What makes it truly powerful is the ability to detach a session (leaving your programs running in the background) and then reattach to it later, even from a different terminal or remote login. Before diving into the list, let’s talk about how to actually get these tools installed through your distribution’s package manager. As always, this is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather a personal collection of tools that I’ve found reliable, practical, and worth recommending.
For maximum security, it encrypts your files directly on your device before they are transmitted to the internet, and you can share and collaborate with teams using advanced file-sharing features. Using dozens of third-party apps available on the official App Store, you can equip your Nexcloud instance with new features and turn it into a powerful collaborative environment that cares with respect to your personal data. Although it raised a few sparks between him and the ownCloud community, NextCloud seems to be here to stay and compete with ownCloud as a private cloud solution to access and share your files, calendars, contacts, and office documents. Often used alongside OCS Inventory NG, GLPI is a powerful, multilingual IT asset management tool that helps you keep a complete inventory of your network devices and systems.
Internxt – Secure Cloud Storage
Open-source software (OSS) is released with its source code, allowing it to be used, modified, and distributed under its original license terms. Or have you discovered another great FOSS tool that the community should know about? My hope is that it sparks your interest in one or more of these tools and helps you find something new to enhance your Linux experience. MediaWiki is a program for creating and managing a Wikipedia-like website (in fact, Wikipedia itself is based on MediaWiki) where a community can add, remove, update, and revert entries, and authors are notified of such changes. OpenHPC is a collection of open-source tools and libraries that make it easier to build and manage high-performance computing (HPC) clusters on Linux. Whether you’re building web applications, handling JSON data, or experimenting with modern database designs, DocumentDB provides a robust, scalable, and fully open-source solution that fits naturally into any Linux environment.
Whether you’re looking for a full-fledged affiliate/partnership tracking platform (Dub Partners), or you’re just looking for the most modern link shortener on the market, Dub is the answer for both. Cal.com has changed the meaning and expectations when it comes to the scheduler app category as it’s the most impressive, flexible, and modern scheduling software on the market. DEV Community — A space to discuss and keep up software development and manage your software career Open source isn’t just an alternative to commercial tools — it’s often better. Build API workflows visually — cron jobs, data pipelines, email alerts, GitHub integrations — no code required.
In addition, OCS Inventory NG relies on well-known technologies like Apache and MySQL / MariaDB, making it a robust program. The project’s website (listed below) has a fully functional demo in case you want to check it out before attempting to actually install the program. For anyone interested in security, system monitoring, or learning more about real-world cyber threats, Security Onion is an invaluable addition to your Linux toolbox. What makes it particularly useful is that it’s fully open-source and regularly updated, so you can build a professional-grade security setup without relying on expensive commercial solutions. Security Onion is a Linux distribution designed specifically for network security monitoring, intrusion detection, and threat hunting for a small business network, or a large enterprise.
- VS Code, developed by Microsoft, remains the most widely used source-code editor.
- This means you’re not just limited to what comes out of the box, you can adapt it to your specific workflow, automate repetitive tasks, or even build entirely new features.
- Because of that, while you may be choosing a « privacy-focused » browser like Firefox, you’re also getting substantially less third-party app support, and a higher chance of websites not performing as intended (like legacy banks or modern sites using newer technology).
- It also comes with a large database of stars, galaxies, planets, asteroids, comets, and other celestial bodies.
- A community for makers, hobbyists, and professionals to discuss Arduino, Raspberry Pi, 3D printing, and much more.
Best Open Source Software & Tools Summary
Some of the applications here may not be the best open source software for everyone but professionals can make the best use of these. It can be packed and unpacked in a variety of formats, and data can even be encrypted using AES-256 encryption. An all-in-one picture editor that is suitable for both novice and experienced users. Most coders use it to write code, and use it for its capabilities, such as auto-complete depending on the current context, aid in coding.
- From your profile picture, you can also easily sign in, sign out, or turn on Incognito mode.
- When it comes to email management, one of my favorite tools is Mailspring, which is an open-source and cross-platform email client that allows you to create a single inbox for all your email accounts.
- KeePass also deserves a mention on this run-down of the best open source platforms due to its portability.
- It uses the BitTorrent protocol, which breaks files into smaller parts and allows users to download those parts from multiple sources simultaneously.
- An inclusive community for gaming enthusiasts
- Prometheus is a time-series database and monitoring toolkit.
Its container-based model enables consistent environments across development, staging, and production. Created by Linus Torvalds, it’s now used in nearly every development team, regardless of size. Thanks to its speed, customizability, and robust plugin ecosystem, it’s a staple in modern dev environments. VS Code, developed by Microsoft, remains the most widely used source-code editor. The super interesting part here though is if you’re using iOS, any browser you’re using is actually built atop Webkit—even Google Chrome. Little do people know, Google built an open-source foundation to the browser, for which most of the top browsers on the market use as their foundation.
Master PDF Editor (Paid)
GitLab’s self-hosted edition is open source and powerful for teams. For developers using HMPL.js to build fast, lightweight web apps. A community for makers, hobbyists, and professionals to discuss Arduino, Raspberry Pi, 3D printing, and much more.
OSQuery
Discussing AI software development, and showing off what we’re building. A space to discuss and keep up software development and manage your software career You may use Ampache to create your home media center or online audio and video streaming application, chicken game download which you can use from any computer with an Internet connection. This free FTP client has a number of sophisticated features, including huge file transfer capability, synchronized directory browsing, and filename filtering.
PDF Mix Tool
You can also use this platform to do color keying and grading operations, as well as more basic clip splicing and trimming. Just like Photoshop, GIMP has a fairly steep learning curve but anyone who puts in a bit of time is sure to appreciate its customizable interface and GPU hardware acceleration. GIMP has built-in support for layers, filters, and automatic photo enhancement. The latest updates to the free video player have included the ability to stream to other devices (like Chromecasts) and 360-degree video support for VR headsets. Like some of the other amazing open source offerings mentioned here, VLC is constantly being upgraded with new goodies and features to explore. The only downside to this awesome free office software is that editing documents collaboratively online is a bit tricky.
🛠️ 1. Visual Studio Code
It also makes it easy to create new graphic design elements and you can really take things to the next level by downloading plug-ins created by the broader GIMP open source community. This software is about as close to image editing power and flexibility of the Adobe Photoshop platform as you’re likely to get for free. You can change almost everything about how your media is displayed from hardware optimization to adding subtitle files from third-party sources. This video and media player has been leading the industry for years in terms of popularity, and it’s not hard to see why. VLC (or VideoLAN Client) media player is a lightweight application created by an open source development group known as the VideoLAN project. An alternative well-known open source office tool is Open Office, which offers many similar features to LibreOffice.
From self-hosted solutions like Nextcloud to encrypted storage services like Internxt, and media streaming with Ampache, this category ensures that your files are always accessible, organized, and under your control. Beyond simply cataloging hardware and software, GLPI also comes with a built-in job tracking system, complete with email notifications to keep your team updated on tasks and issues. It also supports automated discovery, performance data collection, and customizable alerts, which means you can proactively prevent issues before they impact users.
If you are into game development, video editing, or 3D modeling, I am sure you must have already heard about this tool. In simple terms, GIMP is often seen as the “Photoshop of the Linux world”, which comes packed with powerful tools for retouching photos, creating digital artwork, designing graphics, or even just making quick edits to images. GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a multi-platform, free, and open-source photo editing software used for image manipulation and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized tasks. Whether you’re creating tutorials, streaming on platforms like Twitch and YouTube, or just recording a quick demo for colleagues, OBS Studio is one of those tools that feels indispensable once you start using it. While it doesn’t compete with dedicated graphic design software like Inkscape or GIMP, its ability to handle everyday visual tasks and do light PDF editing makes it a must-have tool that many Linux users overlook. It helps you easily add text, create and modify PDFs, insert images, and even encrypt sensitive files for extra security.
Firefox is one of the only privacy-focused browsers that is not built atop Chromium, in theory giving it further distance from the stronghold that Google has in the browser market. Inbox Zero has a relatively basic email client built in, it’s marked as « beta » and feels quite beta, so be warned, it looks quite clean, the simplicity is appreciated. They are re-imagining what a CMS should be using the most modern tech, and shaking up the space that has otherwise been quite stagnant. With Dub you can easily spin up short links, QR codes, add tags for organization, and even enable things like password protection, expiring links, or geo-targeting.
FreeCAD is a general-purpose 3D Computer-Aided Design program fit for use in engineering and architecture. On top of it, Blender is cross-platform, which means you can not only run it on Linux but also on macOS and Windows. If you are considering any of these activities either as a hobby or a career change, and haven’t heard about Blender, it is definitely time to check it out. Not everyone needs a full-featured recording and streaming suite like OBS Studio, sometimes, you just want something quick, lightweight, and easy to use – and that’s where Kazam, VokoscreenNG, and Peek shine.
According to the 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, over 90% of professional developers use open-source tools at work source. It’s the most modern and powerful affiliate and referral tracking platform on the market. Still one of the most powerful open source CI/CD tools, especially when combined with Docker and GitHub/GitLab. Git is the heart of modern development, and platforms like GitHub and GitLab CE bring social coding to life.
Prometheus is a time-series database and monitoring toolkit. Grafana is a visualization tool for time-series data. Kafka is a distributed streaming platform used for building real-time data pipelines. Git is the backbone of modern software development.
OpenShot is a FOSS video editor for Linux that can help you create “the film you have always dreamed of” (in the words of its developers) with your home videos, pictures, and music files. It’s one of those open source programs that really demonstrates how much a dedicated development community can improve a platform given time. From backend infrastructure to UI development, open-source tools are powering nearly every aspect of modern development workflows.
Its active community and rich library of plugins make it a powerful choice for both hobbyists and professionals who want complete control over their design environment. As a FOSS solution, it does not come short when compared to commercial tools. Together, these three tools cover a wide range of lightweight recording needs, giving you the right balance of speed, simplicity, and functionality without overloading your system. OBS Studio has become the go-to choice for screen recording and live streaming on Linux, as it is powerful, flexible, and trusted by everyone from casual users to professional streamers. Since it’s part of the LibreOffice suite, it integrates well with Writer, Calc, and Impress, making it a versatile tool for both personal and professional use.