About CodeShack

CodeShack is a free library for web developers and people learning to code. It has 419 browser tools, 50 tutorials with full source code and 383 code snippets. There are also 741 HTML, CSS and JavaScript reference pages and a 28-lesson Python course. David Adams started it in the United Kingdom in March 2018 and still runs it.

Started
March 2018
Paid for by
Ads, Pro memberships and package sales

Who runs CodeShack?

David Adams

David Adams started the site and is responsible for everything on it. He writes the tutorials, builds the tools and answers the support email.

David is a full-stack developer from the East Midlands in England. He has been coding since he was about 18. He graduated in 2013 and worked on other websites until 2018, when he started this one.

Regular visitors help too. They send feedback, and David uses it to keep improving the site.

How did it start?

I started CodeShack to help beginners learn to code and build websites. The comments readers leave on the tutorials and the feedback they send encourage me to keep going. It's fascinating to see what others are capable of bringing to the web.

David Adams, founder

At first the site was mostly tutorials and references. The tools, the snippets and the lessons came later.

  1. 2018

    The first tutorial, a secure login system in PHP and MySQL, goes up in March. Another 10 follow before the year ends, along with an HTML reference of 321 pages.

  2. 2019

    The first package sells in March. It is a fuller version of the login tutorial's code, made for people who want a finished system. By July the site has 34 tools, and 29 of them are still here.

  3. 2020to 2024

    These are the tutorial years. Another 23 tutorials go up, and readers leave 5,726 comments. Package sales pay for the site, and for much of this time it carries no ads. The tool list barely changes.

  4. 2025

    The tools take over. The collection grows from 36 in February to 302 by December. The HTML Viewer is live by June and is now the most used page on the site. Mediavine starts serving the ads in November.

  5. 2026

    CSS and JavaScript references join the HTML one, 741 pages in all, and the snippet library reaches 383. Pro opens in August and the Python course in September.

How is it paid for?

For most of its life, package sales paid for the site, with some help from ads. Today three things pay for it.

  • Ads. Most pages show display ads. Mediavine has served them since November 2025, and before that the site used Google AdSense. Advertisers have no say in what we publish.
  • Pro. A Pro membership costs $12 a month or $96 a year. It removes the ads and adds the premium tools and every package.
  • Packages. Each package is a finished system that you buy once. You get the source code and a license to use it in your projects. Since March 2019, 7,354 customers have placed 9,205 orders.

Everything else is free, and the free tools work without an account.

Do the tools upload what I paste?

Almost all of the tools run in your browser. The text, code or files you give them are processed on your own device and are never sent to us.

Some tools cannot work that way. Online Clipboard stores your text on our server so you can open it on another device. The HTML Viewer and its related tools can load a page from a URL, and they fetch that page through our server. A few others ask an outside service. The IP address tool looks up your address, the margin calculator fetches currency rates and the UTM builder can shorten a link.

The privacy policy covers accounts, payments, ads and analytics in full.

How do you check what you publish?

  • Tools. We test each tool with real input before it goes live. Many also have automatic checks. These compare the tool's output with a source we trust, such as the browser's own parser or an official specification.
  • References. We check facts against MDN and the specifications. Each page shows the date it was last updated.
  • Tutorials. We run the code before we publish it.

David checks everything before it is published, and he is the one accountable for it.

What if I find a mistake?

We still get things wrong. If you spot a mistake, tell us and we will fix the page. We aim to reply within 24 hours.

How do I get in touch?

support@codeshack.io

The Contact page has a form and a separate address for billing questions.

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