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!
Syncthing: Continuous, private, and encrypted file synchronization across multiple devices without using the cloud.
Absolutely LOVE syncthing. I recently had to go on an emergency trip and was glad I set up syncthing on my phone but hated that I didn’t set it up properly on my laptop.
Does it backup photos on iOS yet?
I’d love to use this but I just mostly don’t use multiple devices at the same time, so I don’t see how the sync would ever happen.
I’m in the same boat, so I had set up Syncthing more like centralised service - installed one instance on my home server, and made every other device sync only with it. Files propagates without issues.
KDE Connect: An app for iOS, android, pretty much every flavor of linux, windows, etc. that lets you connect any devices together to share files, show notifications of other devices, use your phone as an input device(keyboard, mouse), control multimedia applications(start, play, stop, etc.), trigger commands, and everything else if you make a plugin for it.
The craziest thing I discovered when I started using it was when I noticed that because my desktop was now connected to my phone and my phone was connected to my watch, I could completely control the media on both from my watch and the integration felt natural - but also something I haven’t seen work that well in the proprietary world.
For me it was, that the video i was watching paused when i got a call and repeated the moment i hung up. FUTURE (or apple ecosystem, i suppose.)
KeePassXC: A modern, secure, open-source password manager that stores and manages sensitive information offline.
Zotero: a free and open-source reference management software to manage bibliographic data and related research materials, such as PDF and ePUB files.
I use this for archiving news and magazine articles as well (with snapshots), sorted on topic so that I 1) might be able to remember where I read something and easily find an article again if I discuss it with someone and 2) have a good starting point for researching something I don’t have time for or the will for now.
I have set up the file sync on a self-hosted WebDAV server as well as it quickly racks up storage space with all those snapshots and you fairly quickly reach the top tier storage plan they offer.
Zotero 7 brought some good UI improvements, but it is really resource heavy (at least on Linux). A CLI-interface as was mentioned under here would be interesting.
LocalSend should be called God Send because it’ll save your life. It’s AirDrop, but for everything and open source. Works really well, no setup, no server.
Local send has worked really poorly for me, and so has every program similar to it open source or not. The only network file sharing program that has always worked (mostly) floorlessly for me is AirDrop.
I love LocalSend, the only downside is that both devices must be on the same network. So it won’t work for sending a file to someone else at a bar.
What if they connect to your hotspot?
That works but requires that you hand over a key for the hot-spot which makes it significantly more cumbersome, especially compared to airdrop
Unfortunately, its not reliable. For large media files it gets stuck. Also, sometimes the local server is not discoverable on the other end. Even though I tried the troubleshooting step.
I had tested with windows and android so it could be different on Linux.
Forgejo: A self-hosted, lightweight software forge offering Git repository hosting with an easy-to-install, low-maintenance platform focused on collaboration, federation, and privacy.
librewolf a privacy-focused fork of the latest stable firefox (win,linux,mac)
Bookwyrm, a book tracker and review sharing plateform that is part of the fediverse allowing you to share your notes and review about books in the threadiverse as well as the twittoverse.
This is not open source software, it’s licenced under the Anti Capitalist Software Licence.
I still appreciate it in this list, but the caveat is important
TIL about the ACS Licence. Thanks.
I thought that if the source code was available on github, it would count as open-source whatevery the licence, my bad.
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…
Typst: A modern typesetting system designed for easy document creation with markup inspired by Markdown but more powerful and programmable.
And it compiles crazy fast to pdf!
Newpipe, an YouTube client, which is:
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ad free
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lightweight
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useful, it allows downloading videos, music, and playing them when screen is locked
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usable without account
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multi-platform, it can also serve as client for the PeerTube, Bandcamp, SoundCloud
Also shoutout to Tubular which is the same thing, but with SponsorBlock for youtube
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Shattered pixel dungeon. Open source dungeob crawler roguelike. Extremely fun.
I could not believe I didn’t find this fun free gem sooner. I’ll let the description from F-Droid explain the details:
This is a roguelike twist on the original Breakout formula: The goal is to catch as many coins as possible during 7 levels. Coins appear when you break bricks. They fly around, bounce and roll, and you need to catch them with your paddle. At the end of the level, you get to pick upgrades. There are 50+ different upgrades that impact the gameplay in various ways. Many upgrades will impact your combo, that’s the number of coins spawned for each brick broken. Your “combo” is displayed on your paddle. Your score is displayed in the top right corner of the screen. Oh, and don’t miss the ball, you don’t have extra lives.
eldood: lightweight tool to find dates where everyone is free.
FindMyDevice, a find my server with channels through sms, a self hostable server, notifications. This is one of my favorite android utilities.
