For every yin, there’s a yang; for every action, a reaction; and for every piece of proprietary software, there’s an open source alternative. Or something like that.
The issue of “openness” in technology has rarely been so front and center in the public consciousness as it has these past couple of years. Twitter’s steady demise has drawn millions to explore alternatives, many of which are open source. And the OpenAI power struggle last year also shone a spotlight on what “open source” might actually mean in the context of the burgeoning AI revolution.
The consumer software world has long offered “open” alternatives to the established incumbents, be that LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Office; GIMP over Photoshop; or Thunderbird in place of Outlook. There might be any number of reasons why an individual or business might prefer to journey down the open source route: Maybe it’s the added transparency and security compared to the proprietary players or the customizability it offers. Or some might just like to support a software development ethos that favors freedom and collaboration over walled gardens and vendor lock-in.
There are potential downsides to open source software, such as a lack of formal customer support, limited features, or technical hurdles around deployment. But it’s still good to know your options if you’re looking to bring a little more openness to your app stack — without compromising too much on your productivity.
With that in mind, TechCrunch has pulled together some open source alternatives to popular productivity apps. These might appeal to prosumers, freelancers, or small businesses looking to escape the clutches of the usual Big Tech players.
Penpot: Design and prototyping
Penpot is an open source web-based design tool, offering a range of plans targeting everyone from individuals to enterprises.
Although regulatory headwinds ultimately put an end to Adobe’s $20 billion bid for Figma last year, Penpot saw signups surge when news of the plans first emerged — and the startup went on to raise $8 million off the back of this.
Excalidraw is also a neat open source whiteboarding tool with collaborative features built in; it’s also worth checking out.
Everyone loves Calendly, the scheduling platform (worth $3 billion) that helps people organize meetings without having to engage in multiple back-and-forth emails, messages and phone calls.
There’s also an open source challenger called Cal.com, touted as “scheduling infrastructure for absolutely everyone.” Cal.com can be self-hosted or hosted by the company itself as part of a SaaS offering, with multiple plans on offer. The company also raised a fairly chunky $25 million Series A round of investment in 2022.
Screenity: Screen recording
Loom emerged as one of the beneficiaries of the rapid transition to remote work, enabling asynchronous video communication through myriad screencasting, recording and sharing features. As with many startups, Loom struggled as the world returned to some semblance of normality, and the company exited to Atlassian last year for just shy of $1 billion.
Still, remote work isn’t going away, and anyone looking for an open source Loom alternative that doesn’t sit under the auspices of a billion-dollar corporation could do worse than checking out Screenity. However, it is limited to the Chrome browser for now.
Jitsi: Video conferencing
Zoom was one of the big winners of the rapid shift to remote work, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for a fully self-hostable and configurable video-conferencing alternative. That’s exactly what’s offered by Jitsi, an open source community-driven project started by founder Emil Ivov way back in 2003.
Users can head to meet.jitsi.com and instantly start a meeting. And while Jitsi is open source and free for anyone to deploy as they please, its parent company, 8×8, offers a paid service with additional features. It’s worth noting that 8×8 acquired Jitsi from Atlassian in 2018.
Nextcloud: Cloud storage
Nextcloud is both a client-side and server-side solution for file storage. Other cloud storage providers, such as Shadow Drive, use Nextcloud’s infrastructure under the hood.
Users can self-host their Nextcloud instances or use a third-party provider suggested by Nextcloud, which helps users manage the setup and maintenance process.
Nextcloud can be used by hobbyists or enterprises looking to sidestep industry incumbents such as Dropbox, with a strong emphasis on privacy, security and data sovereignty.
Ghost: Publishing
Substack has built a business around providing tools for writers to create newsletters and similar content. However, Substack is a closed ecosystem, much like Medium.
Ghost is an open source publishing platform developed by former WordPress engineer John O’Nolan in 2013. While WordPress is also an open source solution, Ghost offers a cheaper alternative with a managed hosting instance and doesn’t take any fees from publishers on subscriptions.
Ghost raised $300,000 through crowdfunding during the project’s initial phase in 2013, with notable backers like Seth Godin, Leo Babauta and Microsoft.
TabbyML: Coding copilot
GitHub Copilot has emerged as the poster child of the AI-powered pair-progamming space, though Google and Amazon have introduced similar smarts.
Regardless, none of these incumbents’ coding assistants is open source and they can’t be self-hosted — something TabbyML hopes to address. Founded by two former Googlers last year, TabbyML raised $3.2 million in seed funding for an early iteration of what it calls an open source GitHub Copilot alternative, one that can be entirely self-hosted.
Chatwoot: Customer support
As one of the major players in the customer relationship space, Zendesk needs little introduction. But the private equity-owned facet of Zendesk might not be to everyone’s fancy. Plus Zendesk is, well, entirely proprietary.
Chatwoot, on the other hand, touts its open source chops that allow businesses to self-host the customer engagement platform, thus keeping all their data in-house.
PhotoPrism: Photo management
In 2020, Google Photos ended its free unlimited tier. The same year, a Berlin-based team operating under the name PhotoPrism emerged as an alternative of sorts, with the ability to run a self-hosted server on your desktop (Windows, Mac, or Linux) along with DigitalOcean, Raspberry Pi, FreeBSD, and many network-attached storage (NAS) devices.
PhotoPrism includes support for backing up photos, as well as tools for converting files, detecting duplicates, and recognizing friend-and-family faces in photos. The company offers a range of plans designed for individuals and organizations alike, with self-hosted and hosted options available.
Bitwarden: Password management
From LastPass to Dashlane and 1Password, there are no shortages of password-management tools out there that generate hard-to-guess passwords and store them in a secure digital vault. But Bitwarden has set itself apart by operating largely under an open source model, raising a chunky $100 million in funding in the process.
Bitwarden’s core components are open source, allowing anyone to view, modify and distribute the code. However, certain features are only available under a proprietary “source available” license, which still offers transparency, albeit with greater restrictions on what the end user can do with it.
AppFlowy: Task management
AppFlowy is an open source alternative to Notion, the $10 billion workplace productivity and collaboration tool.
Founded in 2021, AppFlowy pitches a self-hostable solution replete with tools for managing projects, taking notes, creating documents, and tracking the status of individual project items and deadlines. The company raised $6.4 million in funding last year from a who’s who of investors, including the founders of Automattic and YouTube.
Dub.co: Link management
For link shortening and management, Spectrum Equity owned Bitly is one of the popular tools, while Google recently put a final nail in its URL shortening service’s coffin. If you are looking for an open source alternative, Dub.co could be your answer.
Former Vercel employee Steven Tey started this as a side project in 2022, transforming it into a company two years later. While Dub.co provides a lot of its own URL management services, including time-series data, personalization and a way to use branded links, it also allows you to self-host its solution.
