, by PramaLLC, converted by the ONNX community.
• Instrument Sans(OFL) — the typeface, self-hosted.

What’s next

More tools, one category at a time. Later, an optional Duck Pro subscription may cover things that genuinely cost us money to run. Everything that works locally today will stay free.