Best Free and Open Source Software

posted by Rianne Schestowitz on Sep 07, 2026

• Best Free and Open Source Alternatives to Microsoft Internet Information Services

  Microsoft’s relationship with open source software has changed considerably over the years. Once openly hostile to Linux and free software, the company now contributes to open source projects and supports Linux across parts of its ecosystem. Nevertheless, much of Microsoft’s software portfolio remains proprietary.

  This series looks at the best free and open source alternatives to products and services offered by Microsoft.

• 6 Best Free and Open Source Linux Web-Based Discord Tools

  The projects featured here take a variety of approaches. Some provide standalone clients designed to offer a lighter or more privacy-conscious experience, with greater control over settings and resource usage. Others modify the client experience through frameworks that support plugins, themes and interface customisation.

  These tools can improve usability, remove unwanted interface elements and introduce useful quality-of-life features, giving users considerably more control over how the service looks and behaves.

  For open source enthusiasts who still need to use Discord, these projects provide worthwhile alternatives to relying solely on the official proprietary client.

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

• myMarkmap - Create Mind Maps from Markdown

  myMarkmap is a browser-based editor that transforms Markdown text into an interactive mind map. Users describe the hierarchy with Markdown headings or nested lists instead of arranging graphical nodes manually. The resulting map is updated alongside the integrated editor. Maps remain lightweight text documents that can be retained and edited independently of the application.

  This is free and open source software.

• Typesetter - Minimalist Typst Editor

  Typesetter is a native Linux GUI for creating documents with the Typst typesetting system. Its adaptive GTK interface provides a focused editing environment suitable for reports, articles, academic work and other structured documents. Files remain on the local computer, while integrated previews and navigation tools make it easy to inspect the formatted result as you write.

  This is free and open source software.

• tex-fmt - fast LaTeX formatter written in Rust

  tex-fmt is a fast, opinionated command-line formatter for LaTeX source.

  Written in safe Rust, it applies consistent indentation and line wrapping with little configuration, while retaining controls needed for automated checks and project-specific conventions.

  This is free and open source software.

• DNS – recursive and authoritative DNS server

  The software uses an asynchronous multi-threaded architecture built on Tokio. Its DNS cache is sharded for concurrent access, while zone information can be held in memory and populated either from conventional zone files or a PostgreSQL backend.

  This flexibility makes rDNS potentially useful for installations ranging from self-hosted recursive DNS through to organisations that need authoritative serving and DNS filtering from the same service.

  This is free and open source software.

• LIKWID - performance monitoring and benchmarking suite

  LIKWID is a performance engineering suite for developers, researchers and system administrators who need detailed insight into processor and memory behaviour.

  It combines command-line utilities with a shared library and programming interfaces, covering topology discovery, hardware-counter measurement, thread placement, energy analysis and controlled microbenchmarking. The suite is particularly useful in HPC work, where NUMA layout, cache behaviour, processor affinity and low-level performance events can expose scaling problems and bottlenecks across multi-socket systems.

  This is free and open source software.

• WyrmRSS - RSS and Atom feed reader

  Following websites individually soon becomes a chore. RSS readers bring updates together, making it easier to keep up with busy news sites and catch occasional posts from quieter blogs.

  WyrmRSS is an RSS and Atom feed reader available as a self-hosted web application and a desktop program. This is free and open source software.

• TeamMapper - Collaborative Mind Mapping Web App

  TeamMapper is a self-hosted web application for creating mind maps individually or with other people.

  Participants access maps through a browser and can edit the same structure in real time. Administrators retain control over deployment, the PostgreSQL database, enabled functionality and the retention period for stored maps. The project provides a prepared container image and configuration for hosting your own instance.

  This is free and open source software.

• Latexmk - fully automated LaTeX document generation

  Latexmk is a command-line build tool that automates compilation of LaTeX documents. It determines which programs must run, repeats them when required, and stops when the requested output is up to date. This removes the need to manage LaTeX’s multi-pass build sequence by hand.

  This is free and open source software.

• mCaptcha – privacy-respecting proof-of-work CAPTCHA

  mCaptcha is a self-hosted CAPTCHA system designed to make abusive automated requests computationally expensive without forcing legitimate users to solve image or text puzzles.

  When someone accesses a protected operation, the client generates a proof-of-work and sends it to mCaptcha for validation. Successful validation produces a token which accompanies the user’s request to the protected service. The application can then verify that token before processing the operation. Most of this workflow is automated from the visitor’s point of view.

  This is free and open source software.

• Mintstick - create and format USB sticks

  Mintstick is a graphical utility from Linux Mint for creating bootable USB sticks and formatting removable media. It provides separate image-writing and formatting functionality in a simple GTK interface.

  The image writer accepts ISO and IMG files, while the formatter supports FAT32, exFAT, NTFS and ext4 filesystems. Mintstick also includes ISO verification facilities supporting SHA-256 checksums and GPG signatures, with built-in handling for Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian images.

  This is free and open source software.