The best open-source software makes it simple and easy to complete everyday tasks without paying license fees.
Open source software is any type of program that the developers behind it choose to release the source code for free. As long as the software has an open-source license, it means that anyone in the world can download, modify and distribute it without paying its original creator.
Since the open source movement took off as a software development philosophy in the late 1990s, it has changed the world. Estimates even suggest that 96% of the world’s web servers run on some form of open-source Linux operating system.
It’s important to remember that open source doesn’t just mean “free”. Many companies distribute their software for free but retain full copyright ownership of their code so other developers cannot modify it. In contrast, successful open source initiatives are built on the hard work of thousands of collaborators who voluntarily gave up their time to create something amazing.
This accessible development system has some important advantages. Open-source software is generally more secure because new releases are scrutinized by people from all over the world, and bugs are reported and resolved quickly. Plus, people have the incentive to add cool new features to open-source platforms, which means that open-source software is often as good, if not better, than competing pay-for-use programs.
While open-source software is used for everything from networking to web servers, here we’re going to highlight the best open source software you can download and run on your desktop or laptop .
The Best Open Source Software Full Versions of 2023:
LibreOffice supports documents, spreadsheets, databases, presentations, charts, and mathematical formulas, and is essentially a free version of Microsoft 365 , the world’s most popular office productivity suite . (opens in a new tab) .
Some would actually argue that LibreOffice is the more full-featured of the two, thanks to its dedicated developer community that is always adding new tools and tricks. For example, in the latest update, LibreOffice added a QR code generator tool, so you can quickly create mobile-friendly links.
Another well-known open source office tool is Open Office, which provides many similar features to LibreOffice. The reason LibreOffice holds the top spot today is that it is much better at preserving Microsoft file formats. In other words, if you need to revise a document that was originally written in Microsoft Word, your formatting won’t be messed up.
The only downside to this great free office software (opens in a new tab) is that online collaborative editing of documents is a bit tricky. Recently, an online editing option was added, but still requires some technical knowledge to make it work.
The VLC (or VideoLAN Client) media player is a lightweight application created by an open source development group called the VideoLAN Project. This video and media player has been an industry leader in popularity for years, and it’s not hard to see why. You can use VLC media player to open audio and video files of almost any format without having to hunt for extra codecs.
VLC is also great for streaming media like podcasts and online radio stations. But perhaps the greatest VLC media player feature is the playback controls. You can change almost everything about how your media is displayed, from hardware optimization to adding subtitle files from third-party sources.
Like some of the other amazing open source products mentioned here, VLC is constantly being updated with new goodies and features for you to explore. Recent updates to Free Video Player (Opens in a new tab) include the ability to stream to other devices such as Chromecasts and 360 video support for VR headsets (Opens in a new tab) .
Since its first release in 1996, GIMP has been loved by Linux users and is one of the most famous and best maintained open source software tools. This software is as close to the image editing power and flexibility of the Adobe Photoshop platform as you can possibly get for free.
GIMP has built-in support for layers, filters, and automatic photo enhancements. It also makes it easy to create new graphic design elements, and you can really take things to the next level by downloading plugins created by the wider GIMP open source community.
Like Photoshop, GIMP has a fairly steep learning curve, but anyone who puts in a little time is sure to appreciate its customizable interface and GPU hardware acceleration. However, if you’re looking for a simple free photo editor (opens in a new tab) , check out Paint.NET (opens in a new tab) instead. It’s not as powerful, but easier to master.
Shotcut is open source free video editing software (opens in a new tab) . It’s one of those open source programs that really shows how much a dedicated development community can improve a platform. In earlier versions, the Shotcut interface was a bit bare, but later versions added additional dockable panels, an intuitive timeline, and other touches that put Shotcut in the same league as advanced video editors like Adobe Premiere Pro . (opens in a new tab) .
This video tool supports lossless audio and video editing, which means you can compile effects without any quality loss. You can also use this platform for color keying and grading operations, as well as more basic clip stitching and trimming.
Perhaps the coolest thing about Shotcut is its ability to work with more or less any format of video, audio or photo media. This is thanks in large part to FFmpeg, an open-source video framework that sits under the hood of the Shotcut program.
Built on top of Google’s open-source Chromium project, Brave is a web browser . (Opens in a new tab) This is designed to keep your browsing activity private by automatically disabling website trackers and blocking annoying ads. For safer browsing, it has built-in Tor functionality.
The biggest advantage of using Brave is that you get access to many of the thousands of extensions in the Google Chrome store, but enjoy a faster browsing experience than regular Chrome. This is because Brave is not as resource-intensive as Google’s regular Chrome package, improving performance when loading pages.
Another interesting thing about the Brave browser is something called Brave Rewards. The idea behind this feature is that you can choose to view certain ads and receive a small Basic Attention Token crypto coin in return. Ultimately, the developers behind Brave hope this will change the way advertising works on the internet.
Even twenty years after its original release date, Audacity remains one of the most widely used open source applications. This is a free audio editor (opens in a new tab) available for Windows, Mac and Linux systems.
Once you install this nifty little package, you’ll find everything you need to record, edit, and enhance your sound files. What’s more, thanks to the large developer community behind the program, you can use Audacity’s library of third-party extensions to add any functionality not included by default. These will allow you to do everything from adding sound effects to automatically adjusting tracks.
The Audacity interface might seem a little complicated at first, but considering the professional-grade tools the program offers, it’s easy to see why this is the app of choice for musicians and podcast creators.
There are plenty of great password managers out there (opens in a new tab) , but KeePass Password Safe stands out for its easy setup and comprehensive feature set. It uses industry-standard (virtually unbreakable) AES encryption and two-factor authentication to keep your account details safe and secure.
KeePass is also worth mentioning as the best open source platform due to its portability. While this open-source program can be installed on Windows, Mac, Linux, and mobile devices, you can also store the database and program on a USB stick for safekeeping.
As if that wasn’t enough, KeePass offers an extensive selection of plugins. You can use them to automatically sync your KeePass credential data with the cloud storage service or browser of your choice.
