Paying for software is stupid… 10 free and open-source SaaS replacements
Paying for software is stupid… 10 free and open-source SaaS replacements
Remember, for every paid SaaS, there is a free open-source self-hosted alternative. Let's take a look at 10 FOSS tools designed to replace popular tools like MS Office, Notion, Heroku, Vercel, Zoom, Adobe, and more.
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I prefer FOSS as much as possible and didn't read all comments on YouTube but ... desktop applications are not SAAS. eg LibreOffice and Adobe apps. But I guess it only requires a different title as the list itself is useful
These apps aren't SaaS, but their alternatives are in at least some cases. LibreOffice competes with Microsoft Office, for example, and Microsoft wants people to pay a subscription for it, although I think you can still buy it outright. Pretty sure I've heard similar for Adobe products. Not super familiar with all the options, so can't say if it's true for all of them.
SAAS isn't about subscription perse although they have them of course. Its about "not needing to take care of". It's software on "someone else's computer" just as with public cloud. In a SAAS construct a provider does the hosting, computing, connection, install, configuration and maintenance. Absolving clients from that burden.
Comparing proprietary desktop applications (even with a subscription) with FOSS alternatives is useful, it's just not SAAS.
So it seems like if you're using Office on desktop, not SaaS, but they do offer it in a browser, so would that count? Technically, if it's in JavaScript or something like that, computing is handled locally, but it still feels close enough to count.
My understanding is roughly, for example:
- Microsoft Word desktop application: not SAAS.
- Microsoft Word online: SAAS (just like any other service accessible by browser but not a "localhost")
- Onedrive: SAAS, storage with local explorer integration.
- Exchange server on prem: not SAAS, increasingly diffucult to do.
- Exchange server by MS: SAAS
- Microsoft Outlook Classic for desktop: not SAAS.
- Microsoft Teams for desktop: SAAS although local install but its just another frontend instead of browser.
- Office365: SAAS but really a container for every tool in the MS online toolbox together.
Some caveats: Word handles spellchecker in their cloud and clippy 2024 (Copilot) integration blurs the line.