Save $1,656/year. Use these free tools instead.
12 paid tools and a free, self-hostable alternative for each — $138 a month, $1,656 a year between them.
All 12 tools, with prices and links
01Creative
Owncast
Instead of
StreamYard“Take control over your live stream video by running it yourself. Streaming + chat out of the box.”
- StreamYard costs
- $35.99/mo · Core planPrinted as “$35 .99 /mo” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $432Computed: $35.99 × 12.
- Owncast costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 11.6k stars · 199 contributorsLast commit 13 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
02Creative
Synfig
Instead of
Adobe Animate“This is the Official source code repository of Synfig Studio animation software”
- Adobe Animate costs
- $22.99/mo · Adobe Animate planPrinted as “$22.99/mo for the annual” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $276Computed: $22.99 × 12.
- Synfig costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 2.3k stars · 148 contributorsLast commit 12 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
03Learning
TeXstudio
Instead of
Overleaf“TeXstudio is a fully featured LaTeX editor. Our goal is to make writing LaTeX documents as easy and comfortable as possible.”
- Overleaf costs
- $16.75/mo · Standard planPrinted as “$16.75 /month” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $201Computed: $16.75 × 12.
- TeXstudio costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 3.7k stars · 143 contributorsLast commit 10 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
04AI
LibreChat
Instead of
Le Chat“Enhanced ChatGPT Clone: Features Agents, MCP, Skills, DeepSeek, Anthropic, AWS, OpenAI, Responses API, Azure, Groq, o1, GPT-5, Mistral, OpenRouter, Vertex AI, Gemini, Artifacts, AI model switching, message search, Code Interpreter, langchain, DALL-E-3, OpenAPI Actions, Functions, Secure Multi-User Auth, Presets, open-source for self-hosting. Active”
- Le Chat costs
- $14.99/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$14.99 /mo” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $180Computed: $14.99 × 12.
- LibreChat costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 45.7k stars · 419 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
05Music
MuseScore
Instead of
Flat“MuseScore is an open source and free music notation software. For support, contribution, bug reports, visit MuseScore.org. Fork and make pull requests!”
- Flat costs
- $9.99/mo · Flat Power Monthly planPrinted as “$9.99 /month” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $120Computed: $9.99 × 12.
- MuseScore costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 15.2k stars · 555 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
- YNAB costs
- $9.08/mo · Annual Plan planPrinted as “$9.08” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $109Computed: $9.08 × 12.
- Actual costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 29.5k stars · 754 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
07Productivity
ActivityWatch
Instead of
RescueTime“The best free and open-source automated time tracker. Cross-platform, extensible, privacy-focused.”
- RescueTime costs
- $7/mo · Solo planPrinted as “$7/month” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $84Computed: $7 × 12.
- ActivityWatch costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 19.2k stars · 37 contributorsLast commit 13 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
08Files
Kopia
Instead of
CrashPlan“Cross-platform backup tool for Windows, macOS & Linux with fast, incremental backups, client-side end-to-end encryption, compression and data deduplication. CLI and GUI included.”
- CrashPlan costs
- $6.58/user/mo · Endpoint backup (two-year term) planPrinted as “$6.58 per user per month” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $79 per userComputed: $6.58 × 12.
- Kopia costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 14.3k stars · 168 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
09Productivity
Espanso
Instead of
TextExpander“A Privacy-first, Cross-platform Text Expander written in Rust”
- TextExpander costs
- $5/user/mo · PRO planPrinted as “$5 /user/mo” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $60 per userComputed: $5 × 12.
- Espanso costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 14.6k stars · 68 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
10Learning
Zotero
Instead of
Paperpile“Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share your research sources.”
- Paperpile costs
- $4.15/mo · Regular planPrinted as “$ 4.15” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $50Computed: $4.15 × 12.
- Zotero costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 15.6k stars · 109 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
11Home
Node-RED
Instead of
IFTTT“Low-code programming for event-driven applications”
- IFTTT costs
- $2.99/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$2.99 / month” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $36Computed: $2.99 × 12.
- Node-RED costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 23.7k stars · 297 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
- Pixlr costs
- $2.49/mo · Plus planPrinted as “$2.49 per month” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $30Computed: $2.49 × 12.
- Pinta costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 4.1k stars · 228 contributorsLast commit 14 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 2026-10-14, 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.
