💸 Awesome Free Tools

"A curated list of the best free tools for everyday tasks !!"

This repository focuses on quality over quantity, listing only outstanding alternatives per category.

🎯 Purpose

Most "Awesome" lists are overwhelming. This one is a personal, curated collection of the best tools I use or recommend — open-source and privacy-friendly primarily.

🔖 Legend

Icon	Meaning	Icon	Meaning	Icon	Meaning
📱	Android	🍏	IOS	🌐	Web-Based
💻	App-Based	🌟	Top Recommendation	🔮	Good & Modern UI / UX
🐧	Linux	🍎	MacOS	🪟	Windows
🧠	Open Source	🔒	Privacy-Friendly	🏠	Self-Hostable

📚 Table of contents

• 🎯 Purpose
• 🔖 Legend
• 📚 Table of contents
• 🔭 Tools
  • 3D Modeling
  • 3D Slicing
  • AI Image Generation / Editing
  • Browsers
  • CAD & PCB Design
  • Calculator
  • Cloud Storage
  • Code Development
  • Code Sharing
  • Coding Agents
  • Document Writing
  • Download Manager
  • Drawing
  • Email Aliases
  • Email Clients
  • Encrypted DNS
    • Servers
    • Clients
  • Encryption Tools
  • File Sharing
  • Image Editing
  • LLMs Backend
  • LLMs ChatUI
  • Media Players
  • Messaging Apps
  • Note-Taking
  • Operating Systems
  • PDF Tools
  • Password Managers
  • Phone OS
  • Remote Desktop / VNC
  • Screen Recorders
  • Screenshot Tools
  • Speech Recognition
  • Team Communication
  • Terminals
  • Text Editor
  • Torrent Clients
  • Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
  • VPN
  • Video Compressing
  • Video Conferencing
  • Video Editing
  • Web Search
  • World Maps
• 📚 Resources
• 🪣 Repositories
• 📜 License

🔭 Tools

You can find the tools you need by browsing the appropriate category or by searching for a popular software name in that category (use Ctrl+F to quickly locate alternatives).

3D Modeling

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Alternatives to: 3DS Max, AutoCAD

• Blender — Complete 3D modeling and animation suite. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• OneShape — Web-based CAD and PDM tool. 🌐

3D Slicing

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Alternatives to: Bambu Studio, ...

• Orca Slicer — Advanced slicer based on Bambu Studio. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• Ultimaker Cura — Industry-standard slicer. 💻🪟🍎🐧

AI Image Generation / Editing

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Alternatives to: Dall-E, ...

• Fooocus — Focus on prompting and generating. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• Stable Diffusion WebUI — Stable Diffusion web UI. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• Stable Diffusion — High-quality text-to-image model that turns your ideas into vivid, realistic visuals. 🌐

Browsers

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Alternatives to: Chrome, Opera, Safari, Edge, ...

• Brave — Privacy-focused browser blocking ads and trackers. 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🍏📱🐧
• Firefox — Open-source browser with high privacy and customization. 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🍏📱🐧
• Librewolf — Firefox fork removing telemetry and hardening privacy. 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🍏📱🐧

CAD & PCB Design

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Alternatives to: Altium Designer, Auto CAD, Fusion 360

• FreeCAD — Parametric 3D CAD tool for engineering. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• KiCAD — Open-source EDA suite for PCB design. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• OpenSCAD — Script-based 3D CAD modeling software. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧

Calculator

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Alternatives to: Windows Calculator, ...

• Desmos — Online Graphic and more calculator. 🌐
• Geogebra — Free digital tools graphing, geometry, collaborative whiteboard and more. 🌐
• Qalculate — The ultimate multi-purpose desktop calculator. 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🐧

Cloud Storage

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Alternatives to: ICloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, ...

• Mega — Encrypted cloud storage with E2EE. 🔒💻
• Nextcloud — Self-hosted cloud and collaboration suite. 🧠🔒🏠💻
• Proton Drive — Secure encrypted cloud from Proton. 🔒💻

Code Development

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Alternatives to: Jetbrains IDE, Visual Studio

• Git — Distributed version control system. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• GitKraken — Visual Git client for easy repo management. 💻
• Neovim — Extensible and modern Vim-based editor. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• VSCodium — Free/Libre Open Source Software Binaries of VS Code 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🐧
• Zed — A high-performance, multiplayer code editor from the creators of Atom and Tree-sitter. 🧠🪟🍎🐧

Code Sharing

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Alternatives to: Pastebin, ...

• Hastebin — Simple self-hostable paste tool. 🧠🏠💻
• PrivateBin — Encrypted, self-hostable pastebin. 🧠🔒🏠💻

Coding Agents

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Alternatives to: ...

• Crush — The glamorous AI coding agent for your favorite terminal. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• OpenHands — AI-Driven Development. 🧠🏠🪟🍎🐧

Document Writing

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Alternatives to: Microsoft Office, Open Office, Google Docs, ...

• CryptPad — Encrypted collaborative document editor. 🧠🔒🏠🌐
• LibreOffice — Open-source offline office suite. 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🐧
• OnlyOffice — Collaborative office suite compatible with MS formats. 🧠🏠💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱
• Overleaf — Online LaTeX editor for research and academics. 🧠🏠🌐

Download Manager

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Alternatives to: ...

• Brisk — Ultra-fast, modern download manager for desktop. 🧠🍎💻🐧
• Motrix — A full-featured download manager. 🧠🍎💻🐧
• JDownloader — A free, open-source download management tool. 🧠🍎💻🐧

Drawing

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Alternatives to: Adobe Illustrator

• Excalidraw — Collaborative whiteboard for diagrams. 🧠🏠💻🌐
• Inkscape — Professional vector graphics editor. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• Krita — Digital painting software for artists. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧

Email Aliases

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Alternatives to: ...

• Addy.io — Anonymous Email Forwarding. 🌐🍏📱
• SimpleLogin — Open source anonymous email service. 🌐🍎🍏📱

Email Clients

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Alternatives to: Gmail, Outlook, ...

• FairMail — Fully featured, privacy oriented email app for Android 🧠🔒📱
• Mailspring — Cross-platform email client with modern UI. 🧠💻🔮🪟🍎🐧
• Thunderbird — Secure open-source email client with encryption support. 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🐧

Encrypted DNS

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Alternatives to: Google DNS, Windows DNS, ...

Servers

• Cloudfare — High Performance DNS Resolver. 🌐
• Quad9 — An open DNS recursive service for free security and high privacy. 🌐

Clients

• dnscrypt-proxy — A flexible DNS proxy, with support for encrypted DNS protocols. 🧠💻🐧🪟🍎

Encryption Tools

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Alternatives to: ...

• 7-Zip — File archiver with strong AES-256 encryption. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• Age — Simple modern encryption for files and streams. 🧠💻
• Cryptomator — Transparent client-side encryption for cloud. 🧠🔒🏠💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱
• Hat.sh — Browser-based modern file encryption. 🧠🔒🌐
• VeraCrypt — Powerful open-source disk encryption. 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🐧

File Sharing

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Alternatives to: Snapdrop, Discord (😆), ...

• Localsend — Cross-platform local file sharing without internet. 🧠🔒🏠💻
• OnionShare — Anonymous file sharing via Tor. 🧠🔒🏠💻🪟🍎🍏📱🐧
• Send — Encrypted file transfer tool inspired by Firefox Send. 🧠🔒🏠💻🌐
• Syncthing — Decentralized file synchronization tool.🧠🔒🏠💻🪟🍎🐧

Image Editing

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Alternatives to: Photoshop, Lightroom, ...

• Darktable — Photo workflow and RAW development tool. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• GIMP — Powerful raster graphics editor for photo retouching and image manipulation. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• Krita — Digital painting and illustration software with advanced brush tools. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• Photopea — Web-based image editor with Photoshop-like features. 🧠🌐

LLMs Backend

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Alternatives to: ...

• GPT4All — Run Local LLMs on Any Device. 🧠🏠💻🪟🍎🐧
• llama.cpp — LLM inference in C/C++. 🧠🏠💻🪟🍎🐧
• Ollama — Get up and running with OpenAI gpt-oss, DeepSeek-R1, Gemma 3 and other models. 🧠🏠💻🪟🍎🐧

LLMs ChatUI

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Alternatives to: ...

• Open WebUI — An extensible, feature-rich, and user-friendly self-hosted WebUI designed to operate entirely offline. 🧠🏠🪟🍎🐧

Media Players

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Alternatives to: ...

• MPV — Lightweight command-line media player. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• SMPlayer — GUI frontend for MPV. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧📱
• VLC — Universal media player supporting all formats. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱

Messaging Apps

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Alternatives to: IMessage, Whatsapp, Google Message, Messenger, ...

• Briar — Peer-to-peer messenger that works offline. 🧠🔒🍏📱
• Element — Decentralized Matrix-based messenger.🧠🔒🏠💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱
• Session — Anonymous decentralized messenger. 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱
• Signal — Secure end-to-end encrypted messaging app. 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱

Note-Taking

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Alternatives to: Notion, Evernote, OneNote, ...

• Joplin — Open-source encrypted note-taking app. 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱
• Logseq — Open-source local-first note-taking tool. 🧠🔒🏠💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱
• Obsidian — Markdown-based knowledge base app. 💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱
• Standard Notes — Privacy-focused encrypted notes app. 🔒💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱

Operating Systems

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Alternatives to: Windows, MacOS, ...

• Arch Linux — Lightweight, customizable rolling-release distro. 🧠💻🐧
• Debian — Stable, community-maintained OS. 🧠💻🐧
• Fedora — Cutting-edge Linux distro focused on open-source software. 🧠💻🐧
• NixOS — Declarative Linux distribution with reproducible configurations. 🧠💻🐧
• Ubuntu — User-friendly Linux distribution for all users. 🧠💻🐧

PDF Tools

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Alternatives to: Adobe Acrobat, ...

• Stirling — Web-based PDF tool suite for editing and conversion. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧🌐
• PDFSam — A desktop application to split, merge, mix, rotate PDF files and extract pages. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• SumatraPDF — A multi-format reader for Windows under (A)GPLv3 license, with some code under BSD license. 🧠💻🪟

Password Managers

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Alternatives to: LastPass, Dashlane, ...

• Bitwarden — Open-source password manager with cloud sync.🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱
• KeePass — Offline password manager with strong encryption 🧠🔒🏠💻🪟🍎🐧
• KeePassXC — Cross-platform KeePass fork. 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🐧
• Proton Pass — Secure password manager by Proton. 🔒💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱

Phone OS

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Alternatives to: Google Android, IOS, ...

• Graphene OS — The private and secure mobile operating system with Android app compatibility. 📱🧠🐧
• Lineage OS — A free and open-source operating system for various devices. 📱🧠🐧

Remote Desktop / VNC

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Alternatives to: Remote Desktop, ...

• RealVNC — Cross-platform remote desktop tool. 💻🐧🪟🍎
• Remmina — Multi-protocol remote desktop client. 🧠💻🐧
• RustDesk — Secure, self-hosted remote desktop software. 🧠🔒🏠💻🪟🍎🍏📱🐧
• TigerVNC — Reliable VNC implementation. 🧠💻🐧🪟🍎

Screen Recorders

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Alternatives to: ...

• Asciinema — Terminal session recorder for developers. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• OBS Studio — Professional screen recorder and streamer. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧

Screenshot Tools

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Alternatives to: Sniping Tool

• Flameshot — Powerful, yet simple to use open-source screenshot software. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• CodeSnap — 📸 Take beautiful screenshots of your code in VS Code! 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧

Speech Recognition

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Alternatives to: ...

• Whisper — Robust Speech Recognition via Large-Scale Weak Supervision. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧

Team Communication

^ back to top ^

Alternatives to: Discord, Slack, ...

• Element — Decentralized Matrix-based messenger.🧠🔒🏠💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱
• Mattermost — Mattermost is an open source platform for secure collaboration 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱
• Rocket Chat — The ultimate secure open-source solution for team communications. 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱

Terminals

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Alternatives to: Windows Terminal, CMD, ...

• Kitty — The fast, feature-rich, GPU based terminal emulator. 🧠🔒💻🍎🐧
• Alacritty — A cross-platform, OpenGL terminal emulator. 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🐧
• Ghostty — Fast, feature-rich, and cross-platform terminal emulator. 🧠🔒💻🍎🐧

Text Editor

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Alternatives to: Notepad, ...

• Notepad++ — Free source code editor and Notepad replacement. 🧠🔒💻🪟
• Sublime Text — The sophisticated text editor for code, markup and prose. 💻🪟🍎🐧

Torrent Clients

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Alternatives to: BitTorrent, ...

• BiglyBT — Feature-rich torrent client with no ads. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧📱
• Deluge — Modular torrent client with plugin support.🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• qBittorrent — Lightweight, ad-free torrent client.🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🐧
• Transmission — Minimal, secure torrent client. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

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Alternatives to: Microsoft Authenticator, Google Authenticator, ...

• Aegis — Secure local 2FA app for Android. 🧠🔒📱
• Bitwarden Authenticator — Secure your accounts with trusted two-factor authentication. 🧠🔒🍏📱
• FreeOTP — Two-factor authentication application for systems utilizing one-time password protocols. 🧠🍏📱
• Proton Authenticator — Encrypted 2FA app from Proton. 🔒🪟🍎🐧🍏📱

VPN

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Alternatives to: NordVPN, Surfshark VPN, ...

• Tailscale — The easiest, most secure way to use WireGuard and 2FA. 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱
• OpenVPN — Secure Access for Every Employee, Everywhere. 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱
• Wireguard — Extremely simple yet fast and modern VPN. 🧠🔒💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱

Video Compressing

^ back to top ^

Alternatives to: ...

• Compress.lol — Privacy-friendly online video compressor.🧠🔒🌐
• FFmpeg — Command-line video and audio processing toolkit. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• HandBrake — Open-source video transcoder. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• VLC — Universal media player supporting all formats. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧🍏📱

Video Conferencing

^ back to top ^

Alternatives to: Zoom, Microsoft Teams, ...

• Brave Talk — Unlimited, private video calls. Right in the Brave browser. 🌐🔒
• Jitsi Meet — Free, encrypted video conferencing. 🧠🔒🏠🌐🍏📱
• Nextcloud Talk — Private video chat integrated with Nextcloud. 🧠🔒🏠💻

Video Editing

^ back to top ^

Alternatives to: Premiere, Davinci Resolve, ...

• Kdenlive — Professional-grade video editor with multi-track editing and customizable effects. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧
• Shotcut — Cross-platform video editor with wide format support and advanced features. 🧠💻🪟🍎🐧

Web Search

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Alternatives to: Google Search, Bing, Yahoo, ...

• Brave Search — A completely independent index without tracking. 🔒🌐🔮
• DuckDuckGo — Privacy and avoiding the filter bubble of personalized results. 🌐🔮
• Startpage — The world’s most private search engine. 🔒🌐

World Maps

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Alternatives to: Google Map, Apple Map, ...

• MapLibre — Open-source mapping library for developers. 🧠💻
• OpenStreetMap — Open, editable map of the world. 🧠🏠💻
• Organic Maps — Offline privacy-friendly maps based on OSM. 🧠🔒💻
• OsmAnd — Offline navigation and map viewer using OSM data. 🧠🔒💻
• Comaps — Hike, Bike, Drive Offline and Navigate with Privacy. 🍏📱

📚 Resources

• freemediaheckyeah — The largest collection of free stuff on the internet!
• Privacy Guides Tools — The collaborative privacy advocacy community.
• Privacy Tools — Website for Encrypted Software & Apps.
• AlternativesTo — Find alternatives to software you know and discover new software.

🪣 Repositories

Some other repositories you may find useful :

• awesome-sysadmin — A curated list of amazingly awesome open-source sysadmin resources.
• awesome-foss — A collection of all the FOSS to use or follow to keep track of privacy respecting alternatives.
• android-foss — A list of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for Android
• awesome-ai — A curated list of awesome AI tools, frameworks, api, software and resources.

📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.