10 free GitHub repos that replace paid software
10 GitHub projects you can run yourself instead of paying for Unity, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Illustrator and 7 more — $3,812 a year in subscriptions between them.
All 10 repos, with prices and links
01Creative
Godot
Instead of
Unity“Godot Engine – Multi-platform 2D and 3D game engine”
- Unity costs
- $210/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$210” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $2,520Computed: $210 × 12.
- Godot costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 118k stars · 3,973 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
02Creative
Kdenlive
Instead of
Adobe Premiere Pro“Free and open source video editor, based on MLT Framework and KDE Frameworks”
- Adobe Premiere Pro costs
- $22.99/mo · Premiere planPrinted as “$22.99/mo” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $276Computed: $22.99 × 12.
- Kdenlive costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 5.9k stars · 225 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
03Creative
Graphite
Instead of
Adobe Illustrator“Community-built comprehensive 2D content creation appplication for graphic design, digital art, and interactive real-time motion graphics powered by a node-based procedural graphics engine”
- Adobe Illustrator costs
- $22.99/mo · Illustrator planPrinted as “$22.99/mo” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $276Computed: $22.99 × 12.
- Graphite costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 27.6k stars · 187 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
04AI
Cherry Studio
Instead of
Claude“AI productivity studio with smart chat, autonomous agents, and 300+ assistants. Unified access to frontier LLMs”
- Claude costs
- $17/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$17” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $204Computed: $17 × 12.
- Cherry Studio costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 52.6k stars · 493 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
05Creative
OBS Studio
Instead of
Streamlabs“OBS Studio - Free and open source software for live streaming and screen recording”
- Streamlabs costs
- $15.75/mo · Ultra planPrinted as “$15.75/mo” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $189Computed: $15.75 × 12.
- OBS Studio costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 77.5k stars · 753 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
06AI
InvokeAI
Instead of
Adobe Firefly“Invoke is a leading creative engine for Stable Diffusion models, empowering professionals, artists, and enthusiasts to generate and create visual media using the latest AI-driven technologies. The solution offers an industry leading WebUI, and serves as the foundation for multiple commercial products.”
- Adobe Firefly costs
- $9.99/mo · Firefly Standard planPrinted as “$9.99/mo” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $120Computed: $9.99 × 12.
- InvokeAI costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 28.6k stars · 405 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
07Work
Element
Instead of
Slack“A glossy Matrix collaboration client for the web.”
- Slack costs
- $8.75/user/mo · Pro planPrinted as “$8.75” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $105 per userComputed: $8.75 × 12.
- Element costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 13.6k stars · 1,313 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
08Home
Frigate
Instead of
Ring“NVR with realtime local object detection for IP cameras”
- Ring costs
- $4.99/mo · Ring Solo planPrinted as “$4.99/mo or” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $60Computed: $4.99 × 12.
- Frigate costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 36.6k stars · 415 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 Oct 2026.
09Passwords
Vaultwarden
Instead of
LastPass“Unofficial Bitwarden compatible server written in Rust, formerly known as bitwarden_rs”
- LastPass costs
- $4.25/user/mo · Teams planPrinted as “$4.25 user/month billed annually*” on their pricing page, read 11 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $51 per userComputed: $4.25 × 12.
- Vaultwarden costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 69k stars · 212 contributorsLast commit 8 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 11 Oct 2026.
10Photos
Ente
Instead of
Apple iCloud+“End-to-end encrypted cloud for everything.”
- Apple iCloud+ costs
- $0.99/mo · iCloud+ 50GB planPrinted as “$0.99/month” on their pricing page, read 14 Oct 2026.
- Over a year
- $12Computed: $0.99 × 12.
- Ente costs
- $0 licence, self-hostedYour server and your time are not free.
- Maintenance
- 29.4k stars · 394 contributorsLast commit 14 Oct 2026, per GitHub on 14 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 2026-10-14, 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.
