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Cover image for I Built AlternateOSS, A Directory of Free, Open-source Alternatives to Popular Software 🚀🔥

I Built AlternateOSS, A Directory of Free, Open-source Alternatives to Popular Software 🚀🔥

Syakir on November 06, 2024

Hey guys 👋, Syakir here! Its been a while since my last post. I skipped my weekly blog posts because i have been busy working on a new project sin...
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syakirurahman profile image
Syakir

To be honest with you, I found out about view transition API when i visit openAlternative.
I was a bit demotivated when i found out that there is already similar website, that has really nice UI.

But i keep going on, using it as my product benchmark :D.
I was thinking, there is no way OpenAlternative will cover all open source tools available on the internet. So, i take my part there lol.

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hosseinyazdi profile image
Hossein Yazdi

My demotivated? You can even be better and make your platform more updated. Competitions are born this way. Just a quick suggestion though, make sure to add filter options like OpenAlternative, they're vital in a platform as such!

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Syakir

Yes, of course.

Filter is on the roadmap. But for now, you can use search box or go to categories page.

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anmolbaranwal profile image
Anmol Baranwal

That's exactly what I thought.. OpenAlternative is the most useful one out there.
Anyway, great work Syakir 🔥

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syakirurahman profile image
Syakir

Thanks Anmol.

Its been a while i didn't hangout here :D

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ccbikai profile image
MT

I am glad to see similar competitive products, the page is very smooth.

However, OpenAlternative has been open-sourced. Since you have collected alternatives to open-source software, is your project itself also an open-source alternative?

Also recommend an open-source project of mine sink.cool/, it is an alternative to Bitly.

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Syakir

I want to open-source it. But now the repo is still combined with the contents, because it fully statics with markdown.

I want to at least separate the contents first into submodule, before i make it open source.

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Syakir

Hi, Just want to let you know that Sink is now listed on AlternateOSS

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Axel Bock

nice directory!

maybe consider splitting "open source" (which is usually associated with "free software") into "source available" and "open source".

"source available" for example would be n8n, which is definitely not free, and that would be something at least i would like to know.

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syakirurahman profile image
Syakir

Thanks for the suggestion.

I actually did that but only in alternative list page like this:
alternateoss.com/alternatives-to/g...

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rhbrolo profile image
RH Brolo

Here is some constructive criticism (no hard feelings or any bad vibes)

  • overall, site looks and feels nice, with a few visual inconsistencies here and there, for example the content is not centered when I click a subcategory page
  • the correct title is "AlternateOSS, A Directory of Open-source, Fremium and Paid Tools.
  • the "alternatives" part is not so well emphasized in the UI/UX like the categories part is. And if you state free, open-source tools, then it's a turn-off to see the first item as Paid or Freemium when you click a category. Also, categories should also be shown on the front page

But from a technical point of view, it's an achievement and you should be proud of it ! I am sure you learned a lot when building it and the only way is up from this point. Cheers✌️

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Syakir • Edited

Thank you very much to spent your time to write this. I appreciate it :)

  1. I just deployed new changes to sub category page. It supposed to have right sidebar. Yesterday, i shipped without it

  2. I know, the title might not 100% matched with contents. But i use "Alternate universe of software" to make it easy to remember. I do want to emphasize the OSS part though, like the domain name imply. But i cant ignore the free and paid tools content because thats where the high search volume are. So, i'm still trying to find a balance by highlighting more OSS than freemium / paid tools in the home page.

  3. The "alternatives" is actually supposed to list "Popular softwares where people look the alternatives for". But it seems misleading. What do you think the best menu label for this?

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debojyotichatterjee9 profile image
Debojyoti Chatterjee

Good work!! Can you add APIDog as another Postman or any API Testing GUI client alternative? @syakirurahman Or maybe you can have a suggestion form kind of a thing where dev can suggest the alternative they might know you can review and add them to the list as required?

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Syakir

is APIDog open source?

the suggestion form is in the roadmap for next feature. I still focus on enriching the database first for now

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XWiki

Hi, would you care adding XWiki as well?
We have created the only dedicated Confluence Migrator Toolkit on the market and were also preparing a free webinar this November with a live demo. Here's the registration link for the webinar.

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M. Akbar Nugroho

Well done, Syakir 🙌

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khuongduybui profile image
Duy K. Bui
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Syakir

Yes, its good as well

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hoaitx profile image
hoaitx

To be honest, the website is very modern and easy to use. Hopefully more people will see the usefulness of it.

I saw one of my products in it 🥰

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Sanjay Joshi

How i can add mine open source project here

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syakirurahman profile image
Syakir

Theres still no submission form yet. If you want to add yours, just put it here

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karishmashukla profile image
Karishma Shukla

How can one add their project to the list? @syakirurahman

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Syakir

For now, i manually add the projects. But a form submission is in the feature roadmap.

If you have any open source project to submit, just contact me or reply it here 😄