We all love open-source software, but there are so many amazing projects out there that often go unnoticed. Let’s change that! Share your favorite open-source software that you think more people should know about. Here’s how you can contribute:
- Single Option Per Comment: Mention one open-source software per comment to be able to easily find the most popular software.
- No Duplicates: Avoid duplicating software that has already been mentioned to ensure a wide variety of options.
- Upvote What You Love: If you see a software that you also appreciate, upvote it to help others discover it more easily.
Check out last year’s post for more inspiration: Last Year’s Post
Let’s create a comprehensive list of open-source software that everyone should know about!
tag studio It’s a file manager designed to use tags instead of files because tags are a much better system. It’s still in alpha and I haven’t actually tested it yet but I plan to use it instead of regular file managers once it becomes stable and well supported.
tmux: A terminal multiplexer that enables managing multiple terminal sessions within a single window, allowing detaching and reattaching sessions to keep programs running in the background.
zellij: A modern terminal workspace and multiplexer focused on usability and extensibility, featuring configurable layouts and plugin support.
LibRedirect is an open-source browser extension for Firefox and Microsoft Edge that automatically redirects popular online services like YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, and others to privacy-friendly alternative websites, enhancing user privacy by avoiding trackers and data collection on the original platforms.
I have it setup for IMDB as well.
Shattered pixel dungeon. Open source dungeob crawler roguelike. Extremely fun.
Inkscape - the best vector graphics program out there. So easy to use, and so powerful.
Tenacity - a pre-enshitification fork of Audacity. An audio recorder and editor that does multi-track recording, effects and much more in a really simple UI.
isn’t this dead?
personally i quite like the ui improvements of audacity, and since the telemetry is opt-in on first launch i don’t really have any other problems with it either.
PairDrop like Localsend or Airdrop but working on anything that has an internet connection and a resonably new web Browser! You can share files even when on different networks, by pairing devices. Works like a charm.
PieFed: a link aggregator and forum platform built for the Fediverse, focusing on individual control, safety, decentralized power, and healthy community interactions, with features like reputation indicators and keyword filters to enhance user experience.
Nicotine+: A lightweight, free, and open-source graphical client for the Soulseek peer-to-peer file-sharing network.
alternativeto.net is great for finding these
SherpaOnnx TTS for Android. There are many different voices to pick from that sound very life like and are totally worth using with GPS apps like CoMaps.
Also, just found out about Medicat recently but haven’t used it yet. It looks fantastic though: Medicat is a toolkit that helps compile a selection of the latest computer diagnostic and recovery tools into an easy to use toolkit.
Ventoy is a software you put on a USB stick to make it so you can load as many bootable ISOs as you want on it at the same time and still use the leftover space for normal file storage.
Firefox - the original private webbrowser. Even though some people don’t like the options in it (like those that let you stream Netflix and other DRM content). If people care about privacy, they use this browser, or one that is made from it…
I recently found out after creating Linux, Linus Torvalds wanted to make a good open source scuba dive log software. Today, it’s probably one of the best, if not the best dive log programs out there and I recently used this myself on a recent dive and it’s great.
OliveTin, gives you a clean web UI for pre-defined shell scripts, with a dynamically reloadable YAML configuration.
There are a ton of things you could use it for, but I use it for container and system updates. A pre-processor runs on a schedule and collects a list of all containers and systems on my network that have available updates, and generates the OliveTin YAML config with a button for each. Loading up the OliveTin webUI in a browser and clicking the corresponding button installs the update and cycles the container or reboots the host as needed. It makes it trivially easy to see which systems need updating at a glance, and to apply those updates from any machine on my network with a web browser, including my phone or tablet.
