Save $8,796/year. Use these free tools instead.
12 paid tools and a free, self-hostable alternative for each — $732.99 a month, $8,796 a year between them.
All 12 tools, with prices and links
01Subscription billing
Lago
Instead of
Recurly“Open Source Metering and Usage Based Billing API Consumption tracking, Subscription management, Pricing iterations, Payment orchestration & Revenue analytics”
- Recurly costs
- $249/mo · Starter planPrinted as “$249 per month” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $2,988Computed: $249 × 12.
- Lago costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 10.6k stars · 54 contributorsLast commit 25 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
02Feature flags
Flagsmith
Instead of
ConfigCat“Flagsmith is an open-source feature flag platform with remote config, experimentation, and self-hosted or cloud deployment options.”
- ConfigCat costs
- $110/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$ 110 / mo” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $1,320Computed: $110 × 12.
- Flagsmith costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 6.6k stars · 151 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
03Data pipelines
Airbyte
Instead of
Stitch“Open-source data movement for ELT pipelines and AI agents — from APIs, databases & files to warehouses, lakes, and AI applications. Both self-hosted and Cloud.”
- Stitch costs
- $100/mo · Standard planPrinted as “$100” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $1,200Computed: $100 × 12.
- Airbyte costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 22.1k stars · 1,242 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
- Formstack costs
- $83/mo · Forms planPrinted as “$83 /month paid annually” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $996Computed: $83 × 12.
- HeyForm costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 9k stars · 35 contributorsLast commit 9 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
05Status pages
Cachet
Instead of
Status.io“Cachet, the open source, self-hosted status page system.”
- Status.io costs
- $79/mo · Basic planPrinted as “$79/mo” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $948Computed: $79 × 12.
- Cachet costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 15.3k stars · 217 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
06CRM
Erxes
Instead of
Copper“Experience Operating System (XOS) that unifies marketing, sales, operations, and support — run your core business seamlessly while replacing HubSpot, Zendesk, Linear, Wix and more.”
- Copper costs
- $23/seat/mo · Basic plan · billed yearlyPrinted as “$ 23” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $276 per userComputed: $23 × 12.
- Erxes costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 4.1k stars · 262 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
07Dashboards
Lightdash
Instead of
Preset“Agentic BI. Analytics at the speed of code”
- Preset costs
- $20/user/mo · Professional planPrinted as “$20 /user/month” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $240 per userComputed: $20 × 12.
- Lightdash costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 6.2k stars · 178 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
- Cursor costs
- $20/mo · Individual planPrinted as “$20 / mo” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $240Computed: $20 × 12.
- Continue costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 36.1k stars · 507 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
09Content platform
Directus
Instead of
Sanity“The flexible backend for all your projects Turn your DB into a headless CMS, admin panels, or apps with a custom UI, instant APIs, auth & more.”
- Sanity costs
- $15/seat/mo · Growth planPrinted as “$ 15” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $180 per userComputed: $15 × 12.
- Directus costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 38k stars · 584 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
10Web analytics
Umami
Instead of
Fathom Analytics“Umami is a privacy-first analytics platform. Traffic, campaigns, behavior, conversions, and revenue in one place — no cookies, no surveillance, self-hosted or in the cloud.”
- Fathom Analytics costs
- $15/mo · $15/month plan planPrinted as “$15/month” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $180Computed: $15 × 12.
- Umami costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 39.1k stars · 437 contributorsLast commit 27 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
11Group scheduling
Rallly
Instead of
SavvyCal“Rallly is an open-source scheduling and collaboration tool designed to make organizing events and meetings easier.”
- SavvyCal costs
- $10/user/mo · Basic planPrinted as “$10/user/mo” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $120 per userComputed: $10 × 12.
- Rallly costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 5.3k stars · 35 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
12Password management
Bitwarden
Instead of
1Password“Bitwarden infrastructure/backend (API, database, Docker, etc).”
- 1Password costs
- $8.99/user/mo · Business planPrinted as “$8.99” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $108 per userComputed: $8.99 × 12.
- Bitwarden costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 20.2k stars · 236 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 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 2026-09-28, 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.
0 of the 12 free tools describe themselves, in their maintainers' own words, as an alternative to the tool they sit beside. The other 12 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.
