10 free GitHub repos that replace paid software
10 GitHub projects you can run yourself instead of paying for Cloudinary, GitBook, Pinecone and 7 more — $3,012 a year in subscriptions between them.
All 10 repos, with prices and links
01Image processing
imgproxy
Instead of
Cloudinary“Fast and secure standalone server for resizing, processing, and converting images on the fly”
- Cloudinary costs
- $89/mo · Plus planPrinted as “$89” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $1,068Computed: $89 × 12.
- imgproxy costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 11.1k stars · 119 contributorsLast commit 6 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
02Documentation
Docusaurus
Instead of
GitBook“Easy to maintain open source documentation websites.”
- GitBook costs
- $65/site/mo · Essential planPrinted as “$65 per site/month and” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $780Computed: $65 × 12.
- Docusaurus costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 66.5k stars · 1,367 contributorsLast commit 10 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
03Vector search
Qdrant
Instead of
Pinecone“Qdrant - High-performance, massive-scale Vector Database and Vector Search Engine for the next generation of AI. Also available in the cloud”
- Pinecone costs
- $20/mo · Builder planPrinted as “$20/month flat” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $240Computed: $20 × 12.
- Qdrant costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 35k stars · 209 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
04Automation
Activepieces
Instead of
Zapier“AI Agents & MCPs & AI Workflow Automation (~400 MCP servers for AI agents) AI Automation / AI Agent with MCPs AI Workflows & AI Agents MCPs for AI Agents”
- Zapier costs
- $19.99/mo · Professional planPrinted as “$19.99 /month” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $240Computed: $19.99 × 12.
- Activepieces costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 25k stars · 498 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
05CI
Woodpecker CI
Instead of
CircleCI“Woodpecker is a simple, yet powerful CI/CD engine with great extensibility.”
- CircleCI costs
- $15/mo · Performance planPrinted as “$15 /month” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $180Computed: $15 × 12.
- Woodpecker CI costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 8k stars · 673 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
06Notes
AppFlowy
Instead of
Notion“Bring projects, wikis, and teams together with AI. AppFlowy is the AI collaborative workspace where you achieve more without losing control of your data. The leading open source Notion alternative.”
- Notion costs
- $10/member/mo · Plus* planPrinted as “$10 per member” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $120Computed: $10 × 12.
- AppFlowy costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 77.2k stars · 381 contributorsLast commit 8 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
07File sync
Seafile
Instead of
Dropbox“Beyond file syncing and sharing, a new way to organize your files with extensible file properties and flexible views”
- Dropbox costs
- $9.99/mo · Plus planPrinted as “$9.99 / month” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $120Computed: $9.99 × 12.
- Seafile costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 15.3k stars · 99 contributorsLast commit 10 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
08Containers
Podman
Instead of
Docker Desktop“Podman: A tool for managing OCI containers and pods.”
- Docker Desktop costs
- $9/user/mo · Docker Pro planPrinted as “$9” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $108 per userComputed: $9 × 12.
- Podman costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 33k stars · 1,082 contributorsLast commit 10 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
- HubSpot costs
- $7/seat/mo · Starter planPrinted as “$7/mo/seat” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $84 per userComputed: $7 × 12.
- Odoo costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 55k stars · 4,318 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
10SSO
Authelia
Instead of
Okta“The Single Sign-On Multi-Factor portal for web apps. OpenID Certified and Post-Quantum Cryptography Ready.”
- Okta costs
- $6/user/mo · Starter planPrinted as “$ 6 per user/month*” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $72 per userComputed: $6 × 12.
- Authelia costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 29.2k stars · 309 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 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, 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. 10 of 10 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 10 free tools describe themselves, in their maintainers' own words, as an alternative to the tool they sit beside. The other 9 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 10 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.
