Ask HN: Best open source/free software in their own category?

34 points by zsolt_terek 11 years ago | 28 comments

I recently stumbled upon Krita on HN, which I really like. Would be great to collect the most powerful, feature-rich free software that are among the best in their category, and that get close to or even beat the commercial ones. I know some other great pieces like Gimp, Inkscape, but what's the state of the art for animations, music notations, audio mixing, etc? GUI & CLI should be both ok.

Here is a list of my favorite software that are worth learning:

  - Gimp: photo editing
  - Krita: digital painting, illustration
  - Inkscape: vector drawing
  - sox: sound processing (command line)
  - ffmpeg: video processing (command line)
  - imagemagick: image processing (command line)

ramtatatam 11 years ago |

That may sound silly but humble Notepad++ should be a part of your list of great opensource software. Although at first glance it does not require spending time on learning its functionalities it offers a lot of plugins that allow to replace proprietary software (i.e. I'm using XML-plugin and that allows me to work with XMLs without using specialised software like Altova).

Also TrueCrypt - I'm using it all the time (although there are changes in maintenance community the last stable version was proven to be clean - I still trust old good truecrypt)

davismwfl 11 years ago | |

+1 Notepad++, I live in it when using a Windows machine. I wish it was available for OSX.

alexvoda 11 years ago |

Natron: for cross-platform video compositing (Adobe After Effects alternative) at http://natron.inria.fr/

Synfig: for cross-platform 2D vector animation (Adobe Flash alternative) at http://www.synfig.org

Scribus: for desktop publishing (Adobe InDesign alternative) at http://www.scribus.net

FlashDevelop: for ActionScript development (Adobe Flash Builder alternative) at http://www.flashdevelop.org/

MyPaint: for intuitive full screen digital painting (Autodesk Sketchbook alternative) at http://mypaint.intilinux.com/

lozf 11 years ago |

Radio Station Programming: LiquidSoap http://www.liquidsoap.fm/

Streaming: Icecast http://icecast.org/

Low bandwidth, low latency audio codec: Opus http://opus-codec.org/

Lossless audio codec: FLAC http://xiph.org/flac/

_jomo 11 years ago |

Video downloading: youtube-dl

https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl

thenomad 11 years ago |

VirtualDub - video manipulation software that does some things better than 99% of its competitors (including direct-stream processing, which for some reason most commercial editing suites don't). Not a replacement for Avid / FCX / Premiere / whatever by any means, but it does some stuff better than anything else.

http://www.virtualdub.org/

Also, grep.

_jomo 11 years ago |

password manager: KeePassX[0] (or MacPass[1] on OS X)

KeePassX works cross-platform and there are ports for Android and iOS.

0: https://github.com/keepassx/keepassx

1: https://github.com/mstarke/MacPass/

gadders 11 years ago |

VLC for video playback?

tokenrove 11 years ago |

I am fond of ardour for mixing audio recordings.

Lilypond is my favorite music notation software, but I have a predilection for text-based formats.

Of course TeX and its descendents remain world-class for serious document production, even if XSL-FO-based systems have made a big dent there.

protoduction 11 years ago |

OBS - Cross-platform broadcaster software (for recording and live streaming). Better than any of its competition in my opinion.

https://obsproject.com/

michaelbuddy 11 years ago | |

yes!!! great callout. this software is amazing. Records better reliable video + audio stream on my machine than 350 camtasia.

jbrooksuk 11 years ago |

It's my own, but I'd like to think that Cachet (https://CachetHQ.io), although in beta is a good replacement for StatusPage.io

idiotclock 11 years ago |

Zotero is an excellent EndNote alternative

OpenShot is an imovie like video editor, I like it because it's easy to use

Rhythmbox is a featureful itunes-like music player.

Audacity isn't protools, but it's great for mixing audio

tanderson92 11 years ago |

FFTW -- Fast Discrete Fourier Transform. Reason: it routinely beats proprietary FFT routines on real & complex and single & multidimensional transforms, and with better accuracy.

cwmma 11 years ago |

QGIS: GIS software that isn't worse then the big closed source programs and is better at certain specific things.

aaronbrethorst 11 years ago |

iOS, take your pick: https://www.cocoacontrols.com

orkoden 11 years ago | |

That's not finished software. It's UI components.

owly 11 years ago |

I'm happy with https://atom.io

Gurkenmaster 11 years ago |

LibreOffice: word processing

lovelearning 11 years ago |

Blender : for 3D modelling.

ctb_mg 11 years ago |

  - Greenshot: Screenshot capture
  - Audacity: Audio editing

LarryMade2 11 years ago |

Scribus - Desktop Publishing/Layout

Blender - 3D design/animation

paramk 11 years ago |

Subtitle Edit: for creating/editing subtitles

brudgers 11 years ago |

Emacs.

cweagans 11 years ago |

vim.

shpx 11 years ago | |

Just wanted to let you know neovim is at a point where you can use it as a drop in replacement and not notice.

ctb_mg 11 years ago | | |

Can you elaborate on this? Their FAQ explicitly states: "Although some features are a work in progress, Neovim isn't at a stable point. Using Neovim should be done with caution as things may change."

galfarragem 11 years ago |

Free software (not open source) but really great stuff (I use them everyday):

Music player: http://mpesch3.de1.cc/1by1.html

Batch rename tool: http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk

Flashcards learning (open source): http://ankisrs.net/