8 ms·

Show HN: A directory of open source alternatives to proprietary software

156 points by piotrkulpinski 3y ago

Hi, Piotr here I was collecting nice open-source companies for quite some time now. Mostly to take some inspiration and learn from their code. Last week, I though it would be fun to learn this Astro thing everyone's talking about. So I thought building a directory website out of this collection was pretty good idea. After 2 days of building, OpenAlternative was born. It's a community driven list of open source alternatives to proprietary software and applications. Enjoy and thank you for your support!

bun_terminator 3y ago
I'm having an "am I getting old?" moment by barely knowing anything on that list, and not finding Photoshop for example.
- piotrkulpinski 3y ago
  Is Photoshop open source?
  - lazyasciiart 3y ago
    No, but people don’t generally want to browse for "an open source tool that is an alternative to some random thing", they want to find "an alternative to Photoshop". As far as I can tell there's no search at all, maybe that's just on mobile?
    - worksonmine 3y ago
      No search on desktop either. I also found this a very strange list, but it's short and probably limited to what the author uses for now. No Gimp, no Inkscape, no Blender. But Discord of all things is there, you're not even allowed to use third party-software like WeeChat to connect. Nothing open about that platform. And where's Mutt or Thunderbird?
sn0wtrooper 3y ago
Suggestion: it would be great if I typed the software I was looking for a replacement, and the OSS alternative was returned as result.
- piotrkulpinski 3y ago
  Great suggestion! I plan to add search functionality soon.
7thaccount 3y ago
I think categories would be helpful. So you could have a category of mathematical optimization solvers and have Highs, Coin-OR, SCIP...etc in that category.
Mortiffer 3y ago
firefox https certificate error "PR_CONNECT_RESET_ERROR"
- piotrkulpinski 3y ago
  Works fine for me. Could you check again?
hjgraca 3y ago
There is already https://www.opensourcealternative.to/ https://www.opensourcealternative.to/, what is the value proposition of your site?
- sloowm 3y ago
  It looks like this page is further along indeed. First mistake I see on this page is that Home Assistant is called "Core" which is just the name of the core repo. The thing both projects do that I don't think is useful is state that the project is open source in each description and push out the actual description of what the project does. In general if I'm looking for open source alternatives I'm mostly interested in projects that are well maintained and are big enough to stay that way. If there is a website that is able to somewhat make this distinction it can have real value.
  - piotrkulpinski 3y ago
    That's what I was trying to achieve. You can find information like latest commit date which can indicate that the projects is actively maintained. Plus, I picked mostly hosted, freemium applications which have incentives to keep the software up to date and maintained. As pre your comment about descriptions, I took them directly from the repositories where most of them brag about being "open source". That could be a good idea to modify that to me more informative.
- piotrkulpinski 3y ago
  Yes, indeed. I didn't know this site until I launched mine, but it seems to me they're just listing all of the popular open source projects. I've tried to mostly curate the projects that are actively maintained, and have some sort of hosted, paid alternative. This gives you more confidence, that the app will be maintained as they're making money out of it.
  - JonChesterfield 3y ago
    You consider it a good sign that the project is charging money for its use. Others consider that a sign that it's going to become increasingly customer hostile on a short enough timeframe that you don't want to go anywhere near it.
andix 3y ago
A lot of the software on this list is "freemium" open source. For example Strapi and SuperTokens are open source. But require a paid plan/license when growing the application to a bigger scale, because you are going to need their paid features at some point.
- piotrkulpinski 3y ago
  Exactly! That was kind of the point of this to pick freemium software which gives me more confidence of the future of the project in oppose to free open-source without a proper business model.
  - andix 3y ago
    I don't agree that this model of open source software has a positive impact on the quality and future of the open source core. Usually the open source part gets less and less usable and lacks more and more documentation. It also scares off external contributors.
    - piotrkulpinski 3y ago
      I think both models have some space in the open source community. You can still learn and get value from a commercial product even if they only share the source code.
- JonChesterfield 3y ago
  Would "freemium" mean "currently trying to leverage free labour from external developers while gaining traction, at which point we'll switch to closed source with an abandonware 'free' version in order to extort companies who have found themselves with vendor lock into what they thought was free software but actually isn't"?
  - andix 3y ago
    That's very often the path forward. The community usually doesn't invest a lot into those projects, so they rarely get forked into a community driven version. Some projects like that are also a minefield, because they mix code with different licenses in one repository.
nonrandomstring 3y ago
Good work. I collect and recommend catalogues like this to clients because an angle some people miss is how alternatives help security. They fall at the first hurdle by thinking that Microsoft, Google or whatever are the only solutions. Or thinking that popularity tracks security. But lack of maneuverability is a key weakness in any defensive position and diversity is a hugely overlooked factor in resilience and security engineering.
xmeadow 3y ago
Lots of perfect examples on this page why OpenSource on its own is no benefit for the customer.
- rglullis 3y ago
  "On its own", your argument is a tired dismissal made by people can not see beyond their most immediate own needs.
gottoupvote 3y ago
There's also https://alternativeto.net/ https://alternativeto.net/, tagged with licencing model
- blooalien 3y ago
  Great site! That one's been my "go-to" site for this need for many years now. Was especially helpful back when I was new to Linux.
- npteljes 3y ago
  This was my jam when I switched to Linux, many years ago. I love it that they updated with pro-contra comments. As software are usually not drop-in replacements to one another, you can learn a lot about the differences before switching. I like it that they also include descriptions, general comments, license and screenshots.
- KomoD 3y ago
  Personally don't like this one. I don't like the design of the site. If I'm at a page listing the alternatives, such as https://alternativeto.net/software/mtr https://alternativeto.net/software/mtr It doesn't have direct links to the alternatives, if you hover over an alternative it shows a "copy link" icon, but that just goes to the same page you are already on, instead you have to press into the alternative's page and scroll until you see a "official links" section
zelphirkalt 3y ago
Another good one is the "awesome self hosted" list.
irusensei 3y ago
I like this. Sadly most alternative sites are a cesspool of intrusive ads and popups while the actual information seems suspiciously shallow and canned. Human curated information would be the best.
- JonChesterfield 3y ago
  I'm still looking for a "search", but have already found the link to add my adverts to the site via email, with nice form set up with subject "Advertise on OpenAlternative". So I'd say that's probably the game plan here.
  - colesantiago 3y ago
    That's unfortunate, so it looks like OpenAlternative will also succumb to the same fate of other alternative software sites. More ads.
    - chrismarlow9 3y ago
      Do you have an alternative source of revenue to suggest? It might be good to catch the site owner early while it's still small to get your suggestion in. I mean if they're making direct deals with other businesses instead of just throwing up AdSense I don't really see the problem.
      - JonChesterfield 3y ago
        What's the running cost of a static html page? If it's below $10 for the life of the site, maybe it doesn't need a revenue stream.
        nindalf 3y ago
        Honestly, a static site that accepted pull requests would cost nothing. Free code hosting on GitHub and page hosting on GitHub Pages or Cloudflare Pages. Literally $0, forever. It does take time and effort to review pull requests, but there are no $ costs involved.
maxboone 3y ago
A lot of these applications have either an SSO tax or BSL licensing, i'd recommend adding tags for that.
- piotrkulpinski 3y ago
  Thanks! Will do.
  - diffeomorphism 3y ago
    If you do, you may want to change your descriptions or use clearer labeling. BSL is kinda neat but not open, e.g. hashicorp describes it as "an alternative to closed source or open source licensing models". So listing it under "open source alternatives" calls into question the accuracy of other entries. Note: paid and open is very much encouraged.
knob 3y ago
Nice! I would suggest Nextcloud for google drive slash microsoft onedrive alternative. I have been using in production for years, and it has been awesome. Note sure about licensing. Another is Proxmox. It is freemium, yet solid.
CatchSwitch 3y ago
Gotta wonder if the people at PostHog workshopped the name at all before launching...
fermigier 3y ago
Also https://github.com/sfermigier/awesome-foss-alternatives https://github.com/sfermigier/awesome-foss-alternatives (made by me).
- mtillman 3y ago
  It’s the one I use. Thanks
- disambiguation 3y ago
  another great resource similar to your list: https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted
- Ennea 3y ago
  You should add Zim [1] to the "Personal Knowledge Management" section :) [1] https://zim-wiki.org https://zim-wiki.org
ryaniscool 3y ago
Cool. It would be more useful if it was organized by the tool the visitor is trying to replace
- corobo 3y ago
  In the footer there's a link to this page which seems to do that Could probably do with being the default view, aye https://openalternative.co/alternatives/ https://openalternative.co/alternatives/
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
MK2k 3y ago
Trying to submit something, you are bound to a fixed list of categories and alternatives. If what you want to submit doesn't fit the fixed values in there, you are blocked.
_lars 3y ago
Neat, thanks for sharing this, will definitely be a good back pocket list.

bun_terminator 3y ago

I'm having an "am I getting old?" moment by barely knowing anything on that list, and not finding Photoshop for example.

piotrkulpinski 3y ago
Is Photoshop open source?
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  No, but people don’t generally want to browse for "an open source tool that is an alternative to some random thing", they want to find "an alternative to Photoshop". As far as I can tell there's no search at all, maybe that's just on mobile?
  - worksonmine 3y ago
    No search on desktop either. I also found this a very strange list, but it's short and probably limited to what the author uses for now. No Gimp, no Inkscape, no Blender. But Discord of all things is there, you're not even allowed to use third party-software like WeeChat to connect. Nothing open about that platform. And where's Mutt or Thunderbird?

sn0wtrooper 3y ago

Suggestion: it would be great if I typed the software I was looking for a replacement, and the OSS alternative was returned as result.

piotrkulpinski 3y ago
Great suggestion! I plan to add search functionality soon.

7thaccount 3y ago

I think categories would be helpful. So you could have a category of mathematical optimization solvers and have Highs, Coin-OR, SCIP...etc in that category.

Mortiffer 3y ago

firefox https certificate error "PR_CONNECT_RESET_ERROR"

piotrkulpinski 3y ago
Works fine for me. Could you check again?

hjgraca 3y ago

There is already https://www.opensourcealternative.to/ https://www.opensourcealternative.to/, what is the value proposition of your site?

sloowm 3y ago
It looks like this page is further along indeed. First mistake I see on this page is that Home Assistant is called "Core" which is just the name of the core repo. The thing both projects do that I don't think is useful is state that the project is open source in each description and push out the actual description of what the project does. In general if I'm looking for open source alternatives I'm mostly interested in projects that are well maintained and are big enough to stay that way. If there is a website that is able to somewhat make this distinction it can have real value.
- piotrkulpinski 3y ago
  That's what I was trying to achieve. You can find information like latest commit date which can indicate that the projects is actively maintained. Plus, I picked mostly hosted, freemium applications which have incentives to keep the software up to date and maintained. As pre your comment about descriptions, I took them directly from the repositories where most of them brag about being "open source". That could be a good idea to modify that to me more informative.
piotrkulpinski 3y ago
Yes, indeed. I didn't know this site until I launched mine, but it seems to me they're just listing all of the popular open source projects. I've tried to mostly curate the projects that are actively maintained, and have some sort of hosted, paid alternative. This gives you more confidence, that the app will be maintained as they're making money out of it.
- JonChesterfield 3y ago
  You consider it a good sign that the project is charging money for its use. Others consider that a sign that it's going to become increasingly customer hostile on a short enough timeframe that you don't want to go anywhere near it.

andix 3y ago

A lot of the software on this list is "freemium" open source. For example Strapi and SuperTokens are open source. But require a paid plan/license when growing the application to a bigger scale, because you are going to need their paid features at some point.

piotrkulpinski 3y ago
Exactly! That was kind of the point of this to pick freemium software which gives me more confidence of the future of the project in oppose to free open-source without a proper business model.
- andix 3y ago
  I don't agree that this model of open source software has a positive impact on the quality and future of the open source core. Usually the open source part gets less and less usable and lacks more and more documentation. It also scares off external contributors.
  - piotrkulpinski 3y ago
    I think both models have some space in the open source community. You can still learn and get value from a commercial product even if they only share the source code.
JonChesterfield 3y ago
Would "freemium" mean "currently trying to leverage free labour from external developers while gaining traction, at which point we'll switch to closed source with an abandonware 'free' version in order to extort companies who have found themselves with vendor lock into what they thought was free software but actually isn't"?
- andix 3y ago
  That's very often the path forward. The community usually doesn't invest a lot into those projects, so they rarely get forked into a community driven version. Some projects like that are also a minefield, because they mix code with different licenses in one repository.

nonrandomstring 3y ago

Good work. I collect and recommend catalogues like this to clients because an angle some people miss is how alternatives help security. They fall at the first hurdle by thinking that Microsoft, Google or whatever are the only solutions. Or thinking that popularity tracks security. But lack of maneuverability is a key weakness in any defensive position and diversity is a hugely overlooked factor in resilience and security engineering.

xmeadow 3y ago

Lots of perfect examples on this page why OpenSource on its own is no benefit for the customer.

rglullis 3y ago
"On its own", your argument is a tired dismissal made by people can not see beyond their most immediate own needs.

gottoupvote 3y ago

There's also https://alternativeto.net/ https://alternativeto.net/, tagged with licencing model

blooalien 3y ago
Great site! That one's been my "go-to" site for this need for many years now. Was especially helpful back when I was new to Linux.
npteljes 3y ago
This was my jam when I switched to Linux, many years ago. I love it that they updated with pro-contra comments. As software are usually not drop-in replacements to one another, you can learn a lot about the differences before switching. I like it that they also include descriptions, general comments, license and screenshots.
KomoD 3y ago
Personally don't like this one. I don't like the design of the site. If I'm at a page listing the alternatives, such as https://alternativeto.net/software/mtr https://alternativeto.net/software/mtr It doesn't have direct links to the alternatives, if you hover over an alternative it shows a "copy link" icon, but that just goes to the same page you are already on, instead you have to press into the alternative's page and scroll until you see a "official links" section

zelphirkalt 3y ago

Another good one is the "awesome self hosted" list.

irusensei 3y ago

I like this. Sadly most alternative sites are a cesspool of intrusive ads and popups while the actual information seems suspiciously shallow and canned. Human curated information would be the best.

JonChesterfield 3y ago
I'm still looking for a "search", but have already found the link to add my adverts to the site via email, with nice form set up with subject "Advertise on OpenAlternative". So I'd say that's probably the game plan here.
- colesantiago 3y ago
  That's unfortunate, so it looks like OpenAlternative will also succumb to the same fate of other alternative software sites. More ads.
  - chrismarlow9 3y ago
    Do you have an alternative source of revenue to suggest? It might be good to catch the site owner early while it's still small to get your suggestion in. I mean if they're making direct deals with other businesses instead of just throwing up AdSense I don't really see the problem.
    - JonChesterfield 3y ago
      What's the running cost of a static html page? If it's below $10 for the life of the site, maybe it doesn't need a revenue stream.
      - nindalf 3y ago
        Honestly, a static site that accepted pull requests would cost nothing. Free code hosting on GitHub and page hosting on GitHub Pages or Cloudflare Pages. Literally $0, forever. It does take time and effort to review pull requests, but there are no $ costs involved.

maxboone 3y ago

A lot of these applications have either an SSO tax or BSL licensing, i'd recommend adding tags for that.

piotrkulpinski 3y ago
Thanks! Will do.
- diffeomorphism 3y ago
  If you do, you may want to change your descriptions or use clearer labeling. BSL is kinda neat but not open, e.g. hashicorp describes it as "an alternative to closed source or open source licensing models". So listing it under "open source alternatives" calls into question the accuracy of other entries. Note: paid and open is very much encouraged.

knob 3y ago

Nice! I would suggest Nextcloud for google drive slash microsoft onedrive alternative. I have been using in production for years, and it has been awesome. Note sure about licensing. Another is Proxmox. It is freemium, yet solid.

CatchSwitch 3y ago

Gotta wonder if the people at PostHog workshopped the name at all before launching...

fermigier 3y ago

Also https://github.com/sfermigier/awesome-foss-alternatives https://github.com/sfermigier/awesome-foss-alternatives (made by me).

mtillman 3y ago
It’s the one I use. Thanks
disambiguation 3y ago
another great resource similar to your list: https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted
Ennea 3y ago
You should add Zim [1] to the "Personal Knowledge Management" section :) [1] https://zim-wiki.org https://zim-wiki.org

ryaniscool 3y ago

Cool. It would be more useful if it was organized by the tool the visitor is trying to replace

corobo 3y ago
In the footer there's a link to this page which seems to do that Could probably do with being the default view, aye https://openalternative.co/alternatives/ https://openalternative.co/alternatives/

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

MK2k 3y ago

Trying to submit something, you are bound to a fixed list of categories and alternatives. If what you want to submit doesn't fit the fixed values in there, you are blocked.

_lars 3y ago

Neat, thanks for sharing this, will definitely be a good back pocket list.