The official Telegram bot for creating and managing bots: registers a new bot in a minute, issues the API token, sets commands, description and avatar. Free, English interface, no third-party sign-up.
Best Telegram bots for Developer tools
Developer tools are the bots you open while building your own: creating and configuring a bot, finding IDs for API calls, inspecting raw updates, testing webhooks and getting monitoring alerts. Almost all are free and most are used daily by anyone who ships Telegram bots.
The best Telegram bot for developers is BotFather (@BotFather): the official bot that registers a new bot in a minute, issues the API token and sets commands, description and avatar, free and with no third-party sign-up. User Info Bot (@userinfobot) and GetIDs Bot (@GetIDsBot) are the standard way to look up numeric user, chat and channel IDs, and Telegram Bot Raw (@RawDataBot) shows the exact JSON the Bot API sends for any forwarded message.
Forward any message, sticker or user to this bot to instantly see their numeric Telegram ID, username and other basic account info — a staple utility for bot development, whitelists and API calls. Free, no ads, over half a million monthly users.
The official Telegram bot of UptimeRobot, the most widely used free uptime monitor: delivers instant down/up alerts plus SSL and domain-expiry warnings to a chat or group. Setup of monitors still happens on the website; the free plan covers 50 monitors checked every 5 minutes.
79 / 100
Score
Shows Telegram IDs: forward any message or add the bot to a group to learn user, chat, channel and sticker IDs needed for bot development and API calls. Free, no ads.
DropMail's official bot: unlimited free disposable addresses with unlimited mailbox lifetime if you keep the chat open, forwarding, attachments and an API for automation — one of the more feature-rich temp-mail bots.
Returns the full raw JSON payload Telegram sends for any message, photo, sticker or event you forward to it — handy for developers building against the Bot API who need to see the exact field names and structure. Free, no ads.
Runs on-demand ping and HTTP checks for any host from a dozen locations worldwide, right inside the chat — no account needed. Free, English interface, useful for a quick 'is it just me' check on a site or server.
74 / 100
Score
The Telegram front-end for SMS-Activate, one of the largest and longest-running virtual-number marketplaces: buy a number in dozens of countries and receive the SMS code for hundreds of services, without giving up your real phone number.
72 / 100
Score
A long-running bot that subscribes to public GitHub repositories and posts new issues, pull requests, pushes and other events into a chat or channel, with the option to reply to issues from Telegram. Free, English interface, no repository access token required for public repos.
70 / 100
Score
A "programmable" calculator bot that understands full Python-style expressions plus the math, random, datetime, json and re modules — for anyone who wants more than basic arithmetic in a Telegram chat.
Sends a domain name and get an instant WHOIS lookup: registrar, hosting provider and ASN, without opening a web-based whois tool. Free, no ads, no sign-up.
69 / 100
Score
Tiger SMS in Telegram: virtual numbers for 200+ services across 260+ countries starting around 3 cents per activation, with a pay-only-if-it-arrives refund policy and even a shared free tier for less sensitive services.
68 / 100
Score
GrizzlySMS's official bot: buy a virtual number for WhatsApp, Telegram, Google and hundreds of other services with transparent, published per-country pricing, right inside Telegram.
67 / 100
Score
A niche but genuinely useful scanner for website owners — drop a .php or .js file and it checks against 500+ known malicious-code patterns, built by Revisium, a company known for cleaning hacked websites.
64 / 100
Score
Generates random passwords on request, useful for quickly getting a strong password without opening a separate generator site. Free, bilingual English/Spanish bio, no ads.
63 / 100
Score
Converts plain text into Telegram-flavoured Markdown formatting, with a feature aimed at preparing posts for channels. Handy for developers and channel owners who need Markdown-escaped text for the Bot API without doing it by hand.
61 / 100
Score
Pretty-prints and formats raw JSON you send it, useful for quickly reading a minified API response on the go. Free, no ads.
60 / 100
Score
Encodes and decodes Base64 text on request — a quick way to check what a Base64 string actually contains without opening a separate encoder site. Free, no ads.
60 / 100
Score
Generates a random UUID on request, saving a trip to a UUID generator website when you need one for a test record, a config key or a temporary identifier. Free, no ads.
56 / 100
Score
Comparison
| # | Bot | Price | Languages | Inline | Groups | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BotFather @BotFather | Free | EN | no | no | 93 |
| 2 | User Info Bot @userinfobot | Free | EN | no | yes | 84 |
| 3 | UptimeRobot @uptimerobot_bot | Freemium · 50 monitors, checked every 5 minutes | EN | no | yes | 79 |
| 4 | GetIDs Bot @GetIDsBot | Free | EN | no | yes | 78 |
| 5 | DropMail.me @DropMailBot | Free | MULTI | no | no | 77 |
| 6 | Telegram Bot Raw @RawDataBot | Free | EN | no | yes | 76 |
| 7 | Check-Host @checkhostbot | Free | EN | no | yes | 74 |
| 8 | SMS-Activate @smsActivateruBot | Paid | RU · EN | no | no | 72 |
| 9 | GitHub @GitHubBot | Free | EN | no | yes | 70 |
| 10 | Console Calculator @calcubot | Free | MULTI | no | yes | 70 |
Neighbouring subtopics
How we chose
We walked through a real workflow with every bot: register a test bot, find the IDs of a user, a group and a channel, inspect the update for a forwarded sticker and a poll, and set up a downtime alert for a test URL. We compared what each bot returns against the Bot API documentation, checked that ID bots work in groups and without adding them as admins, and noted advertising, rate limits and whether the bot is official or open source.
Developer tools
The bots every developer needs
BotFather is not optional: it is the only way to create a bot, get a token and configure commands, privacy mode, inline mode and the menu button. Next come ID bots. Telegram shows usernames, but the API works with numeric IDs; User Info Bot and GetIDs Bot return them for a forwarded message, and GetIDs also works for stickers and channels. Telegram Bot Raw goes one level deeper and returns the full update object, which saves reading the documentation when a field name is unclear.
Testing and monitoring
A bot that stops answering rarely tells you. UptimeRobot's official bot sends down and up alerts for any URL, including your webhook endpoint, with 50 monitors on the free plan checked every five minutes. For webhook debugging, a bot that echoes raw updates plus a request inspector on your side covers most cases. DropMail.me provides disposable email addresses with an API, useful for registration flows in tests.
Security habits
Never forward a message containing your bot token to another bot, even an ID bot; revoke a token in BotFather the moment it leaks. Third-party utility bots see every message you forward to them, so avoid forwarding private conversations. Prefer official bots and open-source projects for anything that touches tokens or user data.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find a user's numeric Telegram ID?
Forward any of their messages to User Info Bot or GetIDs Bot; the reply contains the ID, username and language code.
How do I get a channel or group ID?
Forward a post from the channel to GetIDs Bot, or add the bot to the group; supergroup and channel IDs start with -100.
Can I see the raw update JSON for a message?
Forward the message to Telegram Bot Raw (@RawDataBot); it returns the complete update object as the Bot API sends it.
Is it safe to use third-party ID bots?
For public data yes; they see only what you forward. Never forward messages with tokens, passwords or private conversations.