Beginner's guide to FOSS software: what free and open source software is, why it matters, and the best alternatives to paid apps - worth a look

[IronQuarry]

FOSS stands for free and open source software. Free in this context means free as in freedom, not just free as in price, though most FOSS software is also free to use at no cost. Open source means the source code is publicly available for anyone to read, audit, modify, and distribute.

Why does this matter beyond saving money. When software is open source, security researchers can check it for vulnerabilities without the company's permission. Companies cannot silently add tracking or advertising. If the company stops maintaining the software, the community can continue it. The software you use does not become unusable because a subscription model changes or a company is acquired.

The best FOSS alternatives to common paid software:

Instead of Microsoft Office: LibreOffice handles almost all common word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation tasks. For collaborative documents Nextcloud is a self-hosted alternative to Google Workspace.

Instead of Adobe Photoshop: GIMP for photo editing, Inkscape for vector graphics, Krita for digital painting. None of them are Photoshop but they cover the vast majority of non-professional use cases.

Instead of paid VPN services: Wireguard as a protocol with self-hosted setup, or Mullvad which while not FOSS uses FOSS tools throughout.

For password management: Bitwarden is fully open source, self-hostable, and free for individual use. KeePassXC for fully offline password management with no cloud component.

For notes: Obsidian is free for personal use and stores notes as plain text files you own. Joplin is fully open source and includes sync options.

For media: VLC plays virtually every format. mpv is lighter and keyboard-driven. Both are free and open source with no advertising

[Pilgrim]

Bitwarden is the one FOSS recommendation I make to absolutely everyone. Password security matters enormously and Bitwarden is as good as any paid alternative

[Amber Tiger]

LibreOffice for most office tasks but the compatibility with Microsoft formats degrades on complex documents. For simple documents it is perfect. For something you are going to exchange with Word users repeatedly, test first

[Lucy_35]

Nextcloud for self-hosted cloud storage and collaboration is a rabbit hole worth going down if you have any interest in data sovereignty. Setup takes an afternoon and the result is your own Google Drive on your own hardware

[Sequence87]

GIMP has a steep learning curve compared to consumer photo editors but the capability is there if you invest the time. The healing brush equivalent and layer system are both fully functional

[Di87]

The Obsidian recommendation should note that Obsidian itself is not fully open source even though it stores your notes in open formats. Logseq is the more fully FOSS alternative for note-taking

[MJF86]

Fair correction. Obsidian is free for personal use and open format but the application itself is proprietary. Logseq, Joplin, and Zettlr are fully open source alternatives

[Foundry20]

VLC is one of those pieces of software I feel genuine gratitude for every time I use it. Twenty years of free video playback with no nonsense

[IronQuarry98]

Signal for messaging is worth adding. End-to-end encrypted, open source protocol, operated as a non-profit. The gold standard for private communication

[NightCrawler33]

Thunderbird for email if you want a desktop client. Mozilla backed, open source, fully featured, has improved significantly in the past two years

[Kieran88]

The self-hosting angle is the real rabbit hole. Once you start hosting Nextcloud you start looking at Jellyfin for media, Vaultwarden for passwords, Immich for photos. The ecosystem is substantial