UPDATE: I've added advanced search filters directly on the listing, so you can now filter self-hosted tools by their alternative, category, tech stack used and licence they're released on 🔥
this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2025
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Love the list, but scrolling through, the one liners don't mean much for a lot of these.
The descriptions are just too short and vague to even understand what a lot of them actually do.
Noted! I have longer descriptions in the db, but didn't want to bloat the listings. Will try with a longer description soon.
It's a tough balance, you don't want a whole page for each one. Maybe if there was a clear list of tags so it's easier to understand even what category they're talking about?
For example:
Penpot
Design freedom meets open-source collaboration
I really don't know what this product category even is. Is it for web layout? Is it a drawing program? Is it for CAD?
Fair point. I'll try to add more context to the listings. Thanks!
Maybe consider collapsible dropdowns or similar for the extra information
This is the solution. That way i can decide if i want to read more about one of them and then sinply open the dropdown.
personally I love it when websites solve this problem with hover hints, theres something satisfying about seeing a paragraph of text on hover that just answers all my questions. not sure how that'd work for people viewing on mobile though
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A "more" button after the one liner would be very nice. Or make the one-liner a link that gives a longer description.
Thanks for the work. I've bookmarked it!
Added longer description and major alternative when you hover over the cards. Hope that'll make it easier to browse.
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I'm tired of Cloudflare ... 😔
Yeah I havent been able to load the cf verification on my android for like over a week now lol
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Sorry about that, had to enable attack mode temporarily to fight bots. Should be fine now.
Appreciate the effort, but without categories it's not going to sail too far.
Right now it's just a long list of everything that it's out there, awesome-selfhosted is much more usable for looking up what you need.
Also, did you join any kind of affiliate programs/partnerships for these "10% off" green boxes? If so, would be great to disclose it. Nothing bad with getting some cash, but community will just appreciate the honesty.
They do have categories, via the menu at the top:
I stand corrected, thank you!
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One thing I would like to see is a way to distinguish which apps do Real™ Open Source vs fakie open source. For example, I see Joplin on there saying "Your secure, open-source note-taking companion". I guess that's technically true at this point in time, but they also force contributors to sign a CLA so they have the option to pull the rug later on. (Something which does happen.)
They even say so explicitly:
This is necessary so that if we ever want to change the license again we are able to do so
— https://joplinapp.org/news/20221221-agpl/#what-does-it-change-for-developers
And fine, if they want to do that it's up to them. I'd just like a quick way to tell the difference between open source 😒 and Open Source 😄.
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Never heard of 99% in that list.
Also, Gitea should not be there. It is a corporate -owned open core project that was hostilely taken away from the community.
While I don't disagree with your sentiment, it seems like this list is just "self hosted open source alternatives". Even if there are better options, Gitea still falls under that definition, no?
It falls under self hosted, at least. If it is still truly open source is highly debatable.
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In addition to other suggestions, the cards need to show what they're alternative to without clicking.
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I wish more software wasn’t “hosted” these days.
I miss app ass apps.
Don’t mind me. I’m just feeling old.
Hosted apps means you can use them on multiple devices. Otherwise, I have to wait until I get home, power up my laptop, wait for the OS to boot, wait for the app to load, then do the thing I wanted to do.
Any thoughts on how to solve the data sync problem without hosting? I guess I remember some apps doing a local network sync to get data to multiple devices. I kinda remember having problems with that not working all the time....
I guess when I complain, I’m not really talking about hosting at all. I’m talking about things being written in stuff like python, with web UIs instead of native software.
I miss native software. And native software could be placed on a server. I prefer to run a Mac Mini for my home server, because I can use as many native apps as possible. Along with the all the other web-interface-based scripts and things.
People like to act like Docker containers and environment variables are simple. But so often these things are not.
Anyway. As someone else pointed out, it’s strange for me to be posting these lamentations in this community. I don’t mean to throw shade or talk shit.
So I’ll leave it there.
People like to act like Docker containers and environment variables are simple. But so often these things are not.
Oh for sure. I hate it when apps are like "EZ one line install" but then spin up a bunch of Docker containers. It's just more potential for shit to break.
A huge reason I like Navidrome is because it's just a single static Go binary. Can't get much easier to manage than that. Plus a bunch of native music apps are available as well. Wish more software was like that.
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I love this idea, because I often have questions like this as I transition away from proprietary software to open source alternatives
I think listing what software equivalents it might replace listed in the card.
I do see its listed when you click on the info card in the main list, but having it be visible before that might be helpful.
I know a lot of people won't like the little ad cards when you do click on a software to review its page, but I think the way you implementted it is good. Its not intrusive and clearly states its an ad.
Edit: removed bit about categories.
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It's really surprising how fast people forget about the shady shit rustdesk has done.
Near as I understand it: years ago some dumb engineering decisions were made, acknowledged, and corrected. Is there some recent scandal I'm out of the loop on?
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I think it would be important to include current version information on the cards. For example, Pocketbase is still very much in beta and they make breaking changes pretty frequently.
Maybe you wanna collaborate with selfh.st to complete each others list?
Edit: Looked at the list. Good job on the design and content. Bookmarked it :)
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I don't see any Fediverse platforms on there, how would you feel about adding them? Seems like they'd fit.
https://openalternative.co/categories/social-media
Could add Lemmy, Mastodon, MBin, PieFed, PixelFed, Loops, PeerTube, NodeBB...
Can you change the color of the ad badge? I'm fine with ads, but it blends in too well :/
So sorry for all the errors! I got crazy traffic to the website and the database is not holding on as it should. Will have to upgrade the server very soon🫡
Your self hosted page should have the categories listed too.
Done 👍
Great stuff.
Thank you all for the comments and the feedback! I've implemented most of the things reported. You can now filter the self-hosted tools by category directly in the filters. Tool cards should now show more info about the product on hover (longer description and the most popular alternative).
If you see anything else to improve, let me know.
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