Some FOSS programs, due to being mantained by hobbyists vs a massive megacorporation with millions in funding, don’t have as many features and aren’t as polished as their proprietary counterparts. However, there are some FOSS programs that simply have more functionality and QoL features compared to proprietary offerings.

What are some FOSS programs that are objectively better than their non-FOSS alternatives? Maybe we can discover useful new programs together :D

I’ll start, I think Joplin is a great note-taking app that works offline + can sync between desktop and mobile really well. Also, working with Markdown is really nice compared with rich text editors that only work with the specific program that supports it. Joplin even has a bunch of plugins to extend functionality!

Notion, Evernote, Google Keep, etc. either don’t have desktop apps, doesn’t work offline, does not support Markdown, or a combination of those three.

What are some other really nice FOSS programs?

edit: woah that’s a whole load of cool FOSS software I have to try out! So far my experiences have been great (ShareX in particular is AWESOME as a screenshot tool, it’s what snip and sketch wishes it could be and mostly replaces OBS for my use case and a whole lot more)

  • afk_strats@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    4 months ago

    Home Assistant is - by far - a better home automation platform than anything else I’ve tried. Most of them cannot integrate with as many platforms and your ability to create automations is not as powerful.

    Folks will argue that it’s harder. I argue back that if you buy a hub with it pre-installed, your setup experience is as easy or easier than HomeKit or Google Home or maybe Alexa.

    • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
      1·
      4 months ago

      … Unless of course you’re trying to connect two external monitors through a docking station with a USB-C into the laptop with a closed lid and disabled inbuilt screen.

      Unfortunately, in my experience, Linux routinely fails at this task (tried many different distros) while Windows “just works”.

    • stinky@redlemmy.comEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      You mean the ease of setup, or the native handling of the world’s most popular applications?

      • twistypencil@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 months ago

        Also dude, I just spent 8 hours trying every last weird hack that I could find on the internet, including editing the registry to try to get a Windows game to work on Windows 10. It would just crash on a fresh install of Windows. Steam on Linux worked flawlessly, riddle me that Batman, Linux was able to do better at Windows than Windows.

            • stinky@redlemmy.comEnglish
              1·
              2 months ago

              oh, I think maybe that is poor game design from the developers, I have heard many PC people experiences crashes/black screens etc, I suspect from poor utilization of system resources. it’s possible the developers managed memory poorly in a windows environemnt

  • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nzEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    Syncthing!

    I don’t even know what to compare it to, I have been using it so long.