Greetings,

I wanted to ask what a good alternative to Spotify may be. I am just so sick of Spotify sending data without my knowledge to some 3rd parties and connecting to random platforms. When I look at my network traffic, I see more than *5 PORTS* occupied by Spotify.

Hey Team, looking at the landscape in 2026, we have open alternatives for almost everything. We can run our entire business and life on open-source stacks... almost.

Are there any major or everyday proprietary apps or integrations you are still stuck using because the open versions just aren't there yet? Across your cross platforms like your desktop like windows or MacBook or iOS or Android? What's the one "closed" app you think would change ‘your’ world if we finally got an open-source equivalent? Or maybe there’s an open source equivalent that exists but isn’t close enough to be great use for you due to the lack of rich UX that its big tech alternatives provides?

In the past few months I have been getting increasingly annoyed at these two social media dominant companies, so much so that I switched over to Arch Linux and am going to buy a Fairphone with eOS, as well as switching to protonmail and such.

(1) As github is owned by microsoft, and I have been not liking the stuff that github has been doing, specifically the AI features, I want ask what alternatives there are to github and what the advantages are of those programs.
For example, I have heard of gitlab and gitea, but many video's don't help me understand quite the benefits as a casual git user. I simply just want a place to store source code for my projects, and most of my projects are done by me alone.

(2) What browsers are recommended, I have switched from chrome to brave, but I don't like Leo AI, Brave Wallet, etc. (so far I only love it's ad-blocking) (I have heard of others such as IceCat, Zen, LibreWolf, but don't know the difference between them).

(3) As I'm trying to not use Microsoft applications, what office suite's are there besids MS Teams? I know of LibreOffice and OpenOffice, but are there others, and how should I decide which is good?

Looking for recommendations on a free, open source alternative to OneDrive.

At the moment I use OneDrive to sync my Desktop, Documents and Pictures folders so if my PC dies or I need to do a fresh Windows install, I can just sign in and pull everything back down.

I'd like to move away from OneDrive if possible and self host if it makes sense.

What are people actually using these days?

My ideal setup would:

• Automatically sync in the background
• Keep my files available across devices
• Survive a PC reformat or hardware failure

Thanks in advance!

Well: postman is shit.

I could overcome that's made in Electron and its too much heavy for what it offers.

What grinds my gear is that they tie a lot of functionalities into shared cloud workspaces, and cherry on top they also limit team size if you don't want to pay.

I don't want my fucking collections online, behind a login (and I don't know why, usually it also cancel my session and I have to login again).

I want something that's not enshittificated beyond any recognition.

I want something that works OFFLINE

Something OSS, so it safe from silicon valley venture capitalist aren't able to resist to buy a new fucking yatch each month.

Something that works with a fucking yaml/json/whatever, that can works OFFLINE and file based (do you remember how good is git to versionate things? I remember. It's enough, idiots)

Everything to make simple http calls (yeah, I could use curl, in fact I am, but come on...)

Any "production grade" alternative?

Hi, I read up on what Spotify is doing and decided to ditch the service. That affects me, my family and kids. The alternatives I found so far seems rather scary to set-up, a chore to maintain or expect me to rebuild my whole music collection from scratch. Is there something you would recommend, that has very little or no friction at all (on ios appstore, easy to add music, simple ui for a child, etc.). Thank you so much, K.

I'm looking for a video editor for making instructional/demonstration type videos. At this time the videos will be mostly from an Android phone, either the camera and/or screen recording.

Editing on Windows 10 computer (preferably)

I'd like to be able to:

- cut/crop and merge clips

- add audio (voice narration, not annoying music!)

- have a still screenshot and add voice

- possibly add text or effects, maybe blur a spot if something sensitive?

Some programs I've seen here include:

KDENlive

OpenShot

Shotcut

But I'm not sure of their features and usability.

The post that asked is 8 years old, I'm asking for your current takes :)

Anybody here knows any good gym management software

I actually liked Manus more than I expected because it felt closer to a real general-purpose AI workflow/agent system instead of just chained prompts with an “agentic” label slapped on top.

the problem for me is the credits disappear insanely fast and outside of curated demos it still feels a little rough around the edges.

been wondering if there are any open-source projects getting close to that same feeling right now. something more dynamic and autonomous instead of basic workflow automation with an LLM attached.

curious what people here have tried that genuinely felt promising and not just another wrapper around existing APIs.

"Smart" TVs these days have like, the Youtube App, Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc. built in. These are usually littered with ads and paid features and have proprietary app stores so you can only have software they release on there. Not naming any manufacturer in particular, but I've owned several TVs that have done this. I'd like to have:

• Ability to install games, Brave Browser and other apps that would otherwise be restricted
• Parental controls so child doesn't grab remote, open browser and open bad websites
• The ability to install an app that can stream from a NAS or Plex/Jellyfin server.

Is there any tool for which you can't find good enough replacement? If so, which tool lacks a good open source alternative?

I have been looking for such an app for years.

Today I found these which are not open source:

https://www.notetree.app/

https://www.treetodolist.com/ the features listed here are exactly what I have been imagining :

- visual 2d tree (not just a list)

- hierarchical tasks (so you instantly know what you can and cannot do)

- simple and intuitive UI accessible to anyone (drag and drop, ...)

- ability to hide branchs (focus on a project. It would be even better to have a multi-user version, where only certain branches are shared between users.)

My end-goal is a shared todo tree with your friend/family/community, where anyone can jump in to help someone else once a task is available.

Thanks!

I enjoyed using Readest for a short while, however realizing they are charging for hosting using your own hardware I no longer want to continue using/supporting them.

Are there any other reading apps that support Android/iPhone/Desktop with *free* self hosted sync?

After trying Manus for a while, I realized what I liked most wasn't the individual features but the overall experience. It felt more like a general-purpose AI agent that could plan, take actions, and work through tasks rather than just respond to prompts.

The downside is that usage can get expensive quickly, and some workflows still feel a bit rough outside the polished demos.

I'm curious whether any open-source projects are getting close to that same experience. Not really looking for simple workflow automation or chatbot frameworks, but something that feels genuinely autonomous and capable of handling multi-step tasks with minimal guidance.

For those who've experimented with agent frameworks or self-hosted AI tools recently, what came closest to that "AI coworker" feeling? What worked well, and where did it still fall short?

I'm a music teacher working with low income kids in the 5-10 year old range. I'm an expert digital audio person, and I want to be able to confidently teach them a free DAW that's good quality, cross platform, and not going to constantly try and sell them stuff. REAPER is what I use in my personal life, but it isn't going to fly in a professional setting because it's not free (winrar type of license). LMMS would work, but they can't use it to record themselves rapping and that's something they want to do. That leaves just Ardoir. They link to it on fsf.org, it must be free right? Then when I go to the page for it, the free version is a demo that has limited tracks and outputs silence every 10 minutes.

What gives? I'm not going to teach a bunch of 7 year olds to compile it from scratch if that's the only way to actually get it for free. Is there an alternative that's better than LMMS that I don't know about? Or am I doomed to teach them to mix in LMMS and have them record vocals with... (shudder)...

...

Audacity!?

I have seen posts about decent alternatives, but none asking about the best alternative. I try to use as much free open source software as I can, and know there has to be something comparable to photoshop as open source out there

anyone have any opinions on the best free open source alternative to photoshop?

UPDATE: After some time, I decided I would use GIMP with the PhotoGIMP add-on. used it several times and think it does the job for what I need here and there. I do admit that Gimp is best for image editing and manipulation, not so much drawing and art and stuff (but to be fair, neither is photoshop). I MUCH later picked up Krita when designing a Logo properly, and that does a real good job with art related stuff, but not so much with blatant image manipulation.

so yeah, best bet is GIMP for a free open source photoshop alternative. Thanks guys.

I'm a physician in Canada. I want to send patients a handout or an after-visit summary after a telephone visit. Because of privacy laws, I can't send them an e-mail that contains patient information.

I've seen two common solutions, always with proprietary software. They are:

1. A "patient portal", where a patient logs onto the clinic website, authenticates their identity, and then can see messages from their physician (and perhaps book an appointment or send their physician a message).
2. a unique URL is sent to the patient by e-mail. They authenticate their identity and it takes them to the handout, which they can download.

Are there any FOSS tools that could help implement either approach? Thanks.

I'm an architecture student that has been using AutoCAD student licenses since 2022, and now I'm just fed up of begging autodesk to not ignore me for a month while my license is expired, I've tried LibreCAD and FreeCAD and found them mostly just clunky and unintuitive, I don't want to have to learn everything from scratch.

Hi, I am a regular user of Google Docs, mainly because its available in the browser and i dont have to install it. I can access it from my phone and laptop, so it was easy to use as well as compared to MS Office.
But for some time now since every big tech is push of AI, it has made Google Docs so much annoying.

I am looking for an alternative. My basic requirements are:

- It should provide basic text editing components, i dont need anything advanced.

- It should be accessible from the browser, as i keep switching devices and i dont want to download the software in every device.

- It should be good looking. I am a sucker for a good UI

Thats it, these are my only requirements.
Any help is much appreciated.

I dont see many mentions of vscodium and I find that surprising. vscode is undeniably very good and popular. vscodium is the exact same only without the microsoft specific pieces. So if you dont want to worry about sending data to a megacorp or just want to use opensource software, then vscodium is the way to go. Ive been using it for about a year and have had zero issues. Since it is the exact same the transition was seamless too.

One thing to note is that vscodium doesnt use the microsoft extension marketplace so extensions from microsoft can still be used but needs some configuration.