Save $2,145/year. Use these free tools instead.
12 paid tools and a free, self-hostable alternative for each — $178.74 a month, $2,145 a year between them.
All 12 tools, with prices and links
01E-commerce
Medusa
Instead of
Shopify“The world's most flexible commerce platform for agents and developers”
- Shopify costs
- $29/mo · Basic planPrinted as “$29/mo” on their pricing page, read 12 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $348Computed: $29 × 12.
- Medusa costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 36.3k stars · 560 contributorsLast commit 12 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 12 Sep 2026.
02Surveys
Formbricks
Instead of
Typeform“Open Source Qualtrics Alternative”
- Typeform costs
- $28/mo · Basic planPrinted as “28 USD / mo” on their pricing page, read 12 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $336Computed: $28 × 12.
- Formbricks costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 12.9k stars · 322 contributorsLast commit 11 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 12 Sep 2026.
03Help desk
Zammad
Instead of
Zendesk“Zammad is a web based open source helpdesk/customer support system.”
- Zendesk costs
- $19/agent/mo · Support Team plan · billed yearlyPrinted as “$19agent/month paid yearly” on their pricing page, read 12 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $228Computed: $19 × 12.
- Zammad costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 5.9k stars · 179 contributorsLast commit 11 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 12 Sep 2026.
04Design files
Penpot
Instead of
Figma“Penpot: The open-source design platform for Product teams that need scalable collaboration.”
- Figma costs
- $16/seat/mo · Professional planPrinted as “$16/mo” on their pricing page, read 12 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $192 per userComputed: $16 × 12.
- Penpot costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 59.9k stars · 345 contributorsLast commit 11 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 12 Sep 2026.
05Site building
Instatic
Instead of
Webflow“The open-source alternative to Webflow, Framer and WordPress. Agentic self-hosted visual CMS outputting clean static pages. Users, roles, plugins, content, database, it's all there.”
- Webflow costs
- $15/mo · Basic plan · billed yearlyPrinted as “$15/mo billed yearly” on their pricing page, read 12 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $180Computed: $15 × 12.
- Instatic costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 8.6k stars · 27 contributorsLast commit 12 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 12 Sep 2026.
06ObservabilityBonus: not in the post
SigNoz
Instead of
Datadog“SigNoz is an open-source, OpenTelemetry-native observability platform for your team and their AI agents. Get logs, metrics, and traces in one tool with features like APM, distributed tracing, log management, infra monitoring, etc. Combined with SigNoz MCP and a native AI teammate (in SigNoz Cloud) it helps you build more resilient apps.”
- Datadog costs
- $15/host/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$ 15” on their pricing page, read 12 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $180Computed: $15 × 12.
- SigNoz costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 32.1k stars · 218 contributorsLast commit 11 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 12 Sep 2026.
07Internal toolsBonus: not in the post
Appsmith
Instead of
Retool“Platform to build admin panels, internal tools, and dashboards. Integrates with 25+ databases and any API.”
- Retool costs
- $10/builder/mo · Team planPrinted as “$ 10” on their pricing page, read 12 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $120Computed: $10 × 12.
- Appsmith costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 40.9k stars · 381 contributorsLast commit 11 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 12 Sep 2026.
08Docs and notesBonus: not in the post
AFFiNE
Instead of
Notion“There can be more than Notion and Miro. AFFiNE(pronounced [‘fain]) is a next-gen knowledge base that brings planning, sorting and creating all together. Privacy first, open-source, customizable and ready to use.”
- Notion costs
- $10/member/mo · Plus planPrinted as “$10 per member” on their pricing page, read 12 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $120Computed: $10 × 12.
- AFFiNE costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 72.5k stars · 267 contributorsLast commit 12 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 12 Sep 2026.
09Short linksBonus: not in the post
Dub
Instead of
Bitly“The modern link attribution platform. Loved by world-class marketing teams like Framer, Perplexity, Superhuman, Twilio, Buffer and more.”
- Bitly costs
- $10/mo · Core planPrinted as “$10/month” on their pricing page, read 12 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $120Computed: $10 × 12.
- Dub costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 24.7k stars · 94 contributorsLast commit 12 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 12 Sep 2026.
10File syncBonus: not in the post
Nextcloud
Instead of
Dropbox“Nextcloud server, a safe home for all your data”
- Dropbox costs
- $9.99/mo · Plus planPrinted as “$9.99 / month” on their pricing page, read 12 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $120Computed: $9.99 × 12.
- Nextcloud costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 36.8k stars · 1,445 contributorsLast commit 12 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 12 Sep 2026.
11Team chatBonus: not in the post
Mattermost
Instead of
Slack“Mattermost is an open source platform for secure collaboration across the entire software development lifecycle..”
- Slack costs
- $8.75/user/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$8.75” on their pricing page, read 12 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $105 per userComputed: $8.75 × 12.
- Mattermost costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 39k stars · 1,212 contributorsLast commit 12 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 12 Sep 2026.
12WhiteboardsBonus: not in the post
Excalidraw
Instead of
Miro“Virtual whiteboard for sketching hand-drawn like diagrams”
- Miro costs
- $8/member/mo · Starter plan · billed yearlyPrinted as “$8/month per member, billed” on their pricing page, read 12 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $96Computed: $8 × 12.
- Excalidraw costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 132k stars · 372 contributorsLast commit 11 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 12 Sep 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 2026-09-12, 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.
2 of the 12 free tools describe themselves, in their maintainers' own words, as an alternative to the tool they sit beside. The other 10 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 twelve 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.
