There are a lot of great products and proprietary software out there. Chances are, there are also open source alternatives.
Do you use any open source alternatives? Do you have favorite alternatives?
Share your open source discoveries and what drew you to them in the comments below!
Top comments (31)
Dub is an open-source alternative to Bitly, with built-in analytics, free custom domains, and a strong feature set. Recommend 10/10.
S/O to its maker @steventey
We use dub! It's been great.
nextCloud as an alternative to any cloud storage solution - at least for the documents part. It has a web front end with a WYSIWYG markdown editor, and sync apps for mobile. Can do public share links as well, and multi-user to host say your friends and family.
It also has a bunch of other features like calendar, official and community plugins, and stuff I don't make use of myself, and I think they also added word processing and spreadsheets (originally via OnlyOffice, but now I think they have a native solution?)
Pretty much that, and Bitwarden for password management (if you want to host without C# runtimes, use the Rust implementation Vaultwarden as a back-end, with regular Bitwarden clients).
I also used to host an Etherpad instance for collaborative text editing, though it kind of fell apart ...
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I love using LibreOffice as an open source alternative to proprietary office suites. It's feature-rich, compatible with various document formats, and fosters collaboration. The community-driven development and commitment to open Download Slide Share standards make it my go-to choice. What's your favorite open source alternative? Share your discoveries
May I just mention Linux? 🐧
I mean, I can mention all the kinds of programming languages and development tools which I like, but I think let's just start off with the operating system and the how of a foundation in the open source world it has always actually been.
Alright, together with Git, which is actually just as important.
i mean, is there a better answer?
I love Joplin for note-taking (Evernote/Notion/Obisidian alternative). Open Source, cross-platform, uses Markdown under the covers, lots of plugins, all good.
I just learned about Joplin yesterday!
I should really do a write-up of my plugins / setup / workflow. It's an app that makes me happy.
You definitely should!
Affine is an alternative to Notion.
Its Electron client is open source. The backend is only source available though.
GIMP is an open-source alternative to Adobe Photoshop, which is a powerful and versatile image editing software. GIMP can perform various tasks, such as photo retouching, image manipulation, graphic design, and digital painting. GIMP is free and available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
I go with Calcom instead of Calendly. One of the things they have an advantage in it is that they have more features and support other languages like Arabic!
RainLoop with SMTP and IMAP configured, instead of GMail's own interface. I actually have my own email server set up using Postfix with RainLoop as the PWA, but I think using RainLoop with GMail's mail servers is a good start.