These 7 criminally underrated open-source projects deserve more love

When most people think of open-source software, a few big names come to mind — maybe VLC for video playback, or GIMP if you’ve dabbled in photo editing. But there are so many other projects out there quietly doing incredible work. The kind of tools that can easily replace expensive commercial apps, or give you features you won’t find in the free versions of popular alternatives.

This isn’t a list of niche utilities you’ll never use. These are practical, everyday tools that help with things like editing videos, taking notes, organizing ideas, or cleaning up photos. If you’ve ever felt limited by free trials or frustrated by missing features in mainstream apps, you’ll probably find something here that surprises you.

Joplin

Notes and to-dos that give you control without the lock-in

A lot of popular note-taking apps lure you in with free tiers and then start pushing you toward subscriptions. Evernote, for example, limits how many devices you can sync unless you pay, while Notion stores everything on its own servers. Joplin takes a different approach. It is open-source, completely free to use, and your notes are saved in plain text, so you are never stuck in a format you cannot easily move away from.

When you first open Joplin, it feels familiar. You can create notebooks, jot down lists, add images or PDFs, and even clip articles from the web. Where it stands out is how it handles sync. Instead of locking you into one service, Joplin lets you choose: Dropbox, OneDrive, Nextcloud, WebDAV, or even Joplin’s own paid sync service. You can also enable end-to-end encryption so that even if your notes are stored on a cloud provider, only you can read them.

The trade-off is that Joplin does not have the polished team collaboration features that Notion or Google Docs offer. It is more of a personal productivity tool than a shared workspace. But if what you want is a reliable, private note app that does not dictate how or where you use it, Joplin is one of the strongest options out there.

Download: Joplin (Free)

Freeplane

A better way to organize your thoughts than endless lists

Lists are fine for groceries or chores, but when you’re planning something complicated — say a research project, a product roadmap, or even a novel — they stop being helpful pretty quickly. That’s where Freeplane comes in. It’s an open-source mind-mapping tool that lets you start with one central idea and then branch out visually, almost like sketching on a whiteboard but with far more flexibility.

You can add notes, links, images, and even little icons to each branch, and when your map starts getting messy you can collapse sections to keep it manageable. It feels natural in a way that apps like XMind or MindNode sometimes don’t, because you aren’t locked into polished templates or subscription tiers.

If you’ve only ever used standard note-taking apps like Notion or Evernote, trying Freeplane can be eye-opening. It encourages you to think in connections rather than lists, and once you get used to that way of working, it’s hard to go back.

Download: Freeplane (Free)

PhotoPrism

A private Google Photos alternative

Google Photos is brilliant at finding that one holiday picture from years ago, but it comes with limits and questions about how your data is being used. PhotoPrism aims to give you the same smart search and organization without handing your photo library to a third party. Once installed, it scans your collection, tags your images using AI, and lets you browse them by timeline, location, or content. It works with casual snapshots but also handles RAW files that many professional cameras produce.

Using it feels very close to what you would expect from Google Photos. You can search for "beach" or "dog" and find matching images instantly. You can group by people or places and spot duplicates you might want to delete. Unlike Google Photos, there are no surprise storage caps or premium tiers for higher resolution backups. You own the full-resolution versions and can export or move them whenever you like.

The catch is that PhotoPrism needs to run on a computer or server you control. For some people, that means installing it on a home server or a low-cost cloud service, which is a little more effort than downloading an app. But once it is running, the experience is ad-free, private, and very close to the polished convenience of commercial photo services.

Visit: PhotoPrism (Free)

OpenShot

Video editing made approachable and free

Video editing can feel like a choice between barebones free apps and expensive professional suites. CapCut, for example, is free but restricts export quality and often watermarks your videos. On the other end, Adobe Premiere Pro has every feature you can imagine but comes with a steep subscription cost and a heavy learning curve. OpenShot sits comfortably in between. It is free, open-source, and designed to be approachable while still giving you more flexibility than the lightweight apps.

The interface is clean and timeline-based. You can drag and drop video clips, audio, and images, then arrange them into multiple layers. OpenShot supports transitions, keyframes, slow motion, and basic color correction. Unlike some free editors, it does not force you into a subscription to unlock higher-quality exports — you can export up to 4K without restrictions.

Where it differs from Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve is depth. OpenShot is not aimed at professionals who need advanced color grading or high-end effects libraries. It is built for accessibility, and that is its strength. If you have outgrown CapCut or iMovie but are not ready to invest time and money into a professional editor, OpenShot gives you a sweet middle ground.

Download: OpenShot (Free)

Krita

A digital painting tool that professional artists actually use

For digital drawing and painting, the default options most people know are Photoshop or Procreate. Photoshop is powerful but expensive, while Procreate is locked to iPad. Krita is open-source, cross-platform, and focused specifically on the needs of artists rather than general photo editing. It comes loaded with hundreds of brushes, stabilizers for clean strokes, a pop-up palette for quick access, and even animation tools.

What stands out is that Krita is not just an "alternative" to commercial tools — it is genuinely preferred by many professional illustrators and concept artists. Its brush engine is deep enough to let you create custom tools that mimic real media, from pencil sketches to oil paint textures. The interface is also customizable, so you can set up workspaces that match your style.

Compared to Photoshop, Krita does not have as strong a photo editing toolkit, and it lacks some of the 3D integration Adobe has built into its suite. But if your main interest is digital art, those omissions hardly matter. What you get instead is a focused, artist-driven tool that is free, actively developed, and backed by a passionate community.

Download: Krita (Free)

Scribus

Desktop publishing that rivals InDesign for free

When people think of layout and publishing, Adobe InDesign is usually the first tool that comes to mind. It is the industry standard for magazines, brochures, and newsletters. Scribus is an open-source alternative that brings many of the same features without the subscription costs. It supports master pages, text styles, vector graphics, and professional output formats like PDF/X, which makes it suitable for print-ready work.

For casual use, Scribus can feel like a big step up from something like Microsoft Publisher. You can design zines, posters, or event flyers with the same kind of precision InDesign users expect. It handles text wrapping, image frames, and typography controls well, and there are plenty of tutorials to guide beginners. The interface can feel less polished than Adobe’s, but once you get comfortable, it becomes a powerful publishing companion.

The real trade-off is time. InDesign has decades of refinement and integration with Adobe’s ecosystem, which makes it faster for professionals who depend on that workflow. Scribus requires more setup and a willingness to learn its quirks. For individuals, community groups, or small businesses that want professional-looking materials without recurring costs, Scribus is more than capable.

Download: Scribus (Free)

SearxNG

A privacy-first search engine you can actually trust

Search engines are often the front door to the internet, and most of them are built around collecting data. Google, for example, builds detailed profiles from search activity, and even alternatives like Bing or Yahoo feed into large ad networks. SearxNG is a different breed. It is an open-source metasearch engine, which means it pulls results from multiple search providers but never tracks or profiles you.

Using it feels familiar because the interface is clean and the results are fast. You can filter by categories such as images, news, or science, and you can even adjust which search sources it uses. Unlike DuckDuckGo, which still relies heavily on partnerships with companies like Bing, SearxNG is designed so that you can run your own instance if you want full control. That means nobody is collecting logs unless you decide otherwise.

The biggest appeal is peace of mind. You search, you get results, and nothing else happens in the background. The trade-off is that self-hosted instances can sometimes be less reliable than commercial services if they aren’t maintained well. For everyday searching, though, SearxNG provides a refreshing alternative for people who want Google-like reach without the data trade-offs.

Visit: SearX (Free)

Why these tools matter more than ever

Open-source software is sometimes dismissed as "niche" or "only for techies," but the projects above show how untrue that is. Many of them rival or even surpass their commercial counterparts — the main difference is that they are built around communities rather than profit.

The benefit to you as a user is freedom. Freedom from subscriptions, from limited features, and from platforms that treat your data as a resource to be mined. Open-source does not always have the polish of billion-dollar companies, but it often has something more valuable: tools shaped by people who actually use them.

If you’re curious, try one or two of these projects. Whether it’s editing a video in OpenShot or sketching in Krita, you may be surprised by just how capable these underrated projects are.