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Best Free and Open Source Software: June 2026 Updates
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Best Free and Open Source Software: June 2026 Updates
Here’s the latest from our hand-picked software recommendations. This month alone, we’ve published 139 new and updated roundups, giving you even more ways to uncover exceptional tools from across the open-source world. And that’s only part of the story — LinuxLinks is also brimming with fresh hardware coverage, reviews, and hands-on Linux testing.
We’re here to champion free and open-source software, celebrate the projects that deserve wider attention, and help readers find the very best tools the community has to offer.
plwm - X11 dynamic tiling window manager
plwm is a highly customizable X11 dynamic tiling window manager written in Prolog.
It focuses on high code and documentation quality, powerful customization, common tiling window manager features, and staying small and easy to hack on.
This is free and open source software.
Frappe CRM - modern customer relationship management system
Frappe CRM is a modern customer relationship management system built for sales teams.
The software helps users manage leads, deals, contacts, organisations, notes, tasks, comments, activities, and sales pipelines from a clean web interface.
This is free and open source software.
zlist - modern replacement for ls
zlist is a modern replacement for ls written in Zig.
It provides a colorful directory listing with a compact grid layout, Nerd Font icons, long view, sorting, filtering, recursive traversal, Git status indicators, and summary reports.
This is free and open source software.
KikoPlay - full-featured danmu media player
KikoPlay is a full-featured danmu media player.
It combines local video playback with scrolling comments, media library management, subtitle recognition, download features, playlist organisation, and LAN media serving.
The application uses libmpv as its playback engine and Qt for its interface. It supports Linux through source builds and Flatpak packages.
This is free and open source software.
pls - modern alternative to ls
pls is a modern alternative to ls that offers cleaner, more colourful output with sensible defaults and extensive customisation.
pls is designed to be fast and practical while providing a friendlier way to explore directories and inspect files. It supports detailed metadata views, icons, colours, filtering, sorting, and flexible configuration.
This is free and open source software.
CrowdSec - collaborative security engine
CrowdSec is a collaborative security engine that detects and responds to malicious behaviour.
It analyses logs and HTTP requests to identify attacks, then lets remediation components block or otherwise handle offending IP addresses.
CrowdSec uses a community-powered IP reputation network so installations can benefit from threat intelligence contributed by other users.
This is free and open source software.
SerialGUI-Rs - graphical serial monitor
SerialGUI-rs is a graphical serial monitor written in Rust.
It uses the serialport-rs library for serial communication and eframe for its desktop interface, giving users a cross-platform way to connect to serial devices without relying on a terminal. The application is designed for monitoring live serial output and can also visualise incoming comma-separated numeric data in a chart panel, which makes it useful for tasks such as watching sensor values and other streamed measurements.
This is free and open source software.
MuonFP - enterprise-ready passive TCP fingerprinter
MuonFP is an enterprise-ready passive TCP fingerprinter.
It identifies and classifies network traffic from TCP packet characteristics, helping security professionals detect reconnaissance activity such as port scanning.
This is free and open source software.
Metabrowse - static site generator for code search
Metabrowse is a static site generator for code search with IDE features for Scala. It uses the Scalameta Semantic API to build an online code browser.
This is free and open source software.
ktfmt-gradle - Gradle plugin that applies the ktfmt formatter to Kotlin projects
ktfmt-gradle is a Gradle plugin that applies ktfmt formatting to Kotlin projects.
ktfmt is an opinionated code formatter for Kotlin. ktfmt-gradle integrates the formatter into Gradle builds so developers can check whether Kotlin source code follows the configured style, or automatically reformat code as part of their normal development workflow.
The plugin is useful for Kotlin projects that want reproducible formatting checks in local builds and continuous integration systems. It supports JVM, Android, JavaScript, and Kotlin Multiplatform projects, and can also format top-level Kotlin script files.
This is free and open source software.
sxwm - dynamic tiling window manager for X11
sxwm is a simple, feature-rich dynamic tiling window manager for X11.
This is free and open source software.
Leetha - passive network fingerprinting and analysis engine
Leetha is a passive network fingerprinting and analysis engine.
It identifies devices on a network by analysing broadcast traffic and protocol exchanges, combining passive observation with optional active service probing to build a device inventory, detect anomalies, and map the attack surface.
This is free and open source software.
workflowr - R package
workflowr is an R package that helps researchers organize analysis projects as reproducible research websites.
It combines literate programming with knitr and R Markdown, together with Git version control via git2r, to create time-stamped, versioned, and documented results. The package is designed for data science projects where analyses, source code, outputs, and project history need to be kept together and shared clearly.
This is free and open source software.
quickblog - lightweight static blog engine
quickblog is a lightweight static blog engine for Clojure and babashka.
It is designed to be used as a library from a babashka project, with tasks for creating posts and generating a static blog.
This is free and open source software.
Fluux Messenger - modern, cross-platform XMPP client
Fluux Messenger is a modern, cross-platform XMPP client for communities and organizations.
It offers rich messaging, group chat, end-to-end encryption, theming, offline search, file sharing, polls, notifications, and a reusable SDK for building XMPP applications. The desktop app is built with Tauri, while the interface uses React and TypeScript.
Fluux Messenger connects to any XMPP server, although the project has currently been tested primarily with ejabberd. It is available for Linux, macOS, Windows, and the web.
This is free and open source software.
Kanzi - modern lossless data compressor
Kanzi is a modern, modular, portable, and efficient lossless data compressor.
Unlike many mainstream lossless compressors, Kanzi is not limited to a single compression approach. It combines multiple algorithms and techniques to offer a broad range of compression ratios and adapt to different types of data. It is designed to exploit multi-core CPUs by compressing blocks in parallel.
Kanzi is a data compressor, not an archiver. It does not provide features such as cross-file deduplication or data recovery, and it is not compatible with standard compression formats.
This is free and open source software.
Soia - modern media player built on mpv
Soia is a modern media player built on mpv.
It provides a clean interface for watching local media and streaming from network sources, with support for subtitles, playlists, shaders, and playback history.
The application is built with Vue, TypeScript, Tauri, Rust, and libmpv. Linux builds currently target Ubuntu Wayland sessions.
This is free and open source software.
DarkMoon - AI-powered autonomous penetration testing platform
DarkMoon is an AI-powered autonomous penetration testing platform.
It orchestrates specialised agents for web applications, cloud environments, Active Directory, Kubernetes, CMS platforms, and network services.
This is free and open source software.
Powerpack - batteries-included Clojure toolkit for building static websites
Powerpack is a batteries-included Clojure toolkit for building static websites.
It combines Stasis with a collection of supporting tools, providing the wiring for content ingestion, development serving, asset optimisation, image processing, internationalisation, live reload, and static export. Powerpack reads content from Markdown and EDN files into an in-memory Datomic database, leaving developers free to construct pages in their own preferred way.
This is free and open source software.
Kotlin Formatter - tool for formatting Kotlin source code
Kotlin Formatter is a tool for formatting Kotlin source code.
It is built around ktfmt and provides a unified formatting workflow across the command line, Git hooks, Gradle, and IntelliJ IDEA.
Kotlin Formatter is designed for teams that want an automated and consistent Kotlin formatting setup across different developer workflows. Its command-line utility can be used directly, wired into Git hooks, or run from build tooling. The IntelliJ plugin extends the same formatter into the IDE, helping keep formatting behaviour consistent between local editing, commits, and automated checks.
The Gradle plugin supplies formatting and checking tasks, while the Git hook scripts help catch formatting drift early in the development process. The experimental daemon mode is useful for repeated formatting operations where avoiding JVM startup time can make the formatter feel more responsive.
This is free and open source software.
sandpaper - R package
sandpaper is an R package that provides the user interface for The Carpentries Workbench.
It helps lesson authors, contributors, and maintainers build Carpentries-style lesson websites from Markdown or R Markdown source files, separating lesson content from presentation while supporting local previews, validation, portable lesson builds, and continuous integration workflows.
This is free and open source software.