Since Microsoft released Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and subsequently acquired GitHub in 2018, everyone agrees that Microsoft is embracing the open source community.
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Xiaomei has mentioned the advantages of open source software in tweets more than once. Today, we will bring you 35 free and open source software at once. If you still have any open source software that you are willing to share with you, you can leave a message to Xiaomei in a private message. Less gossip, on resources.
VLC
One of the best media players that works not only for Windows but also for Linux, Android, macOS, and iOS. Completely free, open source, and ad-free.
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/vlc/XPDM1ZW6815MQM?hl=zh-cn&gl=cn ShareX
ShareX, a free and open-source program, allows you to take various screenshots on Windows. From local screenshots to full-screen, window screenshots, time-lapse screenshots, you can do anything. Not to mention, you can also use ShareX to record your screen and create GIFs on Windows 11.
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/sharex/9NBLGGH4Z1SP?hl=zh-cn&gl=cn&rtc=1 OBS
OBS Studio is professional-grade software used by streaming and broadcasters, but did you know that it is completely open source? More than 500 developers have contributed to the OBS project, making it a powerful live streaming and screen recording software.
It supports compositing of various media sources, fine settings, unlimited scenes, custom transitions, and much more. Due to its open-source nature and large community support, OBS Studio is supported by a large number of third-party plugins from developers.
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/obs-studio/XPFFH613W8V6LV Rufus
Rufus can create bootable USB for Windows 11 and can also bypass many of the system requirements of Windows 11, Rufus is an essential open-source application for Windows users.
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/rufus/9PC3H3V7Q9CH?hl=zh-cn&gl=cn Lively Wallpaper
Live wallpaper app for Windows 11, completely free and open source. You can set GIFs, online videos, downloaded videos, and even websites as desktop live wallpapers.
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/lively-wallpaper/9NTM2QC6QWS7?hl=zh-cn&gl=cn Rise Media Player
Rise Media Player is a beautifully designed Fluent style app.
https://github.com/Rise-Software/Rise-Media-Player Cider – An alternative to Apple Music
Apple recently released the official Apple Music app for Windows 11, but it's currently in preview. However, I highly recommend Cider, which is completely free and open source, and integrates Apple Music seamlessly.
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/cider-beta/9p21xj9d9g66 KDE Connect – an alternative to Phone Link
KDE Connect, which offers PhoneLink-like functionality to share files and links between two devices, receive phone notifications on your PC, customize commands to shut down your computer, and more. You can also use your phone to remotely control music on your PC and use your phone as a virtual trackpad.
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/kde-connect/9N93MRMSXBF0?hl=zh-cn&gl=cn GIMP – A free alternative to Adobe Photoshop
GIMP, comparable to Adobe Photoshop, is a powerful image editor. You get most of the basic and advanced features comparable to Adobe Photoshop. Many third-party plugins are supported and come with a variety of sophisticated tools.
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/gimp/XPDM27W10192Q0 Audacity
Free and open-source audio editor that comes with many audio processing tools. You can record audio from multiple sources, resample audio in various formats, edit audio clips, add effects, analyze frequencies, and much more.
With its spectrogram view mode, frequency analysis audio can be visualized, supporting third-party plug-ins from various applications.
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/audacity/XP8K0J757HHRDW Shotcut — A free alternative to Adobe Premiere Pro
Shotcut isn't as advanced as Adobe Premiere Pro, but it does a great job of video editing. Thanks to FFmpeg (another open-source project), Shotcut can decode most media formats, including proprietary formats.
https://shotcut.org/ 7-Zip and NanaZip
7-Zip has already left its mark in the field of file compression, a very lightweight application characterized by a high compression ratio.
Its UI design is a bit outdated, in this case, you can try NanaZip, which is a fork of 7-Zip. NanaZIP is built on top of XAML Islands with a modern user interface.
7zip: https://www.7-zip.org/
NanaZip: https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/nanazip/9N8G7TSCL18R LibreOffice — A free alternative to Microsoft Office
LibreOffice is a popular office suite similar to Microsoft Office, but it is completely free and open source.
https://www.libreoffice.org/ QuickLook
QuickLook lets you quickly preview files and folders, similar to macOS, ChromeOS, and Linux. Select the file and press "Spacebar" to view the file without opening it completely, for images, videos, PDF files, folders, etc.
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/quicklook/9NV4BS3L1H4S File
While Microsoft is overhauling the native File Explorer on Windows 11 with tab support and a new details pane, an indie developer has made an open-source file application. Sleek and intuitive design with support for tabs, color coding, dual panes, column view, QuickLook integration for quick previews, and more. Won the 2022 Microsoft Store App Award for Best Design App.
https://github.com/files-community/Files ScreenToGif
ScreenToGif, a full-fledged GIF editor, is free and open-source and can edit GIFs frame by frame. There are many built-in algorithms that can reduce GIF size without compromising the quality.
https://www.screentogif.com/ Brave Browser – an open source alternative to Chrome and Edge
Brave is an open-source Chromium-based browser that consumes 33% less memory and 3x more performance than Chrome.
In addition to this, third-party trackers and intrusive ads are blocked by default, which is very good from a privacy perspective.
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/brave-browser/XP8C9QZMS2PC1T Bitwarden
Bitwarden is one of the best password managers and one of the few open-source password managers.
https://bitwarden.com/ Blender – a free alternative to Autodesk Maya and Cinema 4D
Blender is a professional-grade 3D creation software that has been used to create many popular movies. A powerful program used by graphic artists to create animated films, visual effects, art, and more, Blender is completely free and open source.
https://www.blender.org/ Okular — Free alternative to paid PDF editors
While there are plenty of PDF editors on Windows 11, most of them are paid, and some freemium editors only allow editing once a day.
You can use Okular to view and edit PDF documents. It supports annotation with a variety of tools, you can highlight text, add inline, annotate, as well as your text.
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/okular/9N41MSQ1WNM8?hl=zh-cn&gl=cn&rtc=1 Krita — A free alternative to Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Animate
Krita is a feature-rich painting app that is completely free and open source. You can make raster graphics editing for digital and 2D animations. The app is perfect for people who want to make concept art, illustrations, comics, and digital drawings.
https://krita.org/en/ HandBrake
HandBrake is a free and open-source program that can convert almost any video format to another modern format with proper codec support. From AV1 to H.265, MPEG-4, and VP9, almost everything is covered.
https://handbrake.fr/ FreeCAD — A free alternative to AutoCAD
FreeCAD is a free, open-source CAD software for 3D parametric modeling on Windows 11 that lets you create real-life object designs into 3D models. You can create 3D models of any size and change parameters as needed to modify the design.
https://www.freecad.org/ VirtualBox – an open source alternative to VMware
While VirtualBox isn't completely open source, it's one of the most powerful virtualization software out there. Extension packs are proprietary and developed by Oracle. You can use it to create virtual machines on Windows 11 or run Android, Linux, and other operating systems in VMs.
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads VeraCrypt
Open source disk encryption program, completely free. Protect encrypted volumes with a password on Windows, encrypting entire disk partitions by using industry-standard algorithms such as AES, Serpent, SHA-2, and other methods. Not only that, but USB sticks can also be encrypted.
https://www.veracrypt.fr/en/Downloads.html Joplin — A free alternative to OneNote and Evernote
On Windows, OneNote and Evernote are considered the best note-taking apps. However, Joplin is free and open-source software that can also be used to take notes and create to-do lists. Joplin can handle a large number of notes and resources, and can be organized into notebooks. The Markdown format is supported, and you can also import Evernote notes in full format.
https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/ BleachBit — An open source alternative to CCleaner
Many users prefer to use CCleaner to clean up their PC, but CCleaner is an adware that constantly hogs system resources. Microsoft now marks CCleaner as a Potentially Unwanted Application (PUA). So if you want a lightweight disk cleanup and maintenance software for Windows 11, I would recommend BleachBit.
It is completely open source and free to use. It recognizes temporary and cache files from browsers, programs, mail clients, and various other applications. The app has a simple user interface that can deeply clean your system in a matter of seconds.
https://www.bleachbit.org/ Clonezilla — A free alternative to Macrium Reflect
Clonezilla is free and open-source software that can clone system images and disks completely error-free. Even if you have disks with different file systems, Clonezilla can mirror the disks effortlessly. The only downside is its user interface, which can scare the average user. However, once you understand its interface, you can easily move data from one disk to another without losing anything.
https://clonezilla.org/ Mailspring
For many Windows users, the preferred open-source email client is Thunderbird. However, now a modern-looking application has appeared, Mailspring, which has a very clean interface and is free of ads. Support for IMAP, Office 365, and other accounts, you can choose to create a unified inbox for multiple accounts.
https://getmailspring.com/ Transmission
Transmission is a free and open-source torrent client that is very lightweight and does not consume system resources unnecessarily.
https://transmissionbt.com/ Notepad++
Notepad++ is a popular text and source code editor for Windows. Notepad++ provides syntax for up to 78 programming languages, including popular languages such as C, C++, HTML, JSON, Rust, and more.
https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/ Microsoft PowerToys
Microsoft PowerToy can be more productive. You can enable PowerToys Run to get a Spotlight-like search tool on Windows 11. In addition to that, you can use PowerToys to quickly extract text from images on Windows 11 without downloading separate OCR software.
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/microsoft-powertoys/XP89DCGQ3K6VLD ExplorerPatcher
After the release of Windows 11, many users were unhappy with the new changes in the design of the Start menu and taskbar. However, with a free-source, open-source program called ExplorerPatcher, you can restore most of Windows 11 features on Windows 10. For example, you can set the Windows 11 taskbar icons to never combine so that applications are placed separately on the taskbar.
https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher