Ever wondering about free great open source software to start your idea? Here's a list for you to get started.
Also mentions several rarely known and newer software as well!
Please note that almost none of these alternatives are 1-to-1 replacement with exact some features. Most of these software might have entirely different scope of project.
Notable event: Libre Graphics Meeting, annual meeting on Free/Libre and Open Source software for graphics. https://www.libregraphicsmeeting.org
Cover image by David Revoy (CC-BY 4.0) https://www.davidrevoy.com/article1061/cmyk-support-in-inkscape-could-be-a-game-changer-for-professional-print-designers
A free, cross-platform tool for editing and scripting subtitles, featuring visual typesetting, multiple formats, and real-time video preview.
Powerful subtitling software, used by amateur and professional. Probably the most used software in fansubbing scene. Some company like
Crunchyroll or Muse Asia are actually using this software.
Intuitive multi-track video editor with robust hardware-accelerated support; offers chroma key, color grading, and extensive audio/video format compatibility.
Powerful video editor with KDE principles: "Simple by Default, Powerful when Needed"
Use this instead of pirating
Wondershare Filmora. I know some of you do. Yes, some my friends did this all the time and ended downloading trojan.
Free, open-source video editor featuring cross-platform support, unlimited tracks, trim and slice tools, 3D animated titles, and video effects for editing projects.
Basic video editor, akin to
Windows Movie Maker.
Free, open-source video editing with multi-format timelines, frame accurate seeking, and robust capture support up to 4k for diverse projects.
Free cross-platform DAW supporting VST plugins, MIDI, and lossless audio. Offers music loopers and sequencers with privacy, no ads, and offline capability.
Free open-source multi-track audio editor and recorder with 32-bit float processing. Supports many formats and plugins for Windows, macOS, Linux.
Create, notate, and playback music with free, open-source software for Windows, Mac, and Linux supporting MIDI, MusicXML, PDF export, and community sharing.
Originally forked from
MusE Sequencer, now becomes one of the most user-friend notation music software.
Cinelerra is a highly advanced and professional non-linear video editing software, but still remains open source. Cinelerra solves three main tasks: capturing, editing and compositing.
Efficient image viewer with cross-platform support, offering a minimal, fast interface suitable for Windows, macOS, and Linux users.
Simple and distraction free image viewer. Great zooming approach, similar to good old
Picasa Image Viewer.
BeeRef lets you quickly arrange your reference images and view them while you create. Its minimal interface is designed not to get in the way of your creative process.
Reference manager app.
PureRef alternative.
Krita has this feature built-in, but not as comprehensive as PureRef.
PostyBirb is an application that helps artists post art and other multimedia to multiple websites more quickly.
Ever tired managing art upload to many various sites? This software (might be) your solution.
Supports various sites, from
X,
DeviantArt,
pixiv,
Bluesky, and so on. Fediverse instances such as
Mastodon,
Misskey,
Pixelfed, and
Pleroma also supported.
There won't be any support for any Meta platform, including Facebook, Instagram, or Threads. (Require paid API?)
Browse, preview, and install fonts from Google Fonts with a sleek interface, privacy-first font previews, code for CDN or NPM use, TTF downloads, and easy filtering.
Turns tablets or smartphones into graphic tablets or touchscreens, controls mouse, mirrors screens, supports stylus with pressure tilt, and multi-touch on Linux.
dispcalGUI is a graphical user interface developed by Florian Höch for the display calibration and profiling tools of Argyll CMS, an open source color management system developed by Graeme Gill.
Display calibration and profiling tool.
The latest update of the official version is in 2019. There's maintained community forks on https://github.com/eoyilmaz/displaycal-py3
Danbooru is an English language imageboard and image hosting website focused primarily on anime style illustrations. It was launched in 2005 by a programmer known as "Albert" and is frequently described as one of the earliest and most influential "booru"...
Mix any color from your reference photo with the paints you own 🎨 Outlines, grids, tonal values, limited palettes, photo editing. Free web app.
Open-source PDF viewer/editor using Qt framework with C++ library, multithreading, hardware rendering, encryption, text layout, and form tools.
ImageMagick is a software suite to create, edit, and compose bitmap images. It can read, convert and write images in a variety of formats (about 100) including GIF, JPEG, JPEG-2000, PNG, PDF, PhotoCD, TIFF, and DPX.
G'MIC is a full-featured open-source framework for image processing, distributed under the CeCILL free software licenses (LGPL-like and/or GPL-compatible). It provides several different user interfaces to convert / manipulate / filter / visualize generic image datasets...
Multi-platform document viewer supporting PDF, EPUB, comics and images with annotation tools, sidebar navigation, signature verification, and text-to-speech.
Based on the F3D library that supports many file formats, from digital content to scientific datasets including glTF, USD, STL, STEP, PLY, OBJ, FBX, Alembic and many more. Drag and drop 3d models into the app and export an image of the 3d model.
This section will feature general and specialized engine.
Godot Engine is a feature-packed, cross-platform game engine to create 2D and 3D games from a unified interface. It provides a comprehensive set of common tools, so that users can focus on making games without having to reinvent the wheel.
Capable professional 2D and 3D game engine. Even Sonic Colors: Ultimate was developed using Godot.
For beginner, this engine doesn't have visual scripting like Construct or
GameMaker, but Godot's GDScript programming script is relatively easy to learn. They remove the visual scripting on previous release, as it needs a better implementation.
As in May 2023, Godot regularly becomes the top used game engine on itch.io, surpassing
Unity.
Open 3D Engine (O3DE) is an Apache 2.0-licensed multi-platform 3D engine that enables developers and content creators to build AAA games, cinema-quality 3D worlds, and high-fidelity simulations without any fees or commercial obligations.
General 3D engine. Compared to
Godot Engine which only focused on game creation, O3DE has wide support, from robotics, virtualization, and other industry needs.
Hosted by Linux Foundation and backed by various company, such as Amazon, Huawei, Oppo, and RedHat.
Wicked Engine is an open-source game engine written in C++. The main focus is to be easy to set up and use, light weight, high performance, and graphically advanced. The full source code is provided with the MIT license, which means, anyone is free to use it for anything without...
ct.js is a 2D game editor (desktop app) based on web technologies. It aims to be an extensible yet simple game-making tool, accessible for both newbies and experienced game developers.
Despite having .js on their name, you can totally can make games with visual scripting alone. Alternative to
A quick and easy to use drag and drop retro game creator for your favourite handheld video game system.
Game engine specifically to create GameBoy games. Yes, actual GameBoy ROM files.
Adventure Game Studio (AGS) - is the IDE and the engine meant for creating and running videogames of adventure (aka "quest") genre. It has potential, although limited, support for other genres as well.
Specialized for point-and-click games.
Pixel Vision 8 is a platform that standardizes 8-bit fantasy console limitations built on top of an open source C# SDK. Developers can customize these restrictions to match actual legacy hardware or create something new. It is ideal for game jams, prototyping ideas or having fun.
Fantasy console with Lua, also usable with external editor (both code and art asset)
Fantasy console with Phyton
a visual novel engine that helps you use words, images, and sounds to tell interactive stories that run on computers, mobile devices, and the web.
Phyton-based visual novel creator. Have relatively easy interface that beginner programmer can easily pick it up.
Ren'Py powers a lot of successful visual novel that are ported on various platform, such as Higurashi series, Clannad and PLanetarian (according to
The Visual Novel Database: https://vndb.org/v?f=N18fwRen_7Py-&s=n4w )
TIC-80 is a fantasy computer where you can make, play and share tiny games. Comes with built-in tools for development: code, sprites, maps, sound editors and a command line.
Fantasy console with:
- Lua
- Moonscript
- Javascript
- Wren
- Fennel
- Squirrel
- Ruby
- Janet
- Scheme
GDevelop is an open-source game making software designed to be used by everyone. Any kind of 2D games can be created with it and no programming skills are required to get started. Logic of games are made using visual events.
No-code game engine.
While it is free and open source software, the official software release require you to pay €4.99 or €9.99 per month for more feature.
For complete comparison, visit: https://gdevelop.io/pricing
Only use this if you're a complete beginner (learning
Eldiron is a cross-platform creator for classic retro role-playing games (RPGs). Its primary goal is to enable the creation of RPGs reminiscent of the 1980s and 1990s while incorporating modern features such as multiplayer support, procedural content generation, and more.
Open source website builder that empowers creators to build highly maintainable and fast websites using modern web standards. Webstudio is an Open Source version of Webflow.
Easy drag-and-drop web builder. Provides commercial supports with good free tier. Has copy-pasting element from
Webflow.
Open-source library for JS/TS enabling comic content integration, customizable comic-style pages, interactive navigation, and multi-language support.
Coollab is a free, open-source, node-based software for creating generative visuals in real time. It is designed to be very intuitive and easy to use, yet very powerful and flexible!
PraxisLIVE is an open-source, visual programming environment. Experiment with and create projects using a visual patching system coupled with the power of programming in Java, Processing and GLSL.
NodeBox is a new software application for creating generative art using procedural graphics and a new way to approach graphic design.
TiXL is an open-source solution for creating interactive 3d content and animations. It combines the best aspects of animation, compositing, and coding into a lightweight and intuitive UI. Your designs can be shared as executable or rendered to movies.
Processing is an open source programming environment and library built to handle images, animation, and interactivity. It is used by students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning to code, prototyping, and producing full applications.
...but I'm not sure regarding the quality, as the last time I used it was probably more than decade ago or probably never.
Comments
Amazing list !
I discovered some tools that I never heard of and updated my AdobeFree list with some of them !
Very cool list! So many apps I've not heard of before. Some suggestions to add to the list:
Added Shotcut to the list :)
7zip is too general that I don't consider them as creative tool, while OBS is basically de facto standard of screen recording already 🤔
Yeah. That's fair. I guess my rationale is from a screen recording perspective. OBS, while I really like it, can be a tad overkill for the use case of needing a simple and straightforward screen recorder. As someone who records training videos, I've found myself reaching for Kooha on Linux and fornWindows it would be ShareX.