Save $5,419/year. Use these free tools instead.
12 paid tools and a free, self-hostable alternative for each — $451.57 a month, $5,419 a year between them.
All 12 tools, with prices and links
01Localization
Weblate
Instead of
Lokalise“Web based localization tool with tight version control integration.”
- Lokalise costs
- $149/mo · Explorer planPrinted as “$149/mo with annual billing” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $1,788Computed: $149 × 12.
- Weblate costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 6.1k stars · 2,253 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
02Remote desktop
RustDesk
Instead of
TeamViewer“An open-source remote desktop application designed for self-hosting, as an alternative to TeamViewer.”
- TeamViewer costs
- $120.90/mo · TeamViewer Premium plan · billed yearlyPrinted as “$ 120.90 per month” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $1,451Computed: $120.90 × 12.
- RustDesk costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 126k stars · 508 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
03Localization
Tolgee
Instead of
Crowdin“Developer & translator friendly web-based localization platform”
- Crowdin costs
- $50/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$50/mo” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $600Computed: $50 × 12.
- Tolgee costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 4.1k stars · 99 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
04Vector database
Milvus
Instead of
Weaviate Cloud“Milvus is a high-performance, cloud-native vector database built for scalable vector ANN search”
- Weaviate Cloud costs
- $45/mo · Flex planPrinted as “$45 /mo” on their pricing page, read 12 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $540Computed: $45 × 12.
- Milvus costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 46.4k stars · 385 contributorsLast commit 12 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 12 Oct 2026.
- Zuplo costs
- $25/mo · Builder planPrinted as “$25/mo” on their pricing page, read 12 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $300Computed: $25 × 12.
- Kong costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 44.3k stars · 453 contributorsLast commit 12 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 12 Oct 2026.
06Email testing
Mailpit
Instead of
Mailosaur“An email and SMTP testing tool with API for developers”
- Mailosaur costs
- $20/mo · Personal plan · billed yearlyPrinted as “$20 per month, billed annually” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $240Computed: $20 × 12.
- Mailpit costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 10.6k stars · 51 contributorsLast commit 10 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
07Short links
Shlink
Instead of
Rebrandly“The definitive self-hosted URL shortener”
- Rebrandly costs
- $11/mo · Essentials planPrinted as “$11/mo” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $132Computed: $11 × 12.
- Shlink costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 5.3k stars · 26 contributorsLast commit 21 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
08Meeting notes
Meetily
Instead of
Fireflies“Privacy first, AI meeting assistant with 4x faster Parakeet/Whisper live transcription, speaker diarization, and Ollama summarization built on Rust. 100% local processing. no cloud required. Meetily (Meetly Ai - is the #1 Self-hosted, Open-source Ai meeting note taker for macOS & Windows. Understand How to write meeting minutes”
- Fireflies costs
- $10/seat/mo · Pro plan · billed yearlyPrinted as “$10 per seat” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $120 per userComputed: $10 × 12.
- Meetily costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 31.7k stars · 20 contributorsLast commit 15 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
- Slab costs
- $6.67/user/mo · Startup planPrinted as “$ 6.67 user” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $80 per userComputed: $6.67 × 12.
- BookStack costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 19.1k stars · 242 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
10Link in bio
LinkStack
Instead of
Linktree“LinkStack - the ultimate solution for creating a personalized & professional profile page. Showcase all your important links in one place, forget the limitation of one link on social media. Set up your personal site on your own server with just a few clicks.”
- Linktree costs
- $6/mo · Starter planPrinted as “$6 /mo” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $72Computed: $6 × 12.
- LinkStack costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 3.9k stars · 46 contributorsLast commit 3 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
11Git hosting
Gitea
Instead of
GitHub“Git with a cup of tea! Painless self-hosted all-in-one software development service, including Git hosting, code review, team collaboration, package registry and CI/CD”
- GitHub costs
- $4/user/mo · Team planPrinted as “$ 4” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $48 per userComputed: $4 × 12.
- Gitea costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 58.5k stars · 1,872 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
12Passwords
Passbolt
Instead of
Dashlane“Passbolt Community Edition (CE) API. The JSON API for the open source password manager for teams!”
- Dashlane costs
- $4/user/mo · Credential Protection planPrinted as “$4” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $48 per userComputed: $4 × 12.
- Passbolt costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 6.2k stars · 566 contributorsLast commit 8 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
Free of licence, not free of cost.
Self-hosting means a server and the time to run it. The free tools here cost $0 to license; the paid prices are the cheapest paid tier in US dollars on the day shown, and they change. “Open source” is only shown where the repository declares an OSI-approved licence.
How these were checked
Every price was read off the vendor's own pricing page, rendered in a real browser on 2026-10-11 and 2026-10-12, taking the cheapest paid tier in US dollars. The page and the date are listed against each one below, so you can check any of them yourself.
Quoted or computed. Each entry shows the price as the page prints it. 12 of 12 appear on the vendor's page word for word. Anything worked out from those figures is labelled computed and shows its arithmetic, so a number we calculated cannot be mistaken for one a vendor published. The only computed figures here are the yearly costs and the totals.
1 of the 12 free tools describe themselves, in their maintainers' own words, as an alternative to the tool they sit beside. The other 11 do not name theirs, so those pairings are not their maintainers' claim, and each one says so. Every description is quoted underneath its tool. Stars, contributors and last commit came from the GitHub API on the same day as the prices.
All 12 free projects had been committed to within the last 90 days.
Self-hosting is not free of cost — it is free of licence. A server and the time to run it are yours to pay either way, and nothing below pretends otherwise.
