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
novelWriter is a Markdown-like text editor designed for writing novels and larger projects of many smaller plain text documents. It uses its own flavor of Markdown that supports a meta data syntax for comments, synopsis and cross-referencing between files.
GPU-accelerated RAW photo editor with non-destructive workflow, AI-powered masking, advanced color and tonal tools, batch processing, and cross-platform support.
Bring Your 3D Models to Life. Mesh2Motion is a FREE & open-source web application to animate your 3D models. Supports humanoid, four-legged, and bird creatures.
Enve is a free and open-source 2D animation app. It can create both vector and raster animations and even use sound and video files. It has been created with flexibility and expandability in mind.
Raster and vector animation software, not actively maintained.
Nijigenerate is an open source editor for the nijilive puppet format, which is derived from Inochi2D (v0.8) technology. This application allows you to rig models for use in games or for other real-time applications such as VTubing.
Portable BSD-licensed image editor for Windows offering multi-layer support, batch processing, extensive filters, macro recording, and broad file compatibility.
SpookyGhost is a procedural animation tool for sprites made with the 
nCine. You can animate many different properties like the size, rotation, position, and color of your sprites, as well as deform their shape.
JuiceFX alternative. Also similar to
Pixel Composer, but it's not node-based approach and it's not as powerful.
EasyRPG is a project aimed at producing a free and open source role playing game interpreter and editor compatible with RPG Maker 2000 and 2003.
RPG Maker-alike game engine.
OSSIA Score is an interactive sequencer for intermedia authoring. It allows to create flexible and interactive scenarios and is especially designed for live performance, art installations, museography or any context requiring a precise and interactive execution of timed events.
Tahoma2D is a powerful program for 2D and stop motion animation. Tahoma 2D is based on OpenToonz.
OpenToonz fork with changes that more suitable for 2D animation workflow outside Japan.
Effekseer is a tool that allows easy creation of beautiful particle effects for games and movies.
Particle effects creation tool.
A free, open-source music composition tool for beat-making, loops, and arrangements — built with Web Audio, WASM, and modern web tech.
Tuesday is a free open source engine for creating visual novels, interactive stories and text-based adventure games. Written in JavaScript without using any third party libraries. There is support for the Apache Cordova framework for building native mobile and desktop...
JavaScript-based visual novel creator, also with visual relation hierarchy for dialogue.
Open-source DAW for GNU/Linux with MIDI and audio sequencing, LV2, VST, DSSI plugin support, multitrack recording, and non-destructive editing.
GrafX2 is a bitmap paint program inspired by the Amiga programs Deluxe Paint and Brilliance. Specialized in 256-color drawing, it includes a very large number of tools and effects that make it particularly suitable for pixel art, game graphics, and generally any detailed...
Open CAD Studio: a modern, Open Source 2D + 3D CAD application that reads and writes DWG and DXF natively built in Rust, with GPU-accelerated rendering.
Node-based particle effects creation tool.
RAWGraphs is an open source app built with the goal of making the visualization of complex data easy for everyone. Born as tool for designers and vis geeks, RAWGraphs aims at providing a missing link between spreadsheets and vector graphics editors.
Open-source editor for vector and interface designs with AI-powered creation, Figma file support, real-time peer-to-peer collaboration, code export, and advanced programmability.
Helio is a cross-platform lightweight music speed-painting tool. It features linear-based sequencer with clean UI, integrated version control to sync the projects between devices, export to midi and more.
Pyrite64 is a visual editor + runtime-engine to create 3D games that can run on a real N64 console or accurate emulators like Mupen64Plus.
Aktivisda is a web application to facilitate the creation of visuals that use the graphic charter of an organization, and the spreading of this graphic charter.
Canva alternative (soon).
Still in early prototype. Not fully usable for productive usage.
According to the official statement: "Aktivisda meets some of the same needs as the proprietary software Canva but does not aim to be a real alternative to it.
Where Canva offers a wide range of functions and a large gallery of graphic elements, Aktivisda concentrates on the functions and graphic elements that are essential to an organisation."
Primitive-based 3D modeling with shape combining, 2D blueprint editing, freehand drawing, STL export for 3D printing, easy snapping, and boolean holes.
Autodesk Tinkercad alternative
A free, SketchUp-inspired 3D modeler for architecture, engineering and 3D design — built natively for Linux.
SketchUp alternative
Free 2D DWG/DXF CAD for Linux in the spirit of classic AutoCAD — keyboard drafting with acad.pgp aliases, faithful DWG round-trip, paper space and dimensions, plus surveying and terrain plugins (points, construction chart, contours, profiles, earthworks, UTM georeferencing...
A no-nonsense hardware-accelerated image viewer. Oculante's vision is to be a fast, unobtrusive, portable image viewer with wide image format support, offering image analysis and basic editing tools.
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.