Tommaso Bertocchi

Posted on Aug 20

10 Open-Source Projects You’ll Actually Use in 2025

#webdev #showdev #opensource #programming

TL;DR: A hand‑picked set of useful open‑source projects—focused on privacy, developer ergonomics, and things you can deploy or try in <30 minutes. Each section includes a one‑liner, links, a screenshot/OpenGraph card, and a quickstart snippet.

Shipping another OSS win 🍾

1) pompelmi — File upload security for Node.js
2) Coolify — Self-hosted PaaS
3) Documenso — Open e‑signatures
4) paperless-ngx — Paperless office
5) Vikunja — To‑do & Kanban
6) SearXNG — Private meta‑search
7) Atuin — Smart shell history
8) Hurl — HTTP tests in plain text
9) Gatus — Uptime & status page
10) Meilisearch — Instant search engine

1) pompelmi — File upload security for Node.js

What it is: A drop‑in scanner that protects file uploads in Node.js from malware/RFI, with ZIP traversal hardening and heuristic checks for risky formats.

Links: GitHub · Docs

Quickstart (Express):

pnpm add pompelmi express multer
# or: npm i pompelmi express multer

// server.js
import express from "express";
import multer from "multer";
import { createScanner, CommonHeuristicsScanner, zipGuard } from "pompelmi";

const app = express();
const upload = multer({ storage: multer.memoryStorage() });

const scanner = createScanner([
  ["zipGuard", zipGuard],
  ["heuristics", CommonHeuristicsScanner],
]);

app.post("/upload", upload.single("file"), async (req, res) => {
  const result = await scanner.scanBuffer(req.file.buffer, { filename: req.file.originalname });
  if (result.status === "malicious" || result.status === "suspicious") {
    return res.status(400).json({ ok: false, reason: result.reason, tags: result.tags });
  }
  res.json({ ok: true });
});

app.listen(3000, () => console.log("Listening on http://localhost:3000"));

2) Coolify — Self-hosted PaaS

What it is: A Heroku/Vercel‑like platform you run on your own VPS, managing apps, DBs, jobs, SSL, and more via a clean dashboard.

Links: GitHub · Docs

Quickstart (Docker):

curl -fsSL https://cdn.coollabs.io/coolify/install.sh | bash

Tip: Use a small VPS with Docker preinstalled. Coolify can manage Postgres/Redis and deploy from your GitHub repos.

3) Documenso — Open e‑signatures

What it is: A modern, open-source alternative to DocuSign. Self‑hostable with teams, templates, and API.

Links: GitHub · Website

Quickstart (Docker Compose):

version: "3"
services:
  documenso:
    image: ghcr.io/documenso/documenso:latest
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    env_file: .env
    depends_on:
      - db
  db:
    image: postgres:15
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: documenso
      POSTGRES_DB: documenso

4) paperless-ngx — Paperless office

What it is: Turn your scans and PDFs into a searchable archive with OCR, auto‑tagging, and a slick UI.

Links: GitHub · Docs

Quickstart (Docker Compose):

services:
  paperless:
    image: ghcr.io/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx:latest
    ports:
      - "8000:8000"
    volumes:
      - ./data:/usr/src/paperless/data
      - ./media:/usr/src/paperless/media
      - ./consume:/usr/src/paperless/consume

5) Vikunja — To‑do & Kanban

What it is: A lightweight task manager with lists, projects, Kanban view, reminders, and clients for web/desktop/mobile.

Links: GitHub · Website

Quickstart (Docker Compose):

services:
  api:
    image: vikunja/api
    environment:
      VIKUNJA_DATABASE_HOST: db
    ports:
      - "3456:3456"
  frontend:
    image: vikunja/frontend
    ports:
      - "80:80"
  db:
    image: mariadb
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: vikunja

6) SearXNG — Private meta‑search

What it is: A privacy‑first metasearch engine that aggregates results from many sources without tracking.

Links: GitHub · Docs

Quickstart (Docker Compose):

services:
  searxng:
    image: searxng/searxng:latest
    environment:
      - BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080/
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"

7) Atuin — Smart shell history

What it is: Replaces your shell history with a SQLite‑backed, searchable, syncable store with great filters.

Links: GitHub · Website

Quickstart:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/atuinsh/atuin/main/install.sh | bash
atuin import auto  # import existing history
atuin sync start   # optional encrypted sync

8) Hurl — HTTP tests in plain text

What it is: A fast CLI to run & test HTTP requests with assertions—using a readable format that’s easy to review.

Links: GitHub · Docs

Tiny demo:

# demo.hurl
GET https://httpbin.org/json
HTTP/1.1 200
[Asserts]
jsonpath "$..slideshow.title" == "Sample Slide Show"

hurl demo.hurl

9) Gatus — Uptime & status page

What it is: Config‑driven uptime monitoring with expressive conditions, nice graphs, and alerting integrations.

Links: GitHub · Docs

Quickstart (Docker Compose):

services:
  gatus:
    image: twinproduction/gatus:latest
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    volumes:
      - ./config:/config

Minimal config:

# ./config/config.yaml
endpoints:
  - name: Homepage
    url: "https://example.com"
    conditions:
      - "[STATUS] == 200"
      - "[RESPONSE_TIME] < 1000"

10) Meilisearch — Instant search engine

What it is: A blazing‑fast, typo‑tolerant search engine with a dead‑simple REST API and great SDKs.

Links: GitHub · Docs

Quickstart:

docker run -it --rm -p 7700:7700 -e MEILI_MASTER_KEY=devkey getmeili/meilisearch:latest

Index something:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer devkey" \
     -X POST "http://localhost:7700/indexes/movies/documents" \
     --data '[{"id":1,"title":"Inception"},{"id":2,"title":"Interstellar"}]'

Query:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer devkey" \
     "http://localhost:7700/indexes/movies/search" \
     --data '{"q":"interst"}'

Bonus: Copy‑paste “launch checklist”

□ Use Docker Compose where possible (one dir per app)
□ Put app URL behind a reverse proxy (Caddy/Nginx/Traefik) with HTTPS
□ Configure backups (volumes + offsite snapshot)
□ Add health checks/alerts (Gatus)
□ Keep .env secrets out of git