Microsoft Office ➔ LibreOffice, OnlyOffice Desktop Editors
Photoshop ➔ GIMP, Krita
Illustrator, CorelDraw ➔ Inkscape
Corel Painter ➔ Krita, MyPaint
Adobe Audition ➔ Audacity
Adobe Animate ➔ OpenToonz (Snap or Flatpak), Tahoma2D, Pencil2D
3dsMax ➔ Blender
Adobe Dreamweaver ➔ Blue Fish
Lightroom ➔ Darktable
Microsoft Visio ➔ Dia, LibreOffice Draw
Outlook (the standalone software) ➔ Thunderbird.
Pinnacle Studio or any Video Editing Software ➔ Kdenlive, Shotcut, …
Premier ➔ Olive, Lightworks, Kdenlive, Shotcut
Excel ➔ LibreOffice Calc
Powerpoint ➔ LibreOffice Impress
Word ➔ LibreOffice Writer
Ableton Live ➔ LMMS, Ardour
After Effects ➔ Natron
Matlab, Maple, Mathematica ➔ GNU Octave, Scilab, FreeMath, wxMaxima, Sage Math, GeoGebra Classic
AutoCAD ➔ OpenSCAD, LibreCAD, FreeCAD
OneNote ➔ Joplin, XJournal++, Zim
Adobe InDesign ➔ Scribus
Unity, Unreal, GameMaker ➔ Godot
Microsoft Windows, macOS ➔ Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, Kubuntu, …
Here are some of the best open-source alternatives to popular software across various categories:
Office Suites
- LibreOffice: A powerful office suite that includes applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and more, serving as an alternative to Microsoft Office.
- OnlyOffice: Offers document editing, collaboration, and project management tools, compatible with Microsoft Office formats.
Graphic Design and Image Editing
- GIMP: An alternative to Adobe Photoshop, GIMP provides a robust set of image editing and manipulation tools.
- Inkscape: A vector graphics editor comparable to Adobe Illustrator, suitable for creating illustrations, diagrams, and logos.
Video Editing
- Shotcut: A free, open-source video editor that supports a wide range of formats and provides a user-friendly interface.
- Blender: Primarily known for 3D modeling, Blender also has a powerful video editing feature set, making it a versatile tool for creators.
Audio Editing
- Audacity: A popular open-source audio editing software that allows users to record, edit, and mix audio tracks, serving as an alternative to Adobe Audition.
Web Browsers
- Mozilla Firefox: An open-source web browser known for its privacy features and customizability, often seen as an alternative to Google Chrome.
- Brave: A privacy-focused browser that blocks ads and trackers by default, offering an alternative to mainstream browsers.
Development Tools
- Visual Studio Code: While not fully open-source, it's built on open-source components and is a popular code editor. Alternatives include:
- Atom: A hackable text editor developed by GitHub.
- Eclipse: A robust IDE primarily for Java development, but supports various languages.
Content Management Systems (CMS)
- WordPress: The leading open-source CMS, ideal for blogs and websites, serving as an alternative to proprietary platforms like Wix or Squarespace.
- Joomla: Another flexible CMS that provides extensive features for building websites and online applications.
Cloud Storage
- Nextcloud: A self-hosted file synchronization and sharing solution, providing an alternative to Google Drive or Dropbox.
- Seafile: Another self-hosted file storage solution that focuses on high performance and reliability.
Design and Prototyping
- Figma: While not open-source, alternatives like Penpot offer similar collaborative design features for UI/UX projects.
Email Clients
- Thunderbird: A feature-rich email client from Mozilla, providing an alternative to Microsoft Outlook.
Operating Systems
- Ubuntu: A user-friendly Linux distribution that serves as an alternative to Windows or macOS.
- Fedora: A cutting-edge Linux distribution that incorporates the latest technologies and features.
Project Management
- Redmine: A flexible project management web application that serves as an alternative to tools like Jira.
- Taiga: An open-source project management tool that supports agile methodologies.
These alternatives not only provide similar functionalities to their proprietary counterparts but also promote user freedom and community-driven development.