Save $1,663/year. Use these free tools instead.
12 paid tools and a free, self-hostable alternative for each — $138.62 a month, $1,663 a year between them.
All 12 tools, with prices and links
01Money
ERPNext
Instead of
Intuit QuickBooks“Free and Open Source Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)”
- Intuit QuickBooks costs
- $38/mo · SIMPLE START planPrinted as “$38” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $456Computed: $38 × 12.
- ERPNext costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 40.1k stars · 947 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
02Uptime monitoring
Upptime
Instead of
StatusCake“GitHub Actions uptime monitor & status page by @AnandChowdhary”
- StatusCake costs
- $20.41/mo · Superior planPrinted as “$ 20.41 /mo” on their pricing page, read 12 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $245Computed: $20.41 × 12.
- Upptime costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 17.2k stars · 24 contributorsLast commit 12 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 12 Oct 2026.
03Creative
RawTherapee
Instead of
Capture One“A powerful cross-platform raw photo processing program”
- Capture One costs
- $18/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$18” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $216Computed: $18 × 12.
- RawTherapee costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 4.2k stars · 185 contributorsLast commit 13 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
04AI
Presenton
Instead of
Beautiful.ai“Open-Source AI Presentation Generator and API (Gamma, Canva, Beautiful AI, Decktopus, Presentations AI Alternative)”
- Beautiful.ai costs
- $14.50/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$14.50 per month for individuals” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $174Computed: $14.50 × 12.
- Presenton costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 11.1k stars · 25 contributorsLast commit 13 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
05Work
LibreOffice
Instead of
Microsoft 365“Read-only LibreOffice core repo - no pull request (use gerrit instead - don't download zip, use instead”
- Microsoft 365 costs
- $9.99/mo · Microsoft 365 Personal planPrinted as “$9.99/month” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $120Computed: $9.99 × 12.
- LibreOffice costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 4.5k stars · 2,928 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
06Storage
Duplicati
Instead of
Backblaze“Store securely encrypted backups in the cloud!”
- Backblaze costs
- $9/mo · Monthly planPrinted as “$9/mo” on their pricing page, read 15 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $108Computed: $9 × 12.
- Duplicati costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 15.1k stars · 238 contributorsLast commit 15 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 15 Oct 2026.
07Learning
Anki
Instead of
Brainscape“Anki is a smart spaced repetition flashcard program”
- Brainscape costs
- $7.99/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$7.99/mo” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $96Computed: $7.99 × 12.
- Anki costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 32k stars · 401 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
08Photos
Lychee
Instead of
Flickr“A great looking and easy-to-use photo-management-system you can run on your server, to manage and share photos.”
- Flickr costs
- $6.17/mo · 2-year plan planPrinted as “$6.17/month” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $74Computed: $6.17 × 12.
- Lychee costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 4.3k stars · 129 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
09Productivity
Super Productivity
Instead of
Todoist“Super Productivity is an advanced todo list app with integrated Timeboxing and time tracking capabilities. It also comes with integrations for Jira, GitLab, GitHub and Open Project.”
- Todoist costs
- $5/user/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$5 per user/month” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $60 per userComputed: $5 × 12.
- Super Productivity costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 22.8k stars · 534 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
10Home
Mealie
Instead of
Plan to Eat“Mealie is a self hosted recipe manager and meal planner with a RestAPI backend and a reactive frontend application built in Vue for a pleasant user experience for the whole family. Easily add recipes into your database by providing the url and mealie will automatically import the relevant data or add a family recipe with the UI editor”
- Plan to Eat costs
- $4.08/mo · Yearly planPrinted as “$4.08 a month” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $49Computed: $4.08 × 12.
- Mealie costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 13.6k stars · 318 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
11Productivity
QOwnNotes
Instead of
Bear“QOwnNotes is a plain-text file notepad and todo-list manager with Markdown support and Nextcloud / ownCloud integration.”
- Bear costs
- $2.99/mo · Bear Pro planPrinted as “$2.99” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $36Computed: $2.99 × 12.
- QOwnNotes costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 5.9k stars · 122 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
12Home
uBlock Origin
Instead of
AdGuard“uBlock Origin - An efficient blocker for Chromium and Firefox. Fast and lean.”
- AdGuard costs
- $2.49/mo · Personal planPrinted as “$2.49 /mo” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $30Computed: $2.49 × 12.
- uBlock Origin costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 68.6k stars · 128 contributorsLast commit 12 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 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 2026-10-12 and 2026-10-14 and 2026-10-15, 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.
