Interested in open-source? Hold your breath as this article takes you through a complete list of 40 open-source software. From eCommerce, accounting, content management, and web browsers, to antivirus, media player, and editing tools — we have it all covered for you. So, let’s jump right in!
eCommerce
In this section, I’ll discuss the 4 best open-source eCommerce platforms.
OpenCart helps small and medium-sized businesses manage their orders, offer multiple payment systems, and manage multiple online stores using one platform. It also lets its customers provide feedback and ratings. Additionally, OpenCart has free community support via an international partner network. It offers websites compatible extensions.
Magestores’s POS Open is one of the most reliable open-source software designed for small-sized businesses. It has only one warehouse. You can perform all your store operations using all its features. It helps connect online to offline, omnichannel inventory, and order management. However, you may feel the need to have a dedicated development team and more than one warehouse to get your online store running faster.
PrestaShop offers native features for orders, payments, shipping, product management, and manufacturer management. Additionally, it provides various add-on modules for new features to customize your online shop. It provides translation, localization, marketing, product display, tax services, and product exports to eBay.
WooCommerce is the most popular WordPress plugin for eCommerce. It has recorded over 3 million active installations. You can also enjoy the benefits of various plugins offered by WooThemes and third-party extensions available on the marketplace.
Office Suites
In this section, I’ll discuss the 4 best open-source office suite software.
In 2010, LibreOffice was created from OpenOffice. It supports an Open Document file type and office files, such as MS Office. It runs on Linux, Windows, and macOS.
OpenOffice by Apache is one of the first and most reliable open-source office suites. It provided an alternative to Microsoft’s small business software. OpenOffice was rebranded in 2012. This open-source office suite is compatible with Windows, Linux, and macOS.
The NeoOffice, also forked from OpenOffice, is based on Java. NeoOffice is built specifically for macOS. You can securely edit your documents in Dropbox and iCloud Drive using NeoOffice.
Calligra office suite is an open-source graphic art platform developed by KDE. Calligra runs on smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers. It’s compatible with macOS, Linux, Windows, and FreeBSD.
ERP
In this section, I’ll discuss the 4 best open-source ERP platforms.
Odoo offers a whole application suite, such as purchasing management, production resource management, recruitment, sales management, accounting, and finance. With the free version, you can track sales, and provide thorough invoices and reports. The paid version provides additional benefits including bug fixes, unlimited customer support, and automatic application updates. Odoo runs on Linux and Windows.
ADempiere is an open-source ERP suite that runs on Linux, Unix, Windows, and macOS. It offers project management, production management, materials management, HR, accounting, finance, and maintenance management features.
OFBiz is a Java-based, open-source ERP package. It has been created by Apache Foundation. It provides CRM, accounting, supply chain management, manufacturing resource management, and small business asset management features.
ERPNext is a classic open-source project. It was developed for small and medium-sized businesses.
CRM
In this section, I’ll discuss the 4 best open-source CRMs.
WSDesk is a free ELEX WordPress HelpDesk. It offers customer ticket generation, thorough ticket records, customer management, unlimited support, email piping, personalized email replies, document attachments to tickets, etc. It’s a user-friendly WordPress Ticket System Plugin. User complaints are turned into support tickets using this open-source plugin. Being a lightweight AJAX-based application, it doesn’t slow down your website’s loading speed.
SugarCRM is a free and open-source small business management application. It offers marketing campaigns, customer support, and sales operations. SugarCRM runs well on Linux, Windows, macOS, and Unix operating systems.
SuiteCRM claims to be an alternative to SugarCRM. However, it has features similar to SugarCRM’s paid version. Apart from that, SuiteCRM offers a Joomla integration feature.
Fat Free CRM is built on top of Ruby on Rails. It offers opportunity tracking, lead and campaign management, contact lists, and team collaboration features.
Forum
In this section, I’ll discuss the 4 best open-source forum software.
Discourse is one of the most popular open source forums. It offers email notifications, style customizations, moderation tools, and third-party integrations including Slack, WordPress, and other exciting features. It’s free to self-host. But, in case, you want to avoid the hassle of self-hosting, you can choose their managed services option.
Talkyard is a free and open-source forum similar to Discourse. It’s a discussion tool to get ideas, solutions, and how to make the world better. Individuals and businesses both are free to use Talkyard. Debiki, a social enterprise, provides hosting and maintenance for this website.
NodeBB is based on Node.js and it aims to be fast, simple, and elegant. Primarily, it’s for businesses with managed hosting plans. However, you can self-host as well. NodeBB offers chat and notification support, API, moderation tools, and antispam tools. They provide third-party integrations including WordPress, MailChimp, and others.
Vanilla Forums is an open-source forum software primarily developed for enterprises. It offers branding your platform, a Q/A for customers, and voting features. The user experience features a simple, state-of-the-art look. Vanilla Forum’s cloud version is also available alongside some of its premium features.
Email Management
In this section, I’ll discuss the 4 best open-source email management applications.
Thunderbird by Mozilla is a free and open-source email manager. One can manage multiple accounts using Thunderbird. Its features include signatures, autoresponders, and address book imports from text files or other email clients.
eM Clients allows you to manage multiple email accounts of separate providers. Also, you can run a standalone client application instead of a browser-based email solution.
Claws Mail offers an easy configuration and plugin extensions can be added. The most common plugins used by the users are calendar tool, archive engine, and anti-spam.
Geary is a simple and fast open-source project. It helps you send and receive text messages. Geary is compatible with Gmail, Yahoo!, and other popular email management software.
Content Management
In this section, I’ll discuss the 4 best open-source content management applications.
WordPress is a free and open-source CMS or content management platform. It’s written in the PHP programming language put together with a MySQL or MariaDB database supported by HTTPS. It’s one of the most popular blogging systems with more than 50,000 plugins, themes, and widgets. Websites built with WP share 20% space of the first 10 million sites on the internet.
Drupal is another CMS in the FOSS category. It’s distributed under GNU GPL License. The amazing features offered by Drupal are menu management, RSS feeds, user registration and maintenance, system administration, and page layout customization. Drupal is a very secure and user-friendly content management system. So, governmental bodies also use Drupal.
OpenCms is a Java-based open-source application. Its workspace is browser-based. Also, OpenCms has a WYSIWYG editor to manage users, workflow, and assets. OpenCms provides a native and complex content version. It helps you manage changes made to your content.
Joomla is the second-most popular CMS after WordPress. Joomla allows quick UI editing. One needs not to access the admin to make simple website content changes. Joomla is usually used for decentralized multi-member websites due to its exceptional access control feature.
Photo & Video Editing
In this section, I’ll discuss the 4 best open-source photo and video editing applications.
GIMP is considered to be the best open-source application image editor. With GIMP, one can manage and edit multi-layered images. It’s crucial for many photographers and graphic designers.
Blender is a free and open-source powerful 3D graphics tool. It’s written using C, C++, and Python programming languages. It’s used to create art, animations, 3D-printed models, visual effects, interactive 3D applications, VR, and motion graphics.
Inkscape is a vector graphics editor. With Inkscape, you can create vector images in SVG format. Inkscape can import, convert, create, and export many other graphics formats.
DigiKam is an image organizer and tag editor. It’s written in C++. With digiKam, you can edit and publish images directly to social media networks. Also, you can manage large photo libraries using digiKam.
Antivirus
In this section, I’ll discuss the 4 best open-source antivirus programs.
Bitdefender is a free real-time threat protection antivirus. You can solve issues related to spyware, ransomware, and virus threats using this tool. It is appropriate for high-end processes including video editing, gaming, etc due to its low impact on your system resources. Its features include web filtering, vulnerability assessment, multi-layered ransomware protection, advanced threat defense, and so on.
ClamAV is a virus scanner that helps detect viruses, malware, Trojans, and other malicious threats. It’s completely free and open-source. It’s created primarily to detect email viruses. It provides real-time protection to the latest Linux-based operating systems. Key features of ClamAV are open-source standards for mail gateway, support for file and archive unpacking, web scanning, endpoint security, and so on.
Avira is a great tool that keeps you safe from malware, viruses, and cyberattacks. All thanks to its multilayered security. If you are mainly looking for an AI-, ML-based antivirus, Avira is for you. Other key features include cross-platform compatibility, fast scanning, real-time updates, light impact on the system’s resources, browser tracking ad-blocker, password manager, anti-spam, etc.
Avast provides the latest and most authentic security tools to protect your PC from online threats. It scans every program before installing them on your system. When it comes to features, the key highlights are cloud-light and free protection, wifi network virus protection, 6 layers security engine, pop-ups/ ads blocking, smart scanning, etc.
Media Players
In this section, I’ll discuss the 4 best open-source media players.
VLC is one of the most popular media players and it’s free and open-source software developed by VideoLAN. VLC runs on desktop, iOS, Android, and iPad OS. VLC offers various audio and video compression techniques and file formats, such as Video CDs, DVD videos, and streaming protocols. Key features include support for codecs ( MP3, WebM, H.264, WMV, MPEG, etc), no ads, no tracking issues, no spyware, and cross-platform support, among others
Miro is another open-source media player that gives you the freedom of playing your video content. Miro has an amazing interface and a well-maintained platform. It runs on tablets and android devices. The primary features of Miro are Amazon integration, easy conversion of file formats, clarity in playing media files, etc.
MPV is a classic video player. MPV provides an advanced media management solution to its users. It is an intuitive and easily accessible media player. MPV’s features are mouse-based movements, high-quality video streaming, extended control over interpolation, color management, frame timings, cross-platform support, and others.
Banshee is an easy-to-access open-source media player. With Banshee, you can stay tuned to new internet radio and podcasts. Banshee offers easy navigation to its users. Other key features offered by Banshee include support for all popular media file formats, a smooth long-hour video watching experience, good battery power performance, etc.