Open source tools are more popular and more numerous than ever, providing a long list of benefits to developers and the organizations they work for.
Teams that use open source software can be more flexible and agile, trying an open source solution to solve specific business problems without having to invest budget.
Most open source products have community versions that enable teams to get up and running quickly and for free, and realize immediate value. Later, if you like the tool, you can upgrade to a full-scale enterprise version of the tool for additional support and services.
With all these benefits, it’s no wonder more than 50% of Fortune 500 companies use open source software (OSS) for mission-critical workloads.
And according to The Linux Foundation, 72% of companies use open source internally, while 55% use it for commercial products.
However, with millions of open source software to choose from, how do you know which ones to try? We’ve whittled down the shortlist to 11 tools we're excited to use this year.
(P.S. you may notice we left Directus off the list – otherwise this post would just be a shameless plug for our 100% open source platform that you can use to instantly turn any SQL database into an API and beautiful no-code app. 😉)
1 – Next.js
Link to site: https://nextjs.org/
Link to GitHub: https://github.com/vercel/next.js/
Framework for creating full-stack web applications by extending React features. This tool integrates Rust-based JavaScript tooling, enables rapid builds and is known for a great developer experience.
Next.js has lots of built-in features, like hybrid static and server rendering, support for Typescript, smart bundling and more. What we like about it is it enables server-side rendering, which speeds up page loading by generating HTML from JavaScript modules when there’s a URL request.
If you’re working in Vue, Nuxt.js provides the same benefits (plus they both have a great open source community.)
2 – TipTap
Link to site: https://tiptap.dev/
Link to GitHub: https://github.com/ueberdosis/tiptap
Headless editing framework for creating WYSIWYG/rich text editors. Based on ProseMirror, TipTap provides developers with a framework for building their own custom editors from scratch, complete with a UI.
Because it’s customizable, TipTap gives users a lot of control over how the text editor experiences and offers tons of extensions. Plus it’s supported by a growing and friendly community.
3 – Squoosh
Link to site: https://squoosh.app/
Link to GitHub: https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/squoosh
An image optimizer and compression web app. Web page file sizes are growing, which can impact how fast pages load. Using Squoosh – an experimental open source project from GoogleChromeLabs available on GitHub, you can compress images and take advantage of advanced options and settings.
The free application runs in your browser, so you can preview the results of compression choices in real time.
4 – HandBrake
Link to site: https://handbrake.fr/
Link to GitHub: https://github.com/HandBrake/HandBrake
A video optimizer that converts video from any format into a selection of modern codecs. The tool works on multiple platforms, including Windows, Mac and Linux.
Although it has built in presets for a range of devices, you can also leverage advanced options to tweak your encoding profile. Also, it supports multiple inputs, including the most common multimedia files, DVDs, BluRay, as long as the source is not copyright protected.
5 – Chatwoot
Link to site: https://www.chatwoot.com/
Link to GitHub: https://github.com/chatwoot/chatwoot
An open source, self-hosted customer engagement suite, and an alternative to tools such as Intercom, Zendesk for Salesforce Service Cloud. Customer engagement is critical to product success, but the cost of a commercial service desk solution is often prohibitive.
Chatwoot enables you to view and manage customer data, communicate with them across mediums (website, social channels, text and more). You can also re-engage them based on profile specifics.
6 – FormKit
Link to site: https://formkit.com/
Link to GitHub: https://github.com/formkit/formkit
A Vue form building framework. Forms are a common and necessary feature of most digital projects. This tool, currently in Beta, makes creating forms easy, simplifying the structure, generation from JSON, validation, error handling and more.
It offers full SSR and TypeScript support, labels, help text, internationalization and a bunch of other cool features.
7 – Plausible
Link to site: https://plausible.io/
Link to GitHub: https://github.com/plausible/analytics
A lightweight privacy-focused web analytics tool. We all know that Google Analytics can be frustrating and hard to use, and many worry about data privacy. This is a great alternative. Available in the cloud, Plausible is fully compliant with GDPR, CCPA and PECR.
Users enjoy simple analytics at a glance, and the script is 45X smaller than GA. You can track events, goal conversions and campaigns, generate real-time reports, and invite team members to share dashboard access.
8 – Cal.com
Link to site: https://cal.com/
Link to GitHub: https://github.com/calcom/cal.com
An event-juggling scheduler and alternative to Calendly. The tool lets you connect all of your calendars to prevent double-booking. It's simple, yet effective, and offers versions for individuals, teams and enterprises.
9 – Tailwind CSS
Link to site: https://tailwindcss.com/
Link to GitHub: https://github.com/tailwindlabs/tailwindcss
A utility-first CSS framework. This tool lets you build modern websites rapidly, without leaving HTML. It comes with classes such as flex, pt-4, text-center and rotate-90 enabling users to build any design in markup.
Check all the comments on their website – users have nothing but great things to say about the tool.
10 – Meilisearch
Link to site: https://www.meilisearch.com/
Link to GitHub repo: https://github.com/meilisearch/meilisearch
A fast, fuzzy search engine. Search is critical to a good user experience. This user-focused search engine can be dropped into any digital project and workflow.
It claims to return results to queries in less than 50 milliseconds (hence, the name). Plus it offers smart presets to minimize configuration.
11 – TanStack Table
Link to site: https://tanstack.com/table/v8
Link to GitHub repo: https://github.com/TanStack/table
A headless UI for building tables and data grids. This tool works with TS/JS, React, Vue, Solid and Svelte. It’s modular and framework-agnostic, and users have full control over markup and styles.
Use it to manipulate large datasets with a small API surface – filter, sort, aggregate, display and more. It comes with default styles out of the box, but you can customize until you’re heart’s content.
We hope you enjoy trying out these open source tools! Know of any others? Join our 8k+ member Discord community – https://directus.chat – and let us know.