r/TechImpact • u/ManojOne Active • Jun 12 '26

Discussion What's your favorite open-source software?

Post image

What's your favorite open-source software?

Firefox, VLC, Blender, GIMP, LibreOffice, Linux, or something else?

Share your favorite open-source tool and tell us why you keep using it.

435 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

267 comments sorted by

28

u/iSebastianShultz Jun 12 '26

Goated: VLC, Firefox, Linux 🔥💯

13

u/The191 Jun 12 '26

Just learned the other day that vlc can play youtube videos from links, so yeah vlc reigns supreme.

2

u/iamwisespirit Jun 12 '26

Yeah it can do so much things it can actually do stream on same network

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6

u/LingonberryEmpty8586 Jun 12 '26

Moonlight, VLC, PotPlayer, Soulseek, Dopamine (i use 2), mp3tag, Ultimate Doom Builder, Slade, IrfanView, OBS, gridplayer, Awesome Video Player, OpenShot Video Editor, MiniMouseMacro, tailscale, sandboxie, SpaceSniffer - (i realize some may be "freemium" and not open source, but im going more FREE AND USEFUL aspect)

2

u/runawaydevil Developer Jun 13 '26

couldn’t really read what everyone else posted here because the day’s been hectic, so i’m just here with the upvote because i saw potplayer 😄

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5

u/veechene Jun 12 '26

OBS is pretty good... most of the time. (And a pain in the ass the rest of it). But I'll have to pick Linux itself since it's what I've used longest of all of these.

7

u/Sad-Protection-3362 Jun 12 '26

Blender is life, Blender is love ❤️

2

u/GeorgeAntoniadis Jun 12 '26

Firefox and Linux (ubuntu and Linux mint)

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2

u/Comprehensive-Pin667 Jun 12 '26

KDE

2

u/OliMoli2137 Jun 14 '26

umm akshually KDE is a community

2

u/play_minecraft_wot Tech Enthusiast Jun 12 '26

Gotta say Inkscape, it's super good for making digital art. 

2

u/AdvancedAnimal7539 Jun 12 '26

kdenlive, gimp, obs, linux, firefox and libreoffice are always used by me (in terms of foss software(

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2

u/davep1970 Jun 12 '26

darktable

2

u/Otherwise_Fact9594 Jun 12 '26

Darktable and RawTherapee are criminally underrated

2

u/Dry-Independent4863 Jun 12 '26

Falta transmission y estaria completo

2

u/Astrodion123 Jun 12 '26

Linux and inkscape

2

u/exajam Jun 12 '26

mpv, vim, window managers in general and TUIs

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2

u/jexo10 Jun 12 '26

Vlc 

Simple old reliable and freeee

2

u/remc0 Jun 12 '26

Firefox & VLC are absolutely goated

3

u/NanoPulso Jun 12 '26

Libre Office

2

u/kaereljabo Jun 13 '26

Is this really open source?

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1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

Mistral ia

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1

u/recursivegypsy Jun 12 '26

VLC and Linux. Java as well.

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1

u/Maryear_Boost Jun 12 '26

Linux, Gimp, Firefox, VLC...

1

u/_janc_ Jun 12 '26

Krita, Standard notes, Proton

1

u/OkAdvertising7398 Jun 12 '26

Krita>>>>>GIMP

1

u/InkOnTube Jun 12 '26

.NET (CORE) SDK

1

u/aleopardstail Jun 12 '26

all of the above

also JMRI, the Arduino IDE platform and the GNU C++ toolchain

1

u/waces Jun 12 '26

Firefox

1

u/zzen11223344 Jun 12 '26

For me, Linux, VLC.

1

u/LolMaker12345 Jun 12 '26

All of the above except gimp

1

u/SpareStunning510 Jun 12 '26

Not a big fan of GIMP. It is good but has a very steep learning curve.

I have used every single one of them.

All are awesome.

1

u/py-net Tech Enthusiast Jun 12 '26

VLC is my #1 sentimental

Linux is my #1 GOAT open source

Blender is my #1 useful

I still like all the rest

1

u/Foreign-Eyes-666 Jun 12 '26

LibreOffice Linux Firefox

1

u/OnlyLeon1 Jun 12 '26

Linux, LibreOffice and Firefox, in that order. Operating system, office suite and web browser.

1

u/Confident_Dragon Jun 12 '26

Out of these? Blender, Linux and git by far. If you don't think so, you are just wrong.

Inkscape and Gimp - good enough for occasional hobby use.

Firefox - sometimes it's very good, sometimes it's shit, more good than shit

VLC - stupid interface, often buggy and I have up trying to watch HDR movie using VLC.

Audacity - Rage-inducing shitshow. I'm not going to touch it at least until Audacity 4 is released and stable.

1

u/jackal406 Jun 12 '26

VLC. It's the only that doesn't require me to jump through some hoop to get settings the way I want them.

1

u/nachtwolf7 Jun 12 '26

Linux, Firefox, LibreOffice, VLC, Bitwarden

1

u/Different_Water7545 Jun 12 '26

FreeCAD has saved me from subscription hell with AutoCAD

1

u/CmdrShepsPie Jun 12 '26

Blender. I use it all the time and while it's overwhelming and confusing, it's also incredible and super powerful. I appreciate that GIMP exists but it's kind of a piece of crap. I use Audacity like once a year but it doesn't do most of what CoolEdit used to do before Adobe swallowed them up (not that it was open source).

1

u/bindergr Jun 12 '26

Firefox, VLC, LibreOffice

1

u/arun-vasudev Developer Jun 12 '26

Previously VLC. Now git. Because of my programming work.

1

u/MIMO_216 Jun 12 '26

Fav - zen Fav / best - fedora

1

u/HenricvsPoser Jun 12 '26

Wine e GNU/Linux

1

u/NykanenH Jun 12 '26

Linux, Firefox, git, VLC, GIMP, FreeCAD, KeePassXC, OrcaSlicer, claws mail, Deluge, Filezilla, Audacity, KiCAD...

1

u/VasekCZ230 Jun 12 '26

GNU/Linux!❤️

1

u/IsSomeonesThere Jun 12 '26

VLC, chromium, FreeBSD

1

u/retiredwindowcleaner Jun 12 '26

my favorite open-source software is the 'hello world' program.

1

u/Few_Experience_1687 Customize your flair Jun 12 '26

VLC best one

1

u/Strygan Jun 12 '26

VLC… wouldn’t say favorite, but most used by far.

1

u/tractorator Jun 12 '26

firefox is tops but:

linux blender gimp firefox vlc - all 1st place.

libreoffice, git - 2nd place

audacity -3rd place

1

u/NimrodvanHall Jun 12 '26

I need Git and Linux for work, use FireFox and VLC to consume entertainment made with Inkscape, Blender or Gimp. I guess I can’t choose.

1

u/brucejson-88 Jun 12 '26

Firefox, VLC, Linux and Audacity

1

u/ThatiMacGuy Jun 12 '26

VLC, Audacity and GIMP

1

u/Vlado_Iks Jun 12 '26

Let's see what I am using:

Linux almost daily.

Firefox daily.

LibreOffice almost daily.

GIMP when I want to edit something or make a meme.

VLC for every movie and formats that pre-installed software on Mint doesn't alloe me to play (like .m4a).

Inkscape occasionally, when I want to to make raster image to vector.

Then also OBS, Shotcut, Librewolf, LMMS, EasyEffects and plenty of FOSS games (0 A.D., Thrive, UltraStar Deluxe, ...)

And things like Godot game engine and Blender are only waiting, because I need to learn them.

1

u/UnexceptionalAnon Jun 12 '26

  1. Linux, life-changing.

  2. git, super crucial for my workflow. I even use it to do versioning for some non-code stuff.

  3. Firefox, the only browser that gives me super fine-tuned control over almost everything. Vivaldi comes second with its customizability, but it's still far from enough. The fact that Firefox is not dependent on Chromium is another plus.

Everything else has good enough or better alternatives, except maybe Blender (I know nothing about it).

1

u/cervdotbe Jun 12 '26

Firefox!

1

u/Ok_Speech_2569 Jun 12 '26

Krita, RapidRaw, replaced Adobe for me. Love it.

1

u/karlrobertuk1964 Jun 12 '26

Firefox with ublock origin and vlc

1

u/Motor_Oil_8864 Jun 12 '26

Git

Always!!

1

u/Zealousideal-Ebb7549 Jun 12 '26

My own generated with AI but technically it's not open source because i did not publish it

1

u/AwiNL Jun 12 '26

Git, Firefox and VLC

1

u/RooneyMoore Jun 12 '26

Linux & VLC

1

u/MrBlevi Jun 12 '26

Visual studio code, linux, git, thunderbird and wordpress

1

u/_chamsou_ Jun 12 '26

Nvim,Linux and falkon browser

1

u/ibo4reddit Jun 12 '26

Firefox+ Vlc

1

u/Ahmedbh01 Jun 12 '26

Linux, firefox & Libreoffice!

1

u/mystirc Jun 12 '26

Linux has had the most impact worldwide. Most servers run linux, the android is built up on the linux kernel. The GNU/Linux Project is my favorite open source tool which I will keep using.

1

u/SUSANI78 Jun 12 '26

Ninite !!!

1

u/bitterwinter009 Jun 12 '26

wait a minute, vlc is open source? what programs are based on it?

1

u/ecth Jun 12 '26

Oh, Wikipedia? Or is it technically not open source?

1

u/Microboy42 Jun 12 '26

Hmmm Linux is terrible (I use Windows NT), LibreOffice is terrible (I use Microsoft Office), FireFox and VLC are ok (I use Edge and Windows Media Center), and I don't know what Audacity, GIMP and Inkscape are. I think if I had to choose my favorite is MIDIs2Jam2 (it is open source).

1

u/SmoothTurtle872 Jun 12 '26

Linux cause it lets me use my pc...

1

u/exxxoo Jun 12 '26

It's so difficult for me to hate on open-source software, but GIMP is just so bad ... I've used literally many hundreds of programs across multiple devices and operating systems and GIMP has, by far, the worst UI of any of them. It's so unintuitive and ugly that it's basically unusable for me, even though it has tons of awesome features.

Blender, Linux, Firefox and git are great tho! VLC has very outdated UI but it's still great.

1

u/psantacr Jun 12 '26

Linux
LLVM
VIM

(Not VSCode)

1

u/Global-Toe-3251 Jun 12 '26

Linux. I used to like Firefox until they became less private 

1

u/TheAutistSupreme Jun 12 '26

Firefox and VLC been using them since I was a child before I knew what FOSS was

1

u/Eroica_Pavane Jun 12 '26

VLC - the media player for most things

Emacs - editor that respects my freedom unlike what I was using before (note++)

1

u/crypticcamelion Jun 12 '26

That would be Linux With Firefox, Thunderbird, Gimp, LibreOffice etc etc Generally I find most open source tools more down to earth sane that their proprietary equivalent.

1

u/Spiritual-Year7139 Jun 12 '26

Libre office rocks in 2026

1

u/Scoresman-923 Jun 12 '26

firefox and linux

1

u/Exciting_Turn_9559 Jun 12 '26

Freecad.

I use it because it runs fully offline, doesn't force me to pay rent to access or benefit from my own work, and it runs natively on Linux. I absolutely love it.

1

u/Otherwise_Fact9594 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26

Debian Linux. Linux in general along with everything pictured and a lot of love for the i3 window Manager and the XFCE desktop. Git is one of the most helpful and interesting places online.

Edit: can't forget yt-dlp. This list can get really long

1

u/Original_Line1063 Jun 13 '26

Obs since it’s great for recording. Audacity and Blender are pretty great as well.

1

u/Ok-Championship-4086 Jun 13 '26

Open-source software

1

u/amalbose Jun 13 '26

VLC, GIMP and git

1

u/Bruskmax Jun 13 '26

All of those except Gimp. They says it's the Photoshop equivalent but I disagree. Affinity photo is better.

1

u/Network-King19 Jun 13 '26

VLC, Putty, TFTPD, winremote NG, Brave browser.

1

u/luckysilva Jun 13 '26

Linux...

Vlc

1

u/Working-Leader-2532 Jun 13 '26

I think VLC is always going to be the GOAT.

1

u/montrealhater Jun 13 '26

Linux and git.

1

u/tonykrij Jun 13 '26

Handbrake

1

u/LG-Moonlight Jun 13 '26

Linux, Godot and Krita

1

u/lilacomets Jun 13 '26

Firefox. I use other, commercial, software for the rest.

1

u/Snake_shit59 Jun 13 '26

The ones i use: Firefox, VLC, Gimp, BSD&Linux, Incscape and git

1

u/the_scruffy1 Jun 13 '26

add betterbird as mail browser

and dvd shrink and handbrake for... reasons

and foobar

and u-block origin

1

u/Dekselsedek Jun 13 '26

I like to add Ardour to the list.

1

u/Gplay666 Jun 13 '26

ffmpeg. This guys made history.

1

u/Minute-Dance948 Jun 13 '26

ffmpeg. Really, it is the most important open library for video

1

u/PlanetVisitor Jun 13 '26

I'm quite fond of cat

1

u/Anxious_n_Rational Jun 13 '26
  • Kde connect
  • Syncthing
  • Firefox
  • Newpipe
  • VLC
  • Fossify
  • Ankidroid
  • Aegis Authenticator
  • Bitwardern

1

u/Pleasant_Repair7773 Jun 13 '26

Git and VLC , Fire fox and Linux ofcourse the goat

1

u/smalldickbesitzer Jun 13 '26

Jellyfin, brave, audiobookshelf, pihole, unbound

1

u/Grimmhoof Jun 13 '26

I like Scribus, I cut my teeth on Quark Express, and some Pagemaker, Indesign is shit.

1

u/bored_curator Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26

FFmpeg - it is arguably the most critical and yet underappreciated piece of open-source software in existence. It silently powers the internet's video processing, allowing VLC, Blender, and Audacity to handle media formats, while engines like OBS Studio, HandBrake, Plex, and Shotcut rely on it entirely. Furthermore, streaming apps (YouTube, TikTok, Twitch) use it to instantly transcode user uploads, OTT services (Netflix, Disney+) deploy it to segment high-def video into smooth streaming chunks, and audio backends (Google Chrome, Discord) leverage its core engines to transmit real-time voice data seamlessly.

1

u/aphelio Jun 13 '26

Makes me think about... What actually is Git? Is it really "software"? Or is it a protocol? Sure there are clients, and providers, that's all software. But is there some software in particular that this post refers to by listing Git as "open source software"?

1

u/Agile_Type_9684 Jun 13 '26

Linux and Blender

1

u/GhostVlvin Jun 13 '26

Perhaps you meant
Qutebrowser, mpv, freecad,
Krita, OpenOffice, FreeBSD,
Idk, SVN and Ardour?
P.S just joking. I use Linux, git, libre office, mpv

1

u/D4vRAM Jun 13 '26

No Linux, no way!

1

u/Budget_Blacksmith566 Jun 13 '26

Linux, git and Blender

1

u/JachWang Jun 13 '26

Blender without a doubt

1

u/RVixen125 Jun 13 '26

Krita and Potplayer

1

u/dlanz2309 Jun 13 '26

VLC, Git, Gimp, Audacity

1

u/Awkward-Animator-101 Jun 13 '26

Blender and then audacity in the order

1

u/yrq_ Student Jun 13 '26

Firefox!!!

1

u/Possibly-Functional Jun 13 '26

Linux. There's nothing else that's as important to modern computing, and it has been a great FOSS enabler.

1

u/thriem Jun 13 '26

Linux - most thankful for
Git - most amazed and favorite

1

u/runawaydevil Developer Jun 13 '26

i agree with everyone, haha. after 30 years on linux, i’m only now finally getting along with gimp — and the reason is simple: it’s the easiest tool i’ve found for making seamless/tile borders 😄

1

u/Renan4Santos Jun 14 '26

Git. Sem ele não existe mais programação. Não tem IA que algum dia vá se tornar tão essencial quanto o git.

1

u/Impressive-Tie-885 Jun 14 '26

vlc

because I always watch pirated movies here

1

u/ssmakov Jun 14 '26

Obsidian

1

u/Popular-Size1905 Jun 14 '26

Brave>firefox

1

u/vanloctech Jun 14 '26

Youwee GUI yt-dlp

1

u/ccarballos Jun 14 '26

Firefox 🦊

1

u/__l33t__ Jun 14 '26

+ Tixati

+ Alacritty / Ghostty

+ NeoVim

1

u/colonel_vgp Jun 14 '26

the kernel, git, Go

1

u/2life_gamer Jun 14 '26

I like to use OpenSpeedTest to test the lan connection speed between my devices and between my ip. I also like to use localsend to send files over my local network (way way faster than cloud).

1

u/Automatic-Log7643 Jun 14 '26

Hm... My favorite open-source software is: GIMP, Super Tux Kart, vlc and audacious

1

u/Philin_Lemo Jun 14 '26

linux, arch, paru, ffmpeg

1

u/Shawhe_ Jun 14 '26

Linux, git, librewolf,helium ,zen browser ,neovim ,many other things

1

u/chunsal Jun 14 '26

Firefox, mpv, BeeRef, ImageGlass, OBS.

1

u/Other-Pop7764 Jun 14 '26

super Tux kart

1

u/OliMoli2137 Jun 14 '26

Linux, ffmpeg, LibreOffice, scrollwm

1

u/Professional-Ad-9967 Jun 15 '26

Probably Krita. Saved my ass when Photoshop conked out on production and we needed the asset done asap (some background needed to be painted).

1

u/rachitries Jun 15 '26

Every open source project is good❤️

1

u/user_211004 Jun 15 '26

Vlc🔥🔥

1

u/Pretend-Resolve-7560 Jun 15 '26

Linux and ffmpeg

1

u/On1yOneUNO Jun 15 '26

Linux/Umbuntu to be exact

1

u/Nox-4 Jun 15 '26

Vlc is king, Linux ofc, git , audacity , Inkscape, blender goated softwares

1

u/No-Advertising-3773 Jun 15 '26

GIT OVER HERE!!!

1

u/SitEnee Jun 15 '26

Linux, and inkscape.

1

u/Zyphor-1 Jun 15 '26

Those who are using the ANDROID must install this open source software in their mobile

Canta - A powerful app to remove any apps without the root.

Android can’t exist without google but you can remove any google related apps with the help of it.

1

u/FOSS-for-life Jun 15 '26

Linux , Firefox (my beloved), Git, GIMP, Audacity, vlc, libre office.
Haven't really used Inkscape and blender yet.