It seems like the FOSS community is continuing to grow, and FOSS apps keep getting better (Immich reallh blew my mind recently), which is a big win 😎 but there are still many apps I use that I would kill for an open source alternative. I am curious what you guys think? Are there any apps you’d love alternatives for?
Discord. It’s extremely popular and has no direct alternatives (Matrix spaces thing isn’t ready at all yet)
EDIT: I didn’t know Revolt and Zulip existed. I’m doing a research on them now
I keep hearing people recommend signal messenger as an alternative to discord, and honestly that’s the most obvious sign you don’t actually use discord
Well some people use Discord as a messenger for some reason and for them Signal is probably the best but yea it’s not a Discord alternative at all
Honestly i never enjoyed discord It is messy and difficult to find information once its a few days old
Id much rather use a decent forum really
This is more of a hammer as a screwdriver problem, where everyone decided to use chat software as a forum.
almost every hobby has moved to facebook and it’s the same damn thing. utterly useless for the purpose people try to use it for.
i don’t know what the fuck is wrong with people, but this is definitely one of the pinnacles.
Especially with the upcoming implementation of ads. Really sucks that many communities and software support (who should have just had forums) are deeply embedded into it and will have to start from scratch and lose any and all helpful content. Its hard to see big communities moving to anything else anytime soon, even of there was a great Foss alternative. It would indeed be amazing to have one in the first place
I thought the Discord ads drama was an April Fools joke?
You had me for a second, lol. Unfortunately it is not an April fools joke :/ luckily for us though, the worse the application gets, the higher a chance a Foss alternative will emerge from a madlad who was sick of discord’s shit
https://adguard.com/en/blog/ads-discord-blocking-adguard.html
Hmm I really hope so
I think what’s even worse than ads is many channels now require verification through a phone number if you want to write something. Not sure when that became a thing but I just recently ran into this roadblock and noped tf out.
If you’re talking about voice channels specifically, then there is Mumble.
If you’re talking about chat rooms, old school solution is IRC and we have XMPP that works fine for most people.
No I meant an app that looks similar and contains most of the features (servers specifically) so it’s easier for not tech savvy users to get into. Someone suggested Revolt but its privacy (as in sending the data to not privacy respecting third parties) is questionable so idk if I can consider it a good enough alternative
Something like Revolt could maybe be a replacement for discord
FOSS CAD softwares. I know FreeCAD exists but it’s very unintuitive compared to the proprietary ones. I am thankful that it exists but it’s a long way apart to become a household name like Blender.
I wish I could start writing one but I don’t have a clear picture of requirements to plan and start writing one. If anyone is expert in this field please link some research papers and guidelines for someone to start fresh.
Check out Ondsel. They’re working on improving FreeCAD and making the workflow not suck.
Still definitely a work in progress, but the dimension/constraint tools and 3D feature naming are already lightyears better in their version.
Thank you. I’ll check it out.
I would love a FOSS version of Rhino3D.
I wish there were more Open Source games.
You may have heard of them, but I love Shattered Pixel Dungeon and unCiv
Recently discovered Veloren, maybe you haven’t heard of it
Veloren is great, there is also Mindustry and Shattered Pixel Dungeon to name a couple of high quality ones.
And Beyond All Reason if you like RTS games.
Perhaps not Foss, but definitely free (beer) , endless sky, available on steam
Looks like Endless Sky is under GPL license, so definitely FOSS
Regardless, it is well worth your time. Find the wormhole, steal alien tech, build a fleet, become invincible.
There: https://mander.xyz/post/11076441
There was a post recently about people’s favourite open source games and it’s been a nice repository of games for me :)
I really liked how Id used to release their old engines as open source, but of course once they got bought out all that stopped. The biggest problem for OSS games is with assets though. There are a few decent open source engines now for a lot of types of games, but it’s a lot harder to find decent looking assets to make games. I wonder if stuff like stable diffusion might help with that going forward.
Ultimate Guitar Tabs. After spending years getting a community to contribute to one of the best music resources on the web, they turn around and lock all but the most basic features behind a pay wall.
Holy shit the most painful and miserable experience is using this god forsaken site, let alone the fucking mobile app. Actually rage inducing.
Stylus/handwriting oriented note taking. Stuff like Samsung Notes or Goodnotes (or OneNote, though it does a lot more) in the Android space, or e-ink options like Remarkable’s stock software.
If I just want to use a keyboard for everything I have great FOSS options like Joplin and Standard Notes, but when I want to use a pen instead it feels like no other freedom-respecting option seem to even remotely approach the usability of just sticking with real ink and moleskine-like paper notebooks.
Even someone willing to pay an upfront fee for proprietary apps will struggle to find good options that allow syncing and reading (let alone editing) your notes on other devices/platforms without resorting to a monthly subscription.
Have you heard of Rnote? It is only available for linux, windows and mac tho
Yes yes yes 🙏 I swear I go around at least once or twice a month looking for this. I’m not sure if it is a huge technical feat to approach this type of program or not, but like you said there are tons of options for typing but I haven’t found even one that solely focuses on handwriting.
Yeah, I’m currently using an old version (2018!) Of AutoDesk sketchbook, since it seems like every other option tries to force me into a subscription or cloud service. I just want to take notes!
This is a totally wild card guess, but I imagine obsidian probably has a community hand writing extension
it’s also closed source.
You know, I always forget that
An alternative to iTunes so that I don’t need a Windows VM to backup my company iPhone. But I know it’s never gonna happen because Apple is the devil.
Just so you know, libimobiledevice can backup iPhones with their idevicebackup utility. It’s CLI only, so maybe not as easy to get into as iTunes but it has worked pretty well for years on my end.
Yeah thanks I’ve read about it but the terminal part is probably above my really modest Linux knowledge for now.
That’s fair enough! I can tell you it’s not that difficult but having a nice iDevice suite desktop application would certainly be a big improvement!
honestly terminal isn’t that complicated, if you’re surviving using a VM at the moment, you could probably manage to comprehend a terminal for long enough to figure out how that software works (and as a benefit, also figure out how basically every other CLI application works)
Thanks for the advice, but, for now, I can’t picture myself managing a professional phone backup without a GUI.
Had it been just a tinkering phone maybe, but not my professional one😇
honestly it’s no different than using a GUI, unless your place of work mandates a specific piece of software or something. It’s not like you can’t fuck shit up, but you can also do that with GUI apps too. I’ve fucked up more shit using a GUI than using CLI. That could change some day, but that’s what backups are for.
Good news, Apple has the solution for you. You don’t need iTunes anymore.
https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9np83lwlpz9k?hl=en-US&gl=US
Yeah but I’d still need an Apple program and a Windows VM, so it wouldn’t change a thing 😅
- Digital wallets (for things like cc, ID, coupons)
- Map apps (like google maps)
- Dating apps
“Maps”: as others have suggested: OsmAnd and OrganicMaps (I use OsmAnd as it covers my needs better than Google Maps or other apps)
“Dating Apps”: There is Alovoa
but the problem is who you will find on there, as everyone is on other apps
Haven’t tried Alovoa, but think of it differently; if someone is on Alovoa, they maybe are more similar-minded to you, because they too probably like open source stuff.
I like your “the glass is half full” attitude, however their signup seems to be broken.
Ah, rip, that may be an issue😆
I know them all but they can’t hold up with their proprietary counterparts both by userbase and features.
Catima for a digital wallet
That doesn’t seem to support credit cards
Full on Transit app that works well. Most that do are closed sourced and the ones that are open do not work well. A traffic app would be good but that would be very resource intensive. So not holding my breath.
I don’t see anyone talking about it here but I’d dream of an open source alternative to AndroidTV/Apple Tv. Firstly because ATV is ultra-dependent on Google, and secondly because the interface is unclear and not really pretty.
Today I’ve switched to Apple TV, which is much better in terms of UX, but the OS is too closed and sideloading isn’t possible…
So I hope to see some sort of CalyxOS / LineageOS for Tv arrive one day!
KDE BigScreen had some ambition to be that
And I wish the same for the combo AndroidAuto/Apple CarPlay. (But I have no hopes for this one haha)
…Kodi?
I second this, having a dedicated, 2013 era machine for Kodi is more than perfect. Most plugins are maintaned and updated regularly.
…Honestly my Kodi box is kind of a pain in the ass. About half the plugins I tried outright don’t work, giving some cryptic Python error, a few of them most notably Youtube has some fairly onerous API access problems which has almost made be give up on watching video content while seated on a couch as an abstract concept. It breaks more than it improves, and I’ve had to repeatedly solve issues like resolution and framerate limits, audio outputs just…stopping working and having to SSH into the thing to add or subtract a line from a config file…
I retract my recommendation of Kodi. It doesn’t work worth a completely flaccid failed attempt at a nonconsentual fuck.
my experience with it was also kind of a rollercoaster, but libreELEC on x64 harware with some basic IGPU was the key for me.
I tried it on Raspberry Pis (OG and 3) but that surely was painful.
since using a nornal PC, I really have no issues with compatibility, even the most obscure, sonewhat recently updated plugins work no problem.
but I can feel you, it needed several chances from me too, but I needed to replace my PS3 (uaing Movian - what an amazing piece of software!) cause it had issues with some recent fullhd files.
If I’m going to be fair, I’d say probably 3/4 of the problems I’ve had with Kodi (via OSMC on a Raspberry Pi 4) weren’t Kodi’s fault. Everyone from Alphabet to WGBH has had a hand in fucking something up. Of the addons I’ve tried to use, a good portion of them never once worked, or stopped working after awhile because the services they were scraping changed or disappeared. Or, because I am using a Pi 4, high resolution and high framerate can be a problem; I’ve seen issues with the video playing back slightly slower than the audio track, after 20 or 30 minutes becoming visibly out of sync until it freezes up for several seconds then resumes normal playback. Mind you this is only a problem above 1080p. Playing video files over the network from my NAS works pretty well if a little clunky to set up.
YouTube
Odysee?
Why did you get downvoted lol? Odysee and Peertube are pretty good alternatives.
Damn didnt know that was FOSS
My biggest gripe with Odysee is the fact a lot of the people I like to watch aren’t on there. Otherwise, if they’d just set up an account and have it linked to their yt account, I’d be on there a lot more.
Streamlabs, Streamelements and Elgato, Logitech and Razer’s software. Typically applications for streaming and content creation
heads up, for you and anybody wondering, there is a community version of razer driver support under linux. IDK if it works under windows, but that shit slaps under linux i tell you. IDK about logitech, but i assume something similar exists.
Works better than synapse and doesn’t try and reinstall itself everytime i update windows (thanks microsoft, that’s not like malware at all)
Wait so how well would it work for my Razer Seiren V2 Pro? Sorry I got distracted…
Razer Seiren V2 Pro
just had a look at the open razer page, see nothing about microphones, but it seems to support a shit ton of keyboards and mice. As well as some related things.
Dating websites
I would really like an open-source alternative to Facebook. The connection idea with friends via a social network platform I like, the bots and ads and force fed (propaganda) news I really don’t like.
Plus, an open source Facebook would really hurt Zuck and that’s also a win.
I think Facebook is interesting as it’s such a wide range of apps. From groups, to marketplace to traditional social, it has a lot of potential to be spread across multiple FOSS alternatives
spread across multiple FOSS alternatives
And you’ve already lost hopes of gaining significant market share.
The fact that Facebook does everything is what keeps people coming back. I haven’t scrolled my feed in years, but I still make use of Marketplace and Messenger sometimes. It’s the network effect at play too.
I’ve thought about this for a while actually. I think the hardest thing to balance would be privacy. With a FOSS-oriented platform like this, and a broad amount of features like Facebook, you would have to have the users sacrifice a certain amount of real-world data to have these all be linked, and convenient. It could be encrypted in some way, so at least the instance’s server wouldn’t be able to read the data, but across users you would. I think a new line or definition would have to be made for people who want to use something like this. Most people, though, probably wouldn’t care. And a FOSS version would 100% be better than Facebook’s servers, where the data is mined and sold.
Google Keep
My wife and I use it all the time for things like grocery lists, packing lists, etc. It’s nice to be an able to collaborate in real time on a checklist, and I haven’t found an app that can replicate that convenience.
If you use Android and Nextcloud, check out Quillpad, it’s probably the closest thing you can get.
I like Simple Note.
I’m not sure about real time collab, but I know you can share notes.
They do have a github page. Having to make an account and store notes server side is a big minus, but it is the only one I’ve found to
- Not be Google
- support all major OS (Lin, Win, Mac, And, ios, and browser)
- Not serve ads
- Not require self hosting
- Not ask for money (beside a donate button)
- Not be Google
Edit.
Digging into it a bit more. Seems they started in 2008 and were aquired by Automattic, in 2013. Same people behind WordPress. Oddly enough, Simple Note is not listed in their list of products.
Simple Note client side is GPL-2.0 The server is proprietary
They say on their own site, don’t store sensitive data. But that’s good advice for any online service.
Hedgedoc / codimd.
Fusion360
Tried out FreeCad/Ondsel, and just couldn’t get it to cooperate. Trying to do even basic changes would constantly result in errors/crashes. I spent maybe two weeks trying to make a single model. Then I tried making the same model in Fusion360 and was done in an half an hour. Granted, there is a huge difference in experience level here between these pieces of software, but still.
So I think my best bet for now is a jailbroken copy of Fusion360.
