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Show HN: Open-source alternatives to tools You pay for
hey makers,
I've spent the whole night to compile this list out of
> winners of Product Hunt
> best dev tools on DevHunt
> recently active on GitHub
> most internet backlinks
> most mentions as "alternative to .."
Let me know if I should add anything there.
- blueferret 3y agoImpressive work here! Layout's nice & responsive. Now and then I like looking for alternatives to the apps I use...see if someone's built something better. Happy to add another resource when I do it. Only thing I'd request to add would be tools for documentation. You have Docusaurus already, but more options exist. I'm sure I could rustle up an idea or two if needed.
- smeej 3y agoIt's not really clear to me how to use this. There are a lot of categories, but not any rhyme or reason to them that I can see. Some are languages. Others are platforms or use cases? Maybe consider having these under "filter by" multi-select drop-down menus instead of just all listed out?
- squeaky-clean 3y agoYeah I clicked C# expecting it to be about alternative software to use in a C# tool chain. But it's actually all just software that is written in C#. That would be useful if I were looking for C# projects to contribute to, but I'm not, and that doesn't seem to be the intention of the website.
- johnrushx 3y agoto be honest, categories are really difficult to get right. try the "alternatives", it's better. But I will improve categories, I'm working on it
- steanne 3y ago> Open-source alternatives to tools you pay for this seems like an odd choice of phrasing. those two things are not orthagonal.
- drekipus 3y agoThis, I'm kinda struggling with it. Open source doesn't mean slavery for free. We should look to encourage money for open source
- xigoi 3y agoI think you meant to say they are orthogonal (that is, they aren’t mutually exclusive).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- steanne 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonality?useskin=vector#Taxonomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonality?useskin=vector#T...
- skwashd 3y agoDuring a quick scan of the catalog I found a few issues. Sentry isn't open source, even after their most recent license change. The Business Source License and variants are source available, not open source. FireCMS is built on top of Firebase, rather than being an alternative to it. It's a similar story with the Jira CLI. They're open source, but they're useless without the backend to talk to. Plausible Analytics and Papermark are both listed twice. Rustdesk is also listed twice, once as Rustdeck. The GIMP isn't listed under photoshop. This was a surprise omission. Many of these projects have commercial backers who offer a paid SaaS offering. Given this is the case I'm not sure linking to SaaS product site when claiming your site offers "Open-source alternatives to tools You pay for" is the expected behaviour. I was expecting it to link to the open source code.
- cqqxo4zV46cp 3y agoI’d bet a fair bit on most realistic users of this website benefiting from Sentry’s inclusion, rather than being hindered by it. I suppose that maybe this website could be re-labelled ‘source-available’ to appease purists that actually care about this. But practically everyone won’t be affected by the fact that Sentry’s license prohibits creating a direct competitor to Sentry’s hosted service, certainly the intended audience.
- toenail 3y ago> I suppose that maybe this website could be re-labelled ‘source-available’ to appease purists that actually care about this. Huh, maybe? Words have meaning. It's not about "appeasing purists", it's about not spreading misinformation.
- creesch 3y agoBit of a tone deaf response to be honest. Not to mention that you are only responding to a very specific bit of the feedback.
- SparkyMcUnicorn 3y ago> The GIMP isn't listed under photoshop. This was a surprise omission. Photopea is listed and is not open source. To my knowledge it's not even source available.
- tbm57 3y agoI think compiling lists of open source tools is always a nice idea, but there's some parts of this site that are a little confusing for me. What would be the open source alternative for PHP, for example, which is already open source? In general, I think it's rare that someone would be looking for an open source alternative for any programming language I think the list of tools is valuable, it's just that it's in need of a different organization here
- johnrushx 3y agoI open the access for comments https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j-u4bW_lIQzTPFt-rElsramQh5pvsqF-4_zYuAVhqZk/ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j-u4bW_lIQzTPFt-rEls... happy to get your input
- yewenjie 3y agoTypescript is not open source and something you pay for? And Joplin is an alternative? Someone really knowledgeable should review and editorialize the options.
- nothrowaways 3y agoHow's memgraph alternative to tailwind
- johnrushx 3y agofixed
- donatj 3y agoDrone is listed under CI. Drone hasn’t been truly “open source” in years. There’s an extremely limited open source core you have to compile yourself to use. Otherwise you have source-available highly restricted code.
- the_common_man 3y agoWoodpecker is great
- donatj 3y agoI started... Pecking at it... Before my company decreed we all move to GitHib Actions due to some deal they got
- pitah1 3y agoI also had a similar idea when I built tech-diff (https://tech-diff.com/ https://tech-diff.com/) but rather than being just a catalog of items, it shows what the feature differences are. This is what I would argue is more important when investigating alternatives. But, this comes at the cost of the data being harder to obtain as it is usually deep within documentation or code. Maybe we can reach a feature specification of technologies sometime in the future.
- bruce511 3y agoThe problem with comparing two software programs is that it's less "feature check list" and more "everything subjective". For example, say you compare a Ferrari to a Toyota. They overlap in pretty much all features. (Steering wheel, gets you from A to B, and so on.) But of course you don't choose between a ferrari and a Toyota based on a feature list. So "here a list of cars for those who can't afford a ferrari" would be somewhat useless. Its easy to compare say Windows to Linux from a featurelist point if view. It's much harder to quantify the non tangibles. So sure, a list that says "x for those using y" is a useful starting point. But it's very much the tip of the iceberg. Expect to do a LOT of research, and a lot of time experimenting before you can determine if "x can replace y for my situation." But the list is a start...
- adr1an 3y agoI fully second this sentiment, but seems more like a dream... And to make the matters far more difficult, there are updates that add new features! Also, some apps claim to do something but only provide a half-working solution. Ultimately, sometimes it all boils down to install (ideally, using distrobox) and try yourself some of the top candidates. And repeat with some frequency that correlate to how important such software piece is to you...
- johnrushx 3y agogood idea, I actually have one idea on how to implement this (using AI and the docs)
- cognomano 3y agoWould be useful to be able to filter by multiple concepts: Charts and Javascript.
- johnrushx 3y agogood idea. my main concern is that UX gets broken then. Because users forget and click another tag expecting it to switch, and suddenly see no results at all. i will think of a good UX solution for this
- asymmetric 3y agoThe last S in OSS already stands for software.
- zenapollo 3y agoClassic RAS syndrome
- smcnally 3y ago“RAS syndrome” is a good PIN number.
- moron4hire 3y agoMaybe I can use it for my CAC card access.
- johnrushx 3y ago.com was not for sale
- jenoer 3y agoAtom is 6th in the (default filter) list but it is no longer maintained since 1 year (minus six days). Not sure if this should be listed as a viable alternative option.
- herbst 3y agoI'd pay for atom whatever they want, vscode is a horrible alternative.
- globular-toast 3y agoThe real alternative (and what all these editors are based on) is Emacs. Take the plunge. You won't regret it.
- vitiral 3y agoOr if you do regret it, try Vim :) Both great tools
- globular-toast 3y agoThe only vim implementation I would use now is evil-mode for Emacs. You should try it too.
- vitiral 3y agoOh I have! Was very very nice. Got into lisp a bit, then gave it all up when something in the tower of babel broke in a subtle way and I realized I didn't need all the complexity. Was super fun though. The experience is probably part of the reason I'm writing my own editor (in Lua).
- h4ch1 3y agoCould you list your gripes with VSCode vs Atom?
- globular-toast 3y ago
- osener 3y agoLooks like it is full of VC funded “open” SaaS/tools that are often very hard to self host and the company doesn’t respond to contributions. Such lists should focus on projects with more open governance and that have open source in their culture instead of just license of some of their modules IMO.
- goodpoint 3y agoI think you are looking for Free Software.
- intelVISA 3y agoThose VC funded "open" SaaS tools are the ultimate grift.
- johnrushx 3y agoI don't disagree. Can you list better tools? I've descrived the process of picking the tools. If you know a better one, pls tell me
- ezekg 3y ago"It sucks that open source isn't funded! Maintainers need to be compensated for their hard work!" "No, not like that!"
- xigoi 3y agoMost of the software in the “ChatGPT” category is just wrappers around proprietary services.
- johnrushx 3y agowhat would you put there? btw, you can add comments to the google doc which serves as db https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j-u4bW_lIQzTPFt-rElsramQh5pvsqF-4_zYuAVhqZk/ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j-u4bW_lIQzTPFt-rEls...
- Dx5IQ 3y agoAre the stars on the website just made up? I also find the phrasing rather odd. The open source movement is about "free as in speech, not beer". Maybe it's meant to list "free alternatives" which is completely valid thing to do.
- bregma 3y agoThe Free Software movement is about "free as in speech, not as in beer" and control by the end user. The Open Source Software movement is about value leveraging in the marketplace for the profit of the vendor or distributor. This list is about stuff you can get without paying for it ("free as in beer").
- BaudouinVH 3y agoWas something wrong with https://free-for.dev https://free-for.dev ?
- tarellel 3y agoIMO it looks like a lot of the tools listed under free-for are SaSS products with free demos or free limited accounts. Rather than full on OpenSource Alternatives. An example of this is under issue tracking basecamp is listed. Or under CMS there’s DatoCMS.
- johnrushx 3y agoI go for quality vs quantity
- JonChesterfield 3y agoOpen source software software doesn't list open source software, so that's a bit weird. Semi-unrelated, it's curious how many projects listed in the sibling comments used to be open source and now aren't. Almost like people are routinely using open source to establish market share then changing to proprietary to try to exploit said market share.
- johnrushx 3y agounfortunately many use OSS as a marketing trick. If you see any tool from the list that's not OSS anymore, let me know
- zakokor 3y agoAdd Keycloak in Authentication category
- KomoD 3y agoThe list has duplicates, like Plausible is in there twice.
- johnrushx 3y agogonna fix
- fullstackchris 3y agovisual studio is open source: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode https://github.com/microsoft/vscode i remember using their monaco editor as well (https://github.com/microsoft/monaco-editor https://github.com/microsoft/monaco-editor), a really powerful editor & the very same used by VS Code (i think you can even get at the AST for TypeScript, for example, in the browser if you poke around deep enough) crazy cool stuff, and most definitely OSS!!!
- tmtvl 3y agoVisual Studio /= VS Code, VSC may be (partially?) OSS, but I don't think VS is.
- johnrushx 3y agoyeah btw I open the access to comments in the db https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j-u4bW_lIQzTPFt-rElsramQh5pvsqF-4_zYuAVhqZk/ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j-u4bW_lIQzTPFt-rEls...
- m3nu 3y agoOpen source also needs a business model to be sustainable. So I'm not a fan of doing price comparisons with some similar commercial SaaS. Competing on control, transparency, community, flexibility and support will be better long-term. At least that's my vision for http://pikapods.com http://pikapods.com, which allows for convenient FOSS hosting, while sharing revenue with the original project and avoiding any lock-in.
- axelthegerman 3y agoGreat project! Unfortunately pikapods itself doesn't seem to be open source? I'd love to be able to throw it on my own VPS but appreciate the hosted option as well - very smooth experience when I tried it
- JCharante 3y agoAtom is on this list... You might not want to include discontinued projects on this sleep
- SergeAx 3y agoThis is a fantastic project. Thank you for your effort! From the comments here, I see one of the ways to improve it: currently, new projects are supposed to be added by their authors. Please consider allowing more community input on the next iteration: the ability to add projects, propose changes, etc. The greatness of FOSS lies in its community. I myself can recommend Outline[1] as an excellent self-hosted alternative to Notion and BaseRow as an alternative to AirTable.
- johnrushx 3y agoyeah I open the access for comments so people can add comments right in the doc https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j-u4bW_lIQzTPFt-rElsramQh5pvsqF-4_zYuAVhqZk/ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j-u4bW_lIQzTPFt-rEls...
- constantinum 3y agoMy search for finding alternatives in open-source ended with https://www.pikapods.com/ https://www.pikapods.com/ Their present list of supported OS softwares will solve for all use cases
- 28304283409234 3y agoI use open source tools I pay for. Now what?
- SergeAx 3y agoAlso, and IMO, it is more important; please do not rely on GitHub as a single source for FOSS projects. Lots of makers prefer to host their own code, lots migrated from GitHub to GitLab and other alternatives after the Microsoft deal.
- johnrushx 3y agogood point I will look at gitlab and other OSS hostings
- vincent-manis 3y agoNice start, but needs a fair bit of work...I immediately thought of ten or so editors that are FLOSS, are widely used, but were not listed, including Emacs, Geany, Kate, and Nano. The Editor category also seems to merge text, diagramming, audio, and video editing. The C++ category includes RustDesk, about which I know nothing, but whose name suggests it's about some other language. It also includes OBStudio, which appears to be a live-streaming tool. So, mighty fine start, and the site looks great, but you'll need to rework your categories, and add a fair number of additional packages to make it useful. One suggestion: merely because a program is written in a programming language, that doesn't mean it should be listed in that language category. For example, Zulip is a team chat system; it may well be written in Java, but, unless it has specific features for Java development, that's not a sufficient reason for listing it in the Java category.
- johnrushx 3y agoFriends, you can add your comments directly in the db (google sheet) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j-u4bW_lIQzTPFt-rElsramQh5pvsqF-4_zYuAVhqZk/ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j-u4bW_lIQzTPFt-rEls... basically I open sourced the db of the project so we can build it together https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j-u4bW_lIQzTPFt-rElsramQh5pvsqF-4_zYuAVhqZk/ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j-u4bW_lIQzTPFt-rEls...
- your_friend 3y agoIt was great to look through. I think a cool lens for this dataset would be the date of repository creation. I’m particularly interested in tools that emerged during last year for example. Since there are many of the very old monsters in the list.
- captaincrisp 3y agoAs a Neovim afficionado - I think you lose some credibility recommending it as an alternative to VSCode and Sublime. They're different beasts. I imagine a lot of people would be immediately turned off if they were expecting a VSCode/Sublime-like editing experience. I'd put Lapce in that spot: https://lapce.dev/ https://lapce.dev/