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)
I certainly like GIMP and Inkscape better than Photoshop and Illustrator, though any professional photo editor or graphic artist would probably fight me on that lol
But Krita is the best drawing/painting program of all time and I stand by that.
+1 for Inkscape. I have no experience with the commercial competition but I’ve found Inkscape awesome, and used it for things it was probably never intended for.
Yeah gimp is atrocious in terms of UI/UX
Nobody with a clue about graphics would ever recommend gimp
It has always been a piece of sh… going back 20 years already
People learned on Photoshop, and then they’re upset because GIMP does things differently. I guarantee you if somebody had learned on GIMP first, it would be the other way around.
There’s nothing intuitive about Photoshop. If you pick it up with zero knowledge and try to do anything, you can’t. You have to take a class to learn how to use it, same as GIMP.
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I think you’re overstating things a bit, but it’s true that I keep getting caught up by weird behaviors.
I paste image data into a layer. I drag the layer a bit to get it where I want it. I try drawing on that layer: nothing happens. Turns out, when I pasted the image, it created a layer the size of the current image with all the extra space filled with transparent pixels. When I dragged it, the transparent part of the layer that had been off the image’s borders was actually dead space, and it won’t accept drawing into it until I go under layers and choose to expand the layer to the dimensions of the image. Once you realize what’s happening it’s not so bad, but until that point it’s the software working how you don’t expect it, and some people are going to drive themselves batty trying to figure it out.
And just now in 3.0 I’ve discovered, if I copy a rectangular part of an image using the Rectangle Select tool, then paste that data into another program, what gets pasted is a transparent box the size of the original image full of transparent pixels, with the copied part opaque in the middle of it in its former position inside the image.
It seems like it’s purposely trying to come up with an unintuitive way to implement my actions. I don’t remember it being like this in the past. What happened?
I really don’t think I’m overstating things, I go back to the early 90s, I started with Harvard graphics and stuff like that… I have used so many damn image editing softwares, and I’ve even made a few of my own.
I’m honestly going to just plant my foot and say gimp is a misbegotten atrocious lump of shit from a UI perspective - a complete embarrassment, and a complete failure from any perspective of usability science
It is absolutely at the bottom of the pack of any piece of software I have ever used, it’s hard to pick up various bunches of shit and decide what lump smells the worst, so I’m not going to say gimp is the worst, but it’s floating at the bottom of the septic tank
I cannot believe that people continue to step up and defend it, it’s garbage.
When was the last time you tried gimp? It improved a lot when they made it a single window instead of the original insane multiwindow model. It’s probably not as well organized as PS but it’s really not as bad as you say IMO.
Last year, it’s shit you’re not going to change my mind
Or, is it your hesitation to adopt Gimp’s UI standards?
Gimp doesn’t have UI standards. That’s part of the problem.
Gimp is what happens when programmers think that they can design things
Krita is very, very good indeed. It deserves all the praise it gets.
I use lots of FOSS software. I work in a municipal government job where I have to fill a lot of roles that aren’t funded as separate positions, so I use GIMP, Inkscape, and QGIS daily because the professional software isn’t budgeted. I also use OBS frequently, among others.
But GIMP is by far the worst FOSS alternative I’ve come across when compared against its paid competition. I hate Adobe the company, but Photoshop really is the gold standard.
I use both heavily. Oddly enough I use GIMP at work and Photoshop for my personal use and side gig.
GIMP certainly has a lot of UI problems that seem to have persisted for no other reason than “nobody got around to fixing it”
Also, it’s 2025 and you STILL can’t just draw a circle lmfao
That’s funny. I have no problem drawing circles in GIMP. What are you getting stuck on?
Its not FOSS but if you need a work alterative to GIMP I use Photopea a lot. Works as a PWA too.
I’ve been using design software for over 25 years; Photoshop has been there for the majority but I’ve often tried coming back to GIMP here and there, but it’s never grabbed me in a useable way.
Krita seems great. Unfortunately I am not of the artistic type so I can’t really comment on its functionality, but I would say my experience moving from Illustrator to Inkscape has been awesome! (I still can’t figure out how to make lines with inkscape though…the making lines button makes stretched out ovals instead…maybe it thinks I’m making a polygon?)
Are you referring to the ends of the lines being rounded? You can change the “cap” type of a stroke path to rounded, square, or sharply pointed using the attribute menu on the right (would provide screenshot but am on mobile, apologies)
https://inkscape-manuals.readthedocs.io/en/latest/strokes.html
no, when I make a line it makes a weird elipse shape instead of a line. Having no fill makes it go invisible, so I think inkscape thinks I’m making a polygon
Are you using the calligraphy tool? IIRC the calligraphy tool does create filled polygons instead of stroked paths
ah that’s probably why.
Krita was by far the best when I had a Wacom.
It works out of box with my obscure Samsung S-pen touchscreen laptop from 2016, on Debian with no driver preconfig. I am thoroughly impressed
Why shouldn’t it? As long as your system detects the pen and sensitivity (and Linux is excellent at peripheral support) any program should be able to use it properly.
I like GIMP but find Inkscape impossible to use
For me, it is the other way round. Probably depends on what you are doing.
I’ll admit Inkscape’s UI and menus are a disorganized mess. I’m fortunate I learned it while still a high schooler with too much time on her hands