Best Free and Open Source Software

posted by Rianne Schestowitz on Dec 07, 2025

• 9 Best Free and Open Source Terminal-Based Volume Mixers - LinuxLinks

  Instead of changing the overall system volume, this type of software lets you control the sound for specific programs, like turning down the volume for a game while keeping a internet radio streamer playing at its current level, or muting a browser tab without silencing everything.

  Here’s our verdict captured in a legendary LinuxLinks-style ratings chart. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion here. We only include terminal-based tools in this roundup. We’ve already published a separate roundup for graphical volume mixers.

• MemProcFS - view physical memory as files in a virtual file system - LinuxLinks

  Easy trivial point and click memory analysis without the need for complicated commandline arguments! Access memory content and artifacts via files in a mounted virtual file system or via a feature rich application library to include in your own projects!

  Analyze memory dump files, live memory via DumpIt or WinPMEM, live memory in read-write mode from virtual machines or from PCILeech FPGA hardware devices!

  This is cross-platform software running under Linux, macOS, and Windows. It’s free and open source.

• cljfmt - detect and fix formatting errors in Clojure code - LinuxLinks

  It is not the goal of the project to provide a one-to-one mapping between a Clojure syntax tree and formatted text; rather the intent is to correct formatting errors with minimal changes to the existing structure of the text. cljfmt integrates with many existing build tools, or can be used as a library.

  If you want format completely unstructured Clojure code, the zprint project may be more suitable.

  This is free and open source software.

• Tinte - wallpaper utility and theme generator - LinuxLinks

  Tinte is a wallpaper utility and theme generator for Wayland. It’s a ork of aether that is not limited to Omarchy.

  This is free and open source software.

• Groonga - fulltext search engine and column store - LinuxLinks

  Groonga is also a column-oriented database management system (DBMS). Compared with well-known row-oriented systems, such as MySQL and PostgreSQL, column-oriented systems are more suited for aggregate queries. Due to this advantage, Groonga can cover weakness of row-oriented systems.

  This is cross-platform software running under Linux, macOS, and Windows.

  This is free and open source software.

• oeis-tui - TUI and CLI for browsing the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences - LinuxLinks

  oeis-tui is a TUI and CLI for browsing the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS) in the terminal.

  This is free and open source software.

• Pikeru - file picker, file searcher, and image viewer - LinuxLinks

  Pikeru is a file picker, file searcher, and image viewer that works on any desktop environment or window manager.

  It has an xdg-desktop-portal backend that makes it useable with web browsers and anything else that uses portal for file selection.

  This is free and open source software.

• Gopher2600 - emulator for the Atari 2600 - LinuxLinks

  The vintage CRT television, contemporaneous with the console, is emulated with a selection of interference effects and bevel images. This is an ongoing area of development and will be improved further in the future.

  Flexible screenshot features so that games using “flicker” kernels can be effectively captured.

  Accurate audio reproduction with optional stereo output. The intensity of the stereo effect can be altered.

• mommy - support tool - LinuxLinks

  mommy is tested on ubuntu, debian, archlinux, fedora, nixpkgs, macos, freebsd, netbsd, openbsd, and windows.

  This is free and unencumbered software released into the public domain

• Beszel - lightweight server monitoring platform - LinuxLinks

  It has a friendly web interface, simple configuration, and is ready to use out of the box. It supports automatic backup, multi-user, OAuth authentication, and API access.

  This is free and open source software.

• mouseless - mouse replacement and key remapper - LinuxLinks

  mouseless lets you control the mouse pointer in Linux using the keyboard. It works across all Linux distributions, including those running Wayland.

  This is free and open source software.

• Fresh - terminal text editor - LinuxLinks

  Fresh is a terminal-based text editor.

  This is free and open source software.

• Muxly - lightweight, highly customizable CLI for managing tmux sessions - LinuxLinks

  Muxly is a highly configurable Tmux Session Manager based on ThePrimeagen’s tmux-sessionizer script.

  It provides an intuitive interface for creating, managing, and switching between tmux sessions with pre-defined or on-the-fly layouts and intelligent directory scanning.

  This is free and open source software.

• wisu - fast, minimalist directory tree viewer - LinuxLinks

  wisu is fast, minimalist directory tree viewer, written in Rust, with a powerful interactive mode.

  This is free and open source software.

• OctoType - TUI typing trainer - LinuxLinks

  OctoType is a TUI typing trainer made with Ratatui, and powered by Gladius – Heavily inspired by Monkeytype, with a focus on customizability.

  This is free and open source software.

• TermiRs - SSH terminal client - LinuxLinks

  TermiRs is a modern, async SSH terminal client built with Rust and Ratatui.

  TermiRs provides a fast, secure, and user-friendly terminal interface for managing SSH connections with advanced features like secure file transfers and encrypted configuration storage.

  This is free and open source software.

• Gonzales PE - CSS parser - LinuxLinks

  Gonzales PE is a CSS parser which plays nicely with preprocessors.

  Currently the following languages are supported: SCSS, Sass, LESS.

  This is free and open source software.