Best Free and Open Source Software

posted by Rianne Schestowitz on Jan 19, 2026

• Proslenkey - application launcher - LinuxLinks

  Proslenkey is a lightweight GTK4 application launcher for Wayland.

  This is free and open source software.

• Schedrem - cross-platform task scheduler and reminder - LinuxLinks

  Schedrem is a Python package that provides a tool for scheduling tasks and setting reminders.

  As a resident program, it monitors changes in the configuration file, triggers tasks to execute commands or display message boxes as reminders. It also validates the configuration format every time the file is saved.

  The configuration file, which is a YAML file, is easy to read and write. You can use your favorite text editor to configure your schedules.

  This is free and open source software.

• netwhy - diagnose slow or unreliable network connections - LinuxLinks

  netwhy is a lightweight Linux command-line tool that diagnoses slow or unreliable network connections. It runs quick checks (latency, packet loss, DNS, optional HTTP) and summarizes where problems are most likely: local link, DNS, or remote host.

  This is free and open source software.

• typomat - command-line typing practice tool - LinuxLinks

  It runs through a directory’s source code, extracting words from variable declarations, string literals and function signatures. These words are then used to build short, randomized typing prompts relevant to your codebase.

  Run typomat without any arguments to practice on the current directory. To use a different source, provide a local path for the program.

  This is free and open source software.

• gocui - create console user interfaces - LinuxLinks

  gocui is a minimalist Go package aimed at creating Console User Interfaces.

  This is free and open source software.

• 3 Useful Free and Open Source Kotlin Code Formatters - LinuxLinks

  This type of software means coders cede control over minutiae of hand-formatting. In return, the software offers speed, determinism, and freedom from pycodestyle nagging about formatting. Save time and mental energy for more important matters.

  This roundup selects some useful code formatters for Kotlin developers.

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

• Traggo - self-hosted tag-based time tracking - LinuxLinks

  Traggo is a tag-based time tracking tool. In Traggo there are no tasks, only tagged time spans.

  With tags, Traggo tries to be as customizable as possible, f.ex. if you work on different projects you could add a project-tag. If you like to see statistics from the different things you do, you could add a type-tag with values like email, programming, meeting. You can do it just as you like.

  If you want to use Traggo, you need to host it yourself.

  This is free and open source software.

• xt7-player-mpv - mpv GUI - LinuxLinks

  xt7-player-mpv aims to be an (in)complete graphical interface to mpv, focused on usability.

  It also provides extra features like youtube and shoutcast integration, dvbt, media tagging, library and playlist managment and a lot more.

  This is free and open source software.

• termui - Golang terminal dashboard - LinuxLinks

  termui is a cross-platform and fully-customizable terminal dashboard and widget library built on top of termbox-go. It is inspired by blessed-contrib and tui-rs.

  This is free and open source software.

• uosc - minimalist proximity-based UI for mpv - LinuxLinks

  uosc is a feature-rich minimalist proximity-based UI for mpv.

  This is free and open source software.

• tview - terminal UI library with rich, interactive widgets - LinuxLinks

  tview is a Go package that provides commonly used components for terminal based user interfaces.

  This is free and open source software.

• RQ - simple Python library - LinuxLinks

  It is backed by Redis or Valkey and is designed to have a low barrier to entry while scaling incredibly well for large applications. It can be integrated into your web stack easily, making it suitable for projects of any size—from simple applications to high-volume enterprise systems.

  A job is a Python object, representing a function that is invoked asynchronously in a worker (background) process. Any Python function can be invoked asynchronously, by simply pushing a reference to the function and its arguments onto a queue. This is called enqueueing.

  This is free and open source software.