10 free GitHub repos that replace paid software
10 GitHub projects you can run yourself instead of paying for Braintrust, Bitrise, JFrog Artifactory and 7 more — $5,628 a year in subscriptions between them.
All 10 repos, with prices and links
01LLM observability
Langfuse
Instead of
Braintrust“Open source agent evals & observability: Trace, evaluate, and improve LLM applications with one open platform.”
- Braintrust costs
- $249/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$249 / month” on their pricing page, read 12 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $2,988Computed: $249 × 12.
- Langfuse costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 35.7k stars · 221 contributorsLast commit 12 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 12 Oct 2026.
02Mobile CI
fastlane
Instead of
Bitrise“The easiest way to automate building and releasing your iOS and Android apps”
- Bitrise costs
- $89/mo · Starter planPrinted as “$89 per month when billed” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $1,068Computed: $89 × 12.
- fastlane costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 42.2k stars · 1,700 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
03Artifact registry
Harbor
Instead of
JFrog Artifactory“An open source trusted cloud native registry project that stores, signs, and scans content.”
- JFrog Artifactory costs
- $50/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$50 /” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $600Computed: $50 × 12.
- Harbor costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 29.5k stars · 495 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
04Log analytics
Quickwit
Instead of
Axiom“Cloud-native OSS search engine for observability”
- Axiom costs
- $25/mo · Axiom Cloud planPrinted as “$25 /month” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $300Computed: $25 × 12.
- Quickwit costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 11.7k stars · 122 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
05Web analytics
Plausible
Instead of
Simple Analytics“Open source, privacy-first web analytics. Lightweight, cookie-free Google Analytics alternative. Self-hosted or cloud.”
- Simple Analytics costs
- $20/mo · Simple, privacy-friendly analytics planPrinted as “$20 /month” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $240Computed: $20 × 12.
- Plausible costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 29.4k stars · 119 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
06Grammar
Harper
Instead of
Grammarly“Offline, privacy-first grammar checker. Fast, open-source, Rust-powered”
- Grammarly costs
- $12/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$12” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $144Computed: $12 × 12.
- Harper costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 16.3k stars · 151 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
07API docs
Scalar
Instead of
Redocly“Scalar is an open-source API platform: Modern REST API Client Beautiful API References 1st-Class OpenAPI/Swagger Support”
- Redocly costs
- $10/seat/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$10” on their pricing page, read 12 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $120 per userComputed: $10 × 12.
- Scalar costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 16.3k stars · 257 contributorsLast commit 12 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 12 Oct 2026.
08RSS reader
FreshRSS
Instead of
Feedly“A free, self-hostable news aggregator”
- Feedly costs
- $6/mo · Pro plan · billed yearlyPrinted as “$6 per month billed annually” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $72Computed: $6 × 12.
- FreshRSS costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 16.3k stars · 446 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
09Databases
Vitess
Instead of
PlanetScale“Vitess is a database clustering system for horizontal scaling of MySQL.”
- PlanetScale costs
- $5/mo · Single node planPrinted as “$5/month” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $60Computed: $5 × 12.
- Vitess costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 21.4k stars · 581 contributorsLast commit 11 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
10Passwords
KeePassXC
Instead of
Proton Pass“KeePassXC is a cross-platform community-driven port of the Windows application “KeePass Password Safe”.”
- Proton Pass costs
- $2.99/mo · Pass Plus planPrinted as “$2.99/month” on their pricing page, read 12 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $36Computed: $2.99 × 12.
- KeePassXC costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 29.2k stars · 511 contributorsLast commit 10 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. 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.
