Save $4,044/year. Use these free tools instead.
12 paid tools and a free, self-hostable alternative for each — $337 a month, $4,044 a year between them.
All 12 tools, with prices and links
01Experimentation
GrowthBook
Instead of
Statsig“Open Source Feature Flags, Experimentation, and Product Analytics”
- Statsig costs
- $150/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$150 /mo” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $1,800Computed: $150 × 12.
- GrowthBook costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 8.4k stars · 151 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
02App building
ToolJet
Instead of
Bubble“Open-source foundation of ToolJet AI - the enterprise app generation platform for internal tools, dashboards, business applications, workflows and AI agents. Build visually, from a prompt, or from Claude Code, Codex and Cursor over MCP”
- Bubble costs
- $59/mo · Starter planPrinted as “$ 59 / month” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $708Computed: $59 × 12.
- ToolJet costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 41k stars · 684 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
03Live chat
Chatwoot
Instead of
Crisp“Open-source live-chat, email support, omni-channel desk. An alternative to Intercom, Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud etc.”
- Crisp costs
- $45/workspace/mo · Mini planPrinted as “$45 per month, per workspace” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $540Computed: $45 × 12.
- Chatwoot costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 37.3k stars · 402 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
04Status pages
Kener
Instead of
Hyperping“Stunning status pages, batteries included!”
- Hyperping costs
- $24/mo · Essentials planPrinted as “$24” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $288Computed: $24 × 12.
- Kener costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 5.2k stars · 76 contributorsLast commit 13 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
05Grammar checking
LanguageTool
Instead of
ProWritingAid“Style and Grammar Checker for 25+ Languages”
- ProWritingAid costs
- $10/mo · Premium plan · billed yearlyPrinted as “$10” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $120Computed: $10 × 12.
- LanguageTool costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 15.1k stars · 275 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
06Monitoring
Grafana
Instead of
New Relic“The open and composable observability and data visualization platform. Visualize metrics, logs, and traces from multiple sources like Prometheus, Loki, Elasticsearch, InfluxDB, Postgres and many more.”
- New Relic costs
- $10/user/mo · Standard planPrinted as “$10/first user” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $120 per userComputed: $10 × 12.
- Grafana costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 77k stars · 3,136 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
07Deployment
Coolify
Instead of
Netlify“An open-source, self-hostable PaaS alternative to Vercel, Heroku & Netlify that lets you easily deploy static sites, databases, full-stack applications and 280+ one-click services on your own servers.”
- Netlify costs
- $9/mo · Personal planPrinted as “$9 /month” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $108Computed: $9 × 12.
- Coolify costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 62.4k stars · 757 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
08Spreadsheet databases
NocoDB
Instead of
Rows“A Free & Self-hostable Airtable Alternative”
- Rows costs
- $8/user/mo · Plus planPrinted as “$8/month per user” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $96 per userComputed: $8 × 12.
- NocoDB costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 65.1k stars · 352 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
09Task management
Vikunja
Instead of
ClickUp“The task manager you actually own.”
- ClickUp costs
- $7/user/mo · Unlimited plan · billed yearlyPrinted as “$7” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $84 per userComputed: $7 × 12.
- Vikunja costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 5.5k stars · 198 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
10Single sign-on
Keycloak
Instead of
Okta“Open Source Identity and Access Management For Modern Applications and Services”
- Okta costs
- $6/user/mo · Starter planPrinted as “$ 6 per user/month*” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $72 per userComputed: $6 × 12.
- Keycloak costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 37k stars · 1,929 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
11Project management
OpenProject
Instead of
Hive“OpenProject is the leading open source project management software for product, project and portfolio management. A powerful Jira alternative with agile planning, issue tracking, roadmaps, Gantt charts, time tracking, collaboration features, and more. Available on premises or in the cloud. Star us on GitHub”
- Hive costs
- $5/user/mo · Starter planPrinted as “$5 / month per user” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $60 per userComputed: $5 × 12.
- OpenProject costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 16.2k stars · 410 contributorsLast commit 28 Sep 2026, per GitHub on 28 Sep 2026.
12Note taking
Notesnook
Instead of
Obsidian Sync“A fully open source & end-to-end encrypted note taking alternative to Evernote.”
- Obsidian Sync costs
- $4/user/mo · Sync Standard planPrinted as “$4 per month” on their pricing page, read 28 Sep 2026.
- Over a year
- $48 per userComputed: $4 × 12.
- Notesnook costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 14.7k stars · 54 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.
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 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.
