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17 Open Source Alternatives to Your Favorite Software and Apps πŸ”₯πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’»

In the dynamic world of software and applications, many users are discovering the power and flexibility of open-source alternatives.

Whether you're looking to cut costs, avoid vendor lock-in, or explore new tools, open-source options offer customizable solutions that rival their proprietary counterparts.

In this article, we'll explore 17 powerful open-source tools that can effectively replace some of the most commonly used software and apps.

From diagramming and design platforms to API development and workflow automation, these alternatives are designed to enhance your productivity and workflow.

Each tool will include a direct link, category, description, top features, preview images, and links to the code and website for the initial impression.


1. Drawio

Category: Diagrams

Open Source Alternative to: LucidChart

Drawio is a free, open-source diagramming tool used for creating flowcharts, network diagrams, and other visuals.

It enhances productivity by offering an intuitive interface and seamless integration with commonly used platforms like Google Drive and GitHub.

Reasons to choose:

  • Free to use with no subscription costs.

  • Can be used offline, unlike many cloud-based diagramming tools.

  • Integrates seamlessly with popular platforms.

  • Open-source, allowing access to code and improve it.

  • User-friendly interface suitable for both beginners and professionals.

Drawio

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: https://github.com/jgraph/drawio

⭐ Github stars: 40.3K

πŸ’» Website link: https://app.diagrams.net/

2. Penpot

Category: Design

Open Source Alternative to: Figma

Penpot is an open-source design and prototyping platform for cross-domain teams.

It streamlines design workflows by enabling real-time collaboration and flexible design systems.

Reasons to choose:

  • Open-source with no vendor lock-in.

  • Supports real-time collaboration across teams.

  • Cross-platform compatibility, working in any web browser.

  • Flexible design systems for better team collaboration.

  • Great community support and continuous updates.

Penpot

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: https://github.com/penpot/penpot

⭐ Github stars: 31.8K

πŸ’» Website link: https://penpot.app/

3. Hoppscotch

Category: API Development

Open Source Alternative to: Postman

Hoppscotch is a lightweight and fast open-source API development tool.

It boosts productivity with its user-friendly interface for testing APIs without the need for complex setups.

Reasons to choose:

  • Lightweight and faster than most API testing tools.

  • Open-source with active community contributions.

  • Supports a wide range of API types, including REST, GraphQL, and WebSocket.

  • No installation required; runs in the browser.

  • Simple and intuitive user interface.

Hoppscotch

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: https://github.com/hoppscotch/hoppscotch

⭐ Github stars: 63.4K

πŸ’» Website link: https://hoppscotch.io/

4. Supertokens

Category: Authentication

Open Source Alternative to: Okta, Auth0

Supertokens is an open-source authentication solution designed to secure web and mobile applications.

It simplifies user authentication and session management, enhancing both security and productivity.

Reasons to choose:

  • Easy integration with popular front-end frameworks.

  • Granular session management with strong security features.

  • Support for multi-factor authentication.

  • Customizable authentication workflows.

  • Scalable architecture suitable for large applications.

Supertokens

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: https://github.com/supertokens/supertokens-core

⭐ Github stars: 12.5K

πŸ’» Website link: https://supertokens.com/

5. n8n

Category: Workflow Automation

Open Source Alternative to: Zapier, Make

n8n is an open-source workflow automation tool that connects different apps and services.

It enhances productivity by automating repetitive tasks and integrating with a wide range of platforms.

Reasons to choose:

  • Visual workflow editor with drag-and-drop functionality.

  • Pre-built integrations with various services.

  • Powerful conditional logic and branching in workflows.

  • Ability to self-host, ensuring full data privacy and control.

  • Highly customizable with custom nodes and scripts.

n8n

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n

⭐ Github stars: 44K

πŸ’» Website link: https://n8n.io/

6. umami

Category: Web Analytics

Open Source Alternative to: Google Analytics

umami is an open-source web analytics solution that respects user privacy.

It provides detailed insights into website performance without compromising on data privacy.

Reasons to choose:

  • Lightweight and fast, reducing website load times.

  • Simple, clean interface for easy navigation and data interpretation.

  • Real-time data tracking and reporting.

  • All data is anonymized, and no personal information is ever collected.

  • Customizable dashboard and tracking capabilities.

umami

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: https://github.com/umami-software/umami

⭐ Github stars: 21.1K

πŸ’» Website link: https://umami.is/

7. Seafile

Category: File Hosting

Open Source Alternative to: Google Drive

Seafile is an open-source file hosting and synchronization platform.

It improves productivity by enabling secure file sharing and collaboration within teams.

Reasons to choose:

  • High-speed file synchronization with delta file transfer.

  • Built-in file encryption for secure storage.

  • Supports advanced permissions and role management.

  • Flexible deployment options, including cross-platform support.

  • Integrated wiki and document collaboration features.

Seafile

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: https://github.com/haiwen/seafile

⭐ Github stars: 12K

πŸ’» Website link: https://www.seafile.com/

8. ceph

Category: Storage

Open Source Alternative to: Amazon S3

ceph is an open-source distributed storage system that provides object, block, and file storage.

It supports massive scalability and high availability, making it ideal for cloud environments.

Reasons to choose:

  • Highly scalable, supporting petabytes of data across thousands of nodes.

  • Provides unified storage for object, block, and file systems.

  • Self-healing capabilities to ensure data integrity.

  • Efficient use of resources with erasure coding and data compression.

  • Supports multi-site replication and disaster recovery.

ceph

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: https://github.com/ceph/ceph

⭐ Github stars: 13.7K

πŸ’» Website link: https://ceph.io/

9. ShareX

Category: Screen Capture

Open Source Alternative to: Lightshot

ShareX is a free and open-source tool for screen capture and file sharing.

It enhances productivity with powerful screenshot, GIF creation, and file upload capabilities.

Reasons to choose:

  • Extensive capture modes, including region captures.

  • Built-in image editor with advanced annotation tools.

  • Supports automated workflows for post-capture processing.

  • Quick upload to a wide range of file hosting services.

  • Customizable keyboard shortcuts for efficient usage.

ShareX

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: https://github.com/ShareX/ShareX

⭐ Github stars: 28.9K

πŸ’» Website link: https://getsharex.com/

10. Strapi

Category: Headless CMS

Open Source Alternative to: Contentful

Strapi is an open-source headless CMS for managing content in any digital experience.

It streamlines content creation and management with a highly customizable admin panel.

Reasons to choose:

  • Fully customizable API with flexible content structures.

  • User-friendly admin panel for content management.

  • Supports RESTful and GraphQL APIs out-of-the-box.

  • Role-based access control with advanced permissions.

  • Extensible with plugins to add new features and functionalities.

Strapi

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: https://github.com/strapi/strapi

⭐ Github stars: 62.4K

πŸ’» Website link: https://strapi.io/

11. Rocket.Chat

Category: Communication

Open Source Alternative to: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord

Rocket.Chat is an open-source communication platform for team collaboration.

It boosts productivity by enabling real-time messaging, video calls, and file sharing.

Reasons to choose:

  • Highly customizable user interface and features.

  • Supports a wide range of communication methods, including messaging, voice, and video.

  • Strong security features, including end-to-end encryption.

  • Integrates well with third-party apps and services.

  • Scalable for organizations of all sizes.

Rocket.Chat

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat

⭐ Github stars: 39.8K

πŸ’» Website link: https://rocket.chat/

12. Discourse

Category: Community

Open Source Alternative to: Tribe, Circle

Discourse is an open-source discussion platform that powers online communities.

It enhances community engagement with features like threaded discussions, notifications, and moderation tools.

Reasons to choose:

  • Threaded conversations for clear and organized discussions.

  • Strong moderation tools with automated spam filtering.

  • Real-time notifications and engagement features.

  • Easy-to-use interface that adapts well to mobile devices.

  • Plugin architecture for expanding functionalities.

Discourse

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: https://github.com/discourse/discourse

⭐ Github stars: 41.5K

πŸ’» Website link: https://www.discourse.org/

13. Peppermint

Category: Support

Open Source Alternative to: Zendesk

Peppermint is an open-source support ticketing system designed for your businesses.

It streamlines customer support by organizing and prioritizing customer inquiries efficiently.

Reasons to choose:

  • Simple and intuitive ticket management system.

  • Fast setup and easy to use with a minimal learning curve.

  • Ability to customize fields and workflows to fit business needs.

  • Provides insights with basic analytics and reporting tools.

  • Integrates with existing communication tools like email.

Peppermint

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: https://github.com/Peppermint-Lab/peppermint

⭐ Github stars: 1.8K

πŸ’» Website link: https://peppermint.sh/

14. Prometheus

Category: Monitoring

Open Source Alternative to: Datadog

Prometheus is an open-source monitoring and alerting toolkit for complex systems.

It improves productivity by offering powerful data collection and visualization capabilities for system performance.

Reasons to choose:

  • Powerful multi-dimensional data model with flexible queries.

  • High performance, designed for large-scale monitoring.

  • Real-time alerting with configurable rules.

  • Integration with Grafana for advanced visualizations.

  • Built-in service discovery for dynamic environments.

Prometheus

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus

⭐ Github stars: 54.4K

πŸ’» Website link: https://prometheus.io/

15. NocoDB

Category: Database

Open Source Alternative to: Airtable

NocoDB is an open-source no-code platform that turns databases into smart spreadsheets.

It boosts productivity by enabling users to create applications without coding knowledge.

Reasons to choose:

  • User-friendly interface that mimics traditional spreadsheets.

  • Extensive integration with a variety of databases and apps.

  • Rich field types, including formulas, file attachments, and relations.

  • Collaboration features like commenting and real-time updates.

  • Advanced filtering, sorting, and grouping options.

NocoDB

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: https://github.com/nocodb/nocodb

⭐ Github stars: 44.4K

πŸ’» Website link: https://www.nocodb.com/

16. Dbeaver

Category: Database Management

Open Source Alternative to: Toad

Dbeaver is an open-source database management tool that supports a wide range of databases.

It enhances productivity with its universal database interface and advanced SQL editor.

Reasons to choose:

  • Universal database tool supporting a wide variety of databases.

  • Advanced SQL editor with features like autocompletion and syntax highlighting.

  • Visual query builder for non-technical users.

  • Ability to manage and visualize database schemas.

  • Supports data import/export in multiple formats.

Dbeaver

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: https://github.com/dbeaver/dbeaver

⭐ Github stars: 38.9K

πŸ’» Website link: https://dbeaver.io/

17. Dokku

Category: Deployment

Open Source Alternative to: Heroku, Render

Dokku is an open-source PaaS solution that simplifies application deployment.

It streamlines deployment processes with its Heroku-like interface for managing and scaling apps.

Reasons to choose:

  • Simple deployment process similar to Heroku's git push model.

  • Supports Docker containers for application management.

  • Scalable, with support for plugins to add more features.

  • Easy to set up and manage via a command-line interface.

  • Comprehensive documentation and strong community support.

Dokku

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: https://github.com/dokku/dokku

⭐ Github stars: 26.5K

πŸ’» Website link: https://dokku.com/


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Top comments (42)

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hatemhosny profile image
Hatem Hosny

Allow me to add:

RacingBars

Category: Visualizations

Open Source Alternative to: Flourish

Bar chart race made easy πŸ“Š

Image description

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: github.com/hatemhosny/racing-bars

⭐ Github stars: 18

πŸ’» Website link: racing-bars.hatemhosny.dev/

LiveCodes

Category: Development

Open Source Alternative to: CodePen, JSFiddle, StackBlitz, Replit, CodeSandbox

A feature-rich, open-source, client-side code playground for React, Vue, Svelte, Solid, Typescript, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP and 90+ languages/frameworks.

Image description

πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Github link: github.com/live-codes/livecodes

⭐ Github stars: 764

πŸ’» Website link: livecodes.io/

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madza profile image
Madza

Some awesome additions here, thanks for sharing mate! πŸ™πŸ’–

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mohamed_karim_2dddebb42bd profile image
mohamed karim

Thank for sharing

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madza profile image
Madza

Sure, my pleasure!

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litlyx profile image
Antonio | CEO at Litlyx.com

Nice list, and very good job on mentions. I would love if you appoint for future post even our Litlyx open-source repo.
We are the easiest analytics tool out there rn! And we prioritize developers experience. Give it a try (and a star if you like it)!

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dev_olatunji profile image
Oladipupo Isaac Tunji • Edited

Checked litlyx.com out and it's amazing. In sure going to try it out on my next project.

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madza profile image
Madza

Glad you found it useful, mate! πŸ‘πŸ’―

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madza profile image
Madza

Thanks for the valuable addition, Antonio! πŸ™πŸ’–

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nicolus profile image
Nicolus • Edited

Nice list, I'm definitely going to take a look at penpot and see if it can do the job for our mockups witout paying for Figma.

Also regarding storage I went with MinIO because it looked easier to setup than Ceph and so far I've been happy with it.

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madza profile image
Madza

Happy to hear that these were useful! My pleasure to help! πŸ™πŸ’–

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roshan_khan_28 profile image
roshan khan

another product i found useful was a product for tracking my user issues on my website. it was called something as zipy.ai
initially i didnt understand how helpful it can be to me but once it started to log every issue that my website was giving , thats when i came to what all the things i needed to do on my website.
putting this out here for my digital marketing folks

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madza profile image
Madza

Thanks for sharing, mate!

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electricdreams profile image
Paula

Thank you! It's a great article!
I use about 50% of the apps you mention, and I will definitely try the other 50%.
I like Strapi a lot, but I like Payload CMS better! Please give it a try.

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madza profile image
Madza

Thanks for the valuable addition! πŸ™πŸ’–

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chideracode profile image
Chidera Humphrey

Nice curation, Madza.

But I'm curious, is Contentful enterprise-owned?

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madza profile image
Madza • Edited

Thanks a lot for checking out the article! I believe it's a privately held company! πŸ˜‰

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chideracode profile image
Chidera Humphrey

Between Strapi and Contentful, which is easier to deploy? I heard Strapi can be tricky to deploy outside of Strapi cloud.

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madza profile image
Madza

It has detailed docs, so you could take a closer look. Also, should not have any problems with contentful as well, still using it to manage content for my portfolio.

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citronbrick profile image
CitronBrick

I would like to add YUML to draw UML diagrams using text.
Sample Class diagram
It offers 3 modes: Scruffy, Plain & Boring

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madza profile image
Madza

Thnaks for the valuable addition, this is great! πŸ™πŸ’–

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lindamiles profile image
Linda

It’s not often that something genuinely refreshing comes my way, but your article was a delightful surprise! I loved it. I run a daily tech newsletter, Daily Sandbox, and I’m excited to feature your article in tomorrow’s edition.

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madza profile image
Madza

My pleasure to hear that! This means a lot, thank you! πŸ™πŸ’–

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irfanbakhtiar profile image
M Irfan Bakhtiar

Thanks for sharing

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madza profile image
Madza

My pleasure, thanks for checking out! πŸ™πŸ’–

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baraaksayeth25 profile image
yruxx

Nice, great informations, this is very usefull

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madza profile image
Madza

Means a lot, thank you! πŸ™πŸ’–

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anshsaini profile image
Ansh Saini

Great list!

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madza profile image
Madza

Means a lot, thank you for your support! πŸ™πŸ’–

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yatt-code profile image
Aiyad

Definitely gonna give penpot a look. Thanks for sharing!

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madza profile image
Madza

Happy to hear this was useful, thanks a lot! πŸ‘πŸ’―

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awlad_hossain_82035c98564 profile image
Awlad Hossain

Nice list

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madza profile image
Madza

Thank you so much! πŸ™πŸ’–

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mapineda profile image
Marco Pineda

This is great definitely going to try drawio.

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madza profile image
Madza

Happy to hear that, and thanks for reading the article! πŸ‘πŸ’―

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