Save $6,846/year. Use these free tools instead.
12 paid tools and a free, self-hostable alternative for each — $570.49 a month, $6,846 a year between them.
All 12 tools, with prices and links
01Data pipelines
Meltano
Instead of
Hevo“Meltano: the declarative code-first data integration engine that powers your wildest data and ML-powered product ideas. Say goodbye to writing, maintaining, and scaling your own API integrations.”
- Hevo costs
- $265/mo · STARTER planPrinted as “$265 /Month” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $3,180Computed: $265 × 12.
- Meltano costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 2.7k stars · 207 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
02Customer messaging
Dittofeed
Instead of
Customer.io“Open-source customer engagement. Automate transactional and marketing messages across email, SMS, mobile push, WhatsApp, Slack, and more”
- Customer.io costs
- $100/mo · Essentials planPrinted as “$100 per month” on their pricing page, read 12 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $1,200Computed: $100 × 12.
- Dittofeed costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 3k stars · 30 contributorsLast commit 4 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 12 Oct 2026.
03Feedback boards
Fider
Instead of
Canny“Open platform to collect and prioritize feedback”
- Canny costs
- $79/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$79 / month billed yearly” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $948Computed: $79 × 12.
- Fider costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 4.6k stars · 78 contributorsLast commit 8 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
04Data labeling
CVAT
Instead of
Roboflow“CVAT is a leading data annotation platform for image, video, audio, and 3D datasets. It offers open-source, cloud, and enterprise products, as well as labeling services, with AI-assisted labeling, quality assurance, team collaboration, analytics, and developer APIs.”
- Roboflow costs
- $39/mo · Core planPrinted as “$39 per month, billed monthly” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $468Computed: $39 × 12.
- CVAT costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 16.9k stars · 319 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
05Help desk
FreeScout
Instead of
Help Scout“FreeScout — Free self-hosted omnichannel AI-powered helpdesk & shared mailbox”
- Help Scout costs
- $25/user/mo · Standard planPrinted as “$25 per user/mo” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $300 per userComputed: $25 × 12.
- FreeScout costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 4.6k stars · 101 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
06Message queue
RabbitMQ
Instead of
CloudAMQP“Open source RabbitMQ: core server and tier 1 (built-in) plugins”
- CloudAMQP costs
- $19/mo · Elegant Ermine planPrinted as “$19 per month” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $228Computed: $19 × 12.
- RabbitMQ costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 13.9k stars · 438 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
07Websites
WordPress
Instead of
Weebly“WordPress, Git-ified. This repository is just a mirror of the WordPress subversion repository. Please do not send pull requests. Submit pull requests to and patches to instead.”
- Weebly costs
- $13/mo · Personal planPrinted as “$13 /mo billed annually or” on their pricing page, read 12 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $156Computed: $13 × 12.
- WordPress costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 21.5k stars · 133 contributorsLast commit 12 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 12 Oct 2026.
08E-signatures
OpenSign
Instead of
Zoho Sign“The free & Open Source DocuSign alternative”
- Zoho Sign costs
- $10/user/mo · STANDARD plan · billed yearlyPrinted as “$10” on their pricing page, read 12 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $120 per userComputed: $10 × 12.
- OpenSign costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 7.1k stars · 37 contributorsLast commit 21 Aug 2026, per GitHub on 12 Oct 2026.
09RSS reader
Miniflux
Instead of
Inoreader“Minimalist and opinionated feed reader”
- Inoreader costs
- $7.50/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$7.50 /month” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $90Computed: $7.50 × 12.
- Miniflux costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 9.8k stars · 333 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
- Ulysses costs
- $5.99/mo · Ulysses planPrinted as “$5.99 per” on their pricing page, read 12 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $72Computed: $5.99 × 12.
- Zettlr costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 13.8k stars · 196 contributorsLast commit 12 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 12 Oct 2026.
11E-commerce
Bagisto
Instead of
Ecwid“Open Source eCommerce & Multi-Vendor Marketplace Platform Built with Laravel for Enterprise-Scale Commerce, Supporting 10M+ SKUs”
- Ecwid costs
- $5/mo · Starter planPrinted as “$ 5 /month” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $60Computed: $5 × 12.
- Bagisto costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 28.2k stars · 323 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
12DNS filtering
AdGuard Home
Instead of
Control D“Network-wide ads & trackers blocking DNS server”
- Control D costs
- $2/endpoint/mo · SMB planPrinted as “$2 / endpoint” on their pricing page, read 12 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $24Computed: $2 × 12.
- AdGuard Home costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 37.4k stars · 106 contributorsLast commit 8 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 12 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 2026-10-11 and 2026-10-12, 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.
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 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.
