10 free GitHub repos that replace paid software
10 GitHub projects you can run yourself instead of paying for Mintlify, Wistia, Geckoboard and 7 more — $8,256 a year in subscriptions between them.
All 10 repos, with prices and links
01Documentation
Nextra
Instead of
Mintlify“Simple, powerful and flexible site generation framework with everything you love from Next.js.”
- Mintlify costs
- $450/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$ 450” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $5,400Computed: $450 × 12.
- Nextra costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 13.9k stars · 194 contributorsLast commit 31 Jul 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
02Video hosting
PeerTube
Instead of
Wistia“ActivityPub-federated video streaming platform using P2P directly in your web browser”
- Wistia costs
- $79/mo · Business planPrinted as “$79 /mo billed annually” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $948Computed: $79 × 12.
- PeerTube costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 15.4k stars · 843 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
03Dashboards
Redash
Instead of
Geckoboard“Make Your Company Data Driven. Connect to any data source, easily visualize, dashboard and share your data.”
- Geckoboard costs
- $79/mo · Essentials planPrinted as “$79 /month” on their pricing page, read 12 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $948Computed: $79 × 12.
- Redash costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 28.8k stars · 552 contributorsLast commit 8 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 12 Oct 2026.
04Image processing
Thumbor
Instead of
Imgix“thumbor is an open-source photo thumbnail service by globo.com”
- Imgix costs
- $25/mo · STARTER planPrinted as “$25/mo” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $300Computed: $25 × 12.
- Thumbor costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 10.5k stars · 212 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
05Data apps
Evidence
Instead of
Observable“Business intelligence as code: build fast, interactive data visualizations in SQL and markdown”
- Observable costs
- $22/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$22 per month or” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $264Computed: $22 × 12.
- Evidence costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 7k stars · 76 contributorsLast commit 9 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
06Infrastructure monitoring
Zabbix
Instead of
Site24x7“Real-time monitoring of IT components and services, such as networks, servers, VMs, applications and the cloud.”
- Site24x7 costs
- $10/mo · Lite planPrinted as “$10/month” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $120Computed: $10 × 12.
- Zabbix costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 6.5k stars · 197 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
07AI coding
Cline
Instead of
GitHub Copilot“Autonomous coding agent as an SDK, IDE extension, or CLI assistant.”
- GitHub Copilot costs
- $10/user/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$ 10” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $120 per userComputed: $10 × 12.
- Cline costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 70.2k stars · 344 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
08Read later
Wallabag
Instead of
Instapaper“wallabag is a self hostable application for saving web pages: Save and classify articles. Read them later. Freely.”
- Instapaper costs
- $5.99/mo · Premium planPrinted as “$5.99 per month” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $72Computed: $5.99 × 12.
- Wallabag costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 13k stars · 396 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
09Cron monitoring
Healthchecks
Instead of
Dead Man's Snitch“Open-source cron job and background task monitoring service, written in Python & Django”
- Dead Man's Snitch costs
- $5/mo · Little Birdy planPrinted as “$ 5 monthly” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $60Computed: $5 × 12.
- Healthchecks costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 10.4k stars · 103 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
10Photo backup
Immich
Instead of
Google Photos“High performance self-hosted photo and video management solution.”
- Google Photos costs
- $1.99/mo · Basic (100 GB) planPrinted as “$1.99/mo” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $24Computed: $1.99 × 12.
- Immich costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 116k stars · 1,025 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 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. 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.
0 of the 10 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 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.
