Throughout the years, we have been relying on big companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta and others to give us access to their products to use our computers and phones, communicate on the online web, and store our files. However, as things have gotten worse with the years and the rise of gen-AI only making things worse, people are starting to question if they can even move to new services. However, the journey can be hard and there are so many options that non-tech savvy people are going lose patience and give up.
That is why I made this long and comprehensive list of mostly open-source alternatives to different things from computer OS, social media, to even TV. Many things are easy to move to, others are for more tech-savvy people, and this list doesn't even have all of the available options in any category! However, this is a great first step into trying new things and to slowly move away from big tech. You don't need to do it all at once, go step by step, decide if there are some services you can't stop using and which ones could use a switch and have fun!
Sudomemo is the place to share flipbook animations - called Flipnotes - created and posted from Flipnote Studio on the Nintendo DSi and 3DS.
Sudomemo is the place to share flipbook animations - called Flipnotes - created and posted from Flipnote Studio on the Nintendo DSi and 3DS.
*Not open-sourced.
PictoVerse is where gamers draw, share, and connect. Post fan art, doodles, memes, or game tips and join communities for every game you love, from AAA hits to hidden indie gems. Whether you are vibing, venting, or showing off your creativity, PictoVerse is your space to geek out...
Recreates the classic Miiverse for the phone.
Only on Android phones and tablets.
*Not open-sourced.
The StoryGraph helps you track your reading and choose your next book based on your mood and your favorite topics and themes.
Replaces GoodReads.
Available on Android phones and tablets.
*Not open-sourced.
LibraryThing is a cataloging and social networking site for people who love to read. It allows users to easily create their own catalogs of books that they have read, own, or would like to read.
Replaces GoodReads.
Available on Android phones and tablets.
*Not open-sourced.
Editable online catalog aiming to archive every published book, offering user-contributed entries, metadata, digital lending, and free access to over one million Public Domain titles.
Replaces GoodReads.
BookWyrm is a social network for tracking your reading, talking about books, writing reviews, and discovering what to read next. Federation allows BookWyrm users to join small, trusted communities that can connect with one another, and with other ActivityPub services like...
Replaces GoodReads; part of the Fediverse and ActivityPub.
SpaceHey is a friendly online community for you and your friends that lets you communicate with each other, share content and discover new content and people.
Recreates the old MySpace website and format.
*Not open-sourced.
Newgrounds.com, the large Flash games and animation site that spawned Alien Hominid, has been accepting user-produced submissions since 1999. That it has been quietly spearheading for eight years what is only now being trumpeted about in the mainstream media is indicative of how...
A place to upload animated videos/movies, cool art, and fun flash games.
*Not open-sourced.
Miraheze is a wiki farm (hosts wikis) for free and with no ads, it also provides custom domains, extensions and many other features. It is based on MediaWiki.
Replaces Fandom Wiki.
Ibis is a federated encyclopedia which uses the ActivityPub protocol, just like Mastodon or Lemmy. Users can create, browse, edit articles and use many other features. If you want to start a wiki for a TV series, a video game, or an open source project, then Ibis is for you!
Replaces Fandom Wiki; part of the Fediverse and ActivityPub.
OK, so here is a deal. Finding a great alternative to YouTube is really, REALLY hard. YouTube doesn't have competition because every single person who uploads videos of any kind is on YT. Plus, YT still has the best service to support Youtubers financially (which isn't as high praise with all of the de-monetization), so anyone who wants to make even a little bit of money is going to YouTube. Even then, many of the alternatives have a big problem with far-right content being dominant, so it is difficult to recommend.
Twitch has the same problems, but a hundred times worse. Kick is infamous for having nothing but gambling, ex-Twitch streamers who were banned for harassment and some alt-right stuff. I don't know if the reason for a lack of options is that video websites require lots of resources an manpower, and the few surviving alternative gets taken by alt-right people, but it sucks.
However, I will do two things here.
Comprehensive software providing screen recording and live streaming on Mac, Windows, and Linux with powerful encoding support and unlimited scenes.
Allows you to record and/or stream video and audio. Perfect for if you want to stream or make videos.
Broadcasts live video to over 30 platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch, with chat aggregation, channel analytics, scheduler, and live interaction tools.
Enables live video broadcasting to over 30 platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch.
*Not open-sourced.
PeerTube is a free, decentralized and federated video platform developed as an alternative to other platforms that centralize our data and attention, such as YouTube, Dailymotion or Vimeo. But one organization hosting PeerTube alone may not have enough money to pay for bandwidth...
A decentralized alternative to YouTube; part of the Fediverse and ActivityPub.
Available on Android phones and tablets.
Owncast is a self-hosted live video and web chat server for use with existing popular broadcasting software. Point your live stream at a server you personally control and regain ownership over your content.
An alternative to Twitch; part of the Fediverse and ActivityPub.
Vimeo is the best way to get your videos online in the highest quality with great tools to share publicly or privately.
A nice video hosting site, although not the best for interactions like comments.
Available on Android phones and tablets.
*Not open-sourced
An open-source, ad-free front-end to YouTube offering video downloads, audio-only mode, and subscription management without JS or registration.
Ad-free frontend for YouTube supporting channel subscriptions, playlist import/export, dark mode, SponsorBlock, and privacy features without Google connection.
Experience YouTube ad-free on desktop with enhanced privacy. FreeTube prevents Google tracking and works seamlessly across Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Offers an alternative Android streaming front-end for major platforms, with ad-free playback, SponsorBlock, advanced filters, danmaku chats, and playlist downloads.
Offers an alternative Android streaming front-end for major platforms, with ad-free playback, SponsorBlock, advanced filters, danmaku chats, and playlist downloads.
Only on Android phones and tablets.
Unofficial alternative for ad-free YouTube with SponsorBlock, background playback, auto-repeat, dislike counts, and offline downloads using custom patches.
Unofficial alternative for ad-free YouTube with SponsorBlock, background playback, auto-repeat, dislike counts, and offline downloads using custom patches.
Only on Android phones and tablets.
Advanced Android TV player supporting 8K, 60fps, HDR playback, no ads, adjustable speed, customizable controls, SponsorBlock, and no Google Services.
Advanced Android TV player supporting 8K, 60fps, HDR playback, no ads, adjustable speed, customizable controls, SponsorBlock, and no Google Services.
Only on Android TVs.
Command line program that's a 
youtube-dl fork that downloads videos from YouTube and over 1000 sites. The main focus of this project is adding new features and patches while also keeping up to date with the original project.
Twire is an open source, ad free Twitch browser and stream player for Android. You can select multiple themes and also login with your twitch account. You can also follow and unfollow streamers through the app.
An open source, ad free Twitch browser and stream player for Android.
Only on Android phones and tablets.
It is time to escape Twitter, Facebook, and Google. Look at these alternative options, which are all queer-friendly spaces.
Create your own free website, and connect with others you by following their sites. You get 1 GB of space to make whatever you’d like with HTML, CSS, JS, image, text, and web font files.
Nekoweb is a free static website hosting service, created in 2024 by a group of coders, programmers and artists, passionate for the old web and personal websites.
Nekoweb is a free static website hosting service, created by a group of coders, programmers and artists, passionate for the old web and personal websites.
*Not open-sourced.
With Straw.Page, you can create your own casual, dumb or professional website to share with the world.
Easy-to-use and creative-centric web page creator that embracing Geocities-alike with modern approach.
WriteFreely is an open-source, minimalist, federated, self-hosted blogging platform. It was built for and by 
Write.as and can be used to power a similar community or just a single blog.
Jekyll is a simple, blog aware, static site generator. It takes a template directory (representing the raw form of a website), runs it through and Liquid converters, and spits out a complete, static website suitable for serving with Apache or your favorite web server.
RocketCake is a free web editor for creating responsive websites. For beginners and professional web developers. No programming needed.
RocketCake is a free web editor for creating responsive websites. For beginners and professional web developers. No programming needed.
*Not open-sourced.
*Not a Linux desktop, but you can open it with Bottles
It is time to expand your artistic abilities by using these programs!
A free, open-source painting program for professional artists offering customizable UI, 9 brush engines, layer support, and color management.
An art program with lots of features for 2D digital artists.
Free open-source 3D software for modeling, texturing, rigging, animation, rendering, compositing, video editing, and simulation.
3D modeling software.
Glaze is a tool developed by the University of Chicago to protect digital artwork from being scraped and used to train generative AI models.
Puts a filter that prevents Gen-AI programs from using it in their training.
While a Windows app, you can either use Bottles to use it in Linux or sign up for an account for the web version.
Free cross-platform DAW supporting VST plugins, MIDI, and lossless audio. Offers music loopers and sequencers with privacy, no ads, and offline capability.
Make your own music.
FamiStudio is very simple music editor for the Nintendo Entertainment System or Famicom. It is designed to be easier to use than FamiTracker, but its feature set is also much more limited.
FamiStudio is very simple music editor for the Nintendo Entertainment System or Famicom.
Available on Android phones and tablets.
Audio effects tool for PipeWire with limiter, compressor, equalizer, spectrum analyzer and real-time control of input/output, plus profile saves.
Audio manipulation tool.
Here are all the places to get games, from official stores to emulators.
Steam is a digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications platform developed by Valve Corporation. It is used to distribute a wide range of games and related media entirely over the internet, stretching from one-man independent efforts to some of...
Most popular online game store.
*Not open-sourced.
Indie-focused digital marketplace and community platform offering customizable pricing, game hosting, stats tracking, asset sales, and manageable app downloads.
A community platform for gaming, anime, cosplay, and fandom. Engage in challenges, earn rewards, share creations, join dedicated communities, and more.
Heroic is an Open Source Game Launcher for Linux, Windows and macOS (10.15+, won't work properly on High sierra and older versions). Right now it supports launching games from the .
Lutris is an open source gaming platform for GNU/Linux. It allows you to gather and manage (install, configure and launch) all your games acquired from any source, in a single interface.
osu! is a rhythm game based on the gameplay of a variety of popular commercial rhythm games. While aiming to keep authentic gameplay and scoring, osu! increases the epic factor through online rankings, multiplayer, replay exchange, and a huge community following.
osu! is a rhythm game based on the gameplay of a variety of popular commercial rhythm games. While aiming to keep authentic gameplay and scoring, osu! increases the epic factor through online rankings, multiplayer, replay exchange, and a huge community following.
Available on Android phones and tablets.
Flash games.
Waydroid uses Linux namespaces (user, pid, uts, net, mount, ipc) to run a full Android system in a container and provide Android applications on any GNU/Linux-based platform.
A portable, fast, and lightweight emulator frontend supporting classic and modern gaming systems with features like real-time rewinding and shader support.
Emulator for multiple consoles.
Available on Android phones and tablets.
ares is a multi-system emulator that began development on October 14th, 2004. It is a descendent of higan and bsnes, and focuses on accuracy and preservation.
Emulator for multiple consoles.
Thank you so much for going through this list! I know this list is huge and all-encompising. As I said, this doesn't have all available options, so you could explore out there. What is important is to slowly learn to rely less on big tech companies and work on finding and supporting projects that respect our privacy. If you have any other recommendations, please let me know. Have a great day!
No comments so far, maybe you want to be first?
