Best Free and Open Source Software

posted by Rianne Schestowitz on Sep 28, 2026

• Best Free and Open Source Alternatives to Microsoft SQL Server

  Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system designed for storing, processing and securing structured data. It supports transactional workloads, stored procedures, triggers, views, indexing, replication, backup and recovery, and uses Microsoft’s Transact-SQL (T-SQL) dialect.

  SQL Server is available for Linux, but it remains proprietary software. There is no direct drop-in open source replacement, particularly where an application makes extensive use of T-SQL or SQL Server-specific services. But there are some excellent free and open source relational database systems.

• 8 Best Free and Open Source Software Bill of Materials Tools

  These tools create detailed inventories of those components and their dependencies. This information can help identify vulnerable packages, track licences, improve supply-chain security and simplify compliance work.

  They are particularly useful for developers, security teams, package maintainers and organisations that need a clear picture of the software they build, distribute or deploy.

  Here’s our verdict captured in a legendary LinuxLinks-style ratings chart. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion here.

• hw-monitor - comprehensive hardware monitoring application

  It combines a Rust backend with a TypeScript and React interface using Tauri, presenting hardware information and live operating statistics in a single desktop application. Rather than restricting itself to static system specifications, it brings together process management, performance graphs, hardware sensors, storage information, network connections and systemd services. This makes it useful both for identifying installed hardware and for watching how that hardware and the operating system behave under load.

  This is free and open source software.

• CLP - compress, search and analyze logs

  It is particularly suited to environments generating substantial quantities of machine-produced data, where retaining conventional text logs can consume significant storage. CLP combines compression, search, analytics and viewing rather than treating compression simply as an archival step. Its architecture also supports logging pipelines that encode data before it reaches long-term storage, making it applicable to both historical collections and continuously generated logs.

  This is free and open source software.

• pywal16 - generate and change colour schemes on the fly

  pywal16 is a fork of pywal focused on generating 16-colour schemes from images.

  It analyses the dominant colours in an image, builds a complementary palette, and provides a practical way to use that palette throughout a desktop environment. The project retains pywal’s emphasis on staying out of the way: rather than rewriting existing application configuration files, it generates colour data and templates that programs can consume. This makes it particularly useful for users who want the appearance of their Linux desktop to follow their wallpaper while retaining control over individual application configurations.

  This is free and open source software.

• Hakoniwa - process isolation using Linux security facilities

  Hakoniwa is a process isolation framework for creating restricted Linux execution environments.

  It combines namespaces with several complementary resource and security mechanisms rather than treating filesystem separation alone as sufficient isolation. Hakoniwa creates a fresh mount namespace with a temporary root and assembles the environment needed by the confined process. It can be used from its command-line interface or embedded through its Rust library, which makes the project suitable both for interactive application sandboxing and for software that needs to launch restricted child processes programmatically.

  This is free and open source software.

• isolate - secure execution environment for untrusted programs

  isolate is a sandbox focused on safely executing untrusted programs while limiting their ability to interact with the host system.

  It originated in programming contest infrastructure, where submitted executables need to run automatically without being trusted, but its underlying model is useful anywhere controlled execution of arbitrary programs is required. Each sandbox receives a dedicated working area and a restricted view of system resources. The tool is intentionally specialised around process execution rather than providing a general-purpose container management platform.

  This is free and open source software.

• mpdris2-rs - expose MPD playback through MPRIS2

  mpdris2-rs is a lightweight bridge between Music Player Daemon (MPD) and the MPRIS2 D-Bus interface.

  It allows desktop components and other MPRIS-aware software to obtain playback state, metadata and queue information from MPD through the standard interface used by Linux media controls. This is useful for integrating an MPD installation with desktop environments and utilities that understand MPRIS but do not communicate with MPD directly. A particularly useful aspect is its handling of artwork. Instead of requiring access to the music library, mpdris2-rs retrieves artwork using MPD’s native readpicture and albumart commands. Consequently, artwork can also be provided when connecting to a remote MPD server or listening to Internet radio.

  This is free and open source software.

• pacrank - pick the fastest Arch Linux mirrors

  pacrank is a command-line utility for Arch Linux and Arch-based systems that selects fast package mirrors for the user’s location and writes the chosen servers to pacman’s mirrorlist.

  It follows a focused ranking pipeline rather than offering a large collection of scoring controls. When countries are not supplied manually, pacrank estimates nearby countries by sampling the global Arch mirror list. It filters candidates by country and freshness, evaluates latency, and then subjects the strongest candidates to real download testing. Final ranking is based on observed throughput rather than latency alone. The throughput tests run sequentially so simultaneous transfers do not compete for the user’s available bandwidth and distort the results.

  This is free and open source software.

• Freezed - TYPO3 Fluid Static Site Generator

  Freezed is a static site generator written in PHP and built around the TYPO3 Fluid template engine.

  It takes content and one or more themes and compiles them into a directory containing ordinary HTML and assets, leaving no application runtime or database on the deployed site. Its structure will feel familiar to developers who already work with Fluid: layouts, partials, sections and ViewHelpers are used to compose pages, while site content is represented by folders and templates. Freezed separates source content, themes, copied static files and generated output into distinct directories, making the build process straightforward to inspect and version-control.

  This is free and open source software.

• Notation - sign and verify software artifacts

  Notation is a command-line tool for signing and verifying software artifacts. It is designed for the OCI registry ecosystem and implements the Notary Project specifications.

  The software can add signatures to container images and other OCI artifacts and subsequently verify those signatures. This provides a mechanism for establishing the authenticity and integrity of artifacts distributed through registries.

  Notation supports plugins, allowing signing workflows to integrate with external key management systems and signing services.

  This is free and open source software.

• Jollpi - lightweight GTK 4 text editor with syntax highlighting

  The editor sits between very basic notepad-style applications and heavyweight programming environments. Its interface remains uncomplicated, but GtkSourceView gives it facilities that make it useful for editing source code as well as ordinary text documents. Multiple documents can be kept open at once without introducing the project-management concepts associated with an IDE.

  Particular attention has also been paid to file handling. Jollpi can open files asynchronously, with operations that can be cancelled, helping the graphical interface remain responsive when dealing with large documents. It can also watch open files for changes made by other applications, a useful facility when the same document is being processed by external tools.

  This is free and open source software.