
Ask HN: Best open source/free software in their own category? - zsolt_terek
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&#x27;s the state of the art for animations, music notations, audio mixing, etc? GUI &amp; CLI should be both ok.<p>Here is a list of my favorite software that are worth learning:<p><pre><code>  - 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)</code></pre>
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ramtatatam
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
+1 Notepad++, I live in it when using a Windows machine. I wish it was
available for OSX.

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

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

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

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

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

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lozf
Radio Station Programming: LiquidSoap
[http://www.liquidsoap.fm/](http://www.liquidsoap.fm/)

Streaming: Icecast [http://icecast.org/](http://icecast.org/)

Low bandwidth, low latency audio codec: Opus [http://opus-
codec.org/](http://opus-codec.org/)

Lossless audio codec: FLAC [http://xiph.org/flac/](http://xiph.org/flac/)

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_jomo
Video downloading: youtube-dl

[https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl)

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thenomad
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/](http://www.virtualdub.org/)

Also, grep.

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_jomo
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](https://github.com/keepassx/keepassx)

1: [https://github.com/mstarke/MacPass/](https://github.com/mstarke/MacPass/)

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gadders
VLC for video playback?

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tokenrove
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.

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

[https://obsproject.com/](https://obsproject.com/)

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

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

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idiotclock
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

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tanderson92
FFTW -- Fast Discrete Fourier Transform. Reason: it routinely beats
proprietary FFT routines on real & complex and single & multidimensional
transforms, and with better accuracy.

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

------
aaronbrethorst
iOS, take your pick:
[https://www.cocoacontrols.com](https://www.cocoacontrols.com)

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

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owly
I'm happy with [https://atom.io](https://atom.io)

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Gurkenmaster
LibreOffice: word processing

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lovelearning
Blender : for 3D modelling.

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ctb_mg

      - Greenshot: Screenshot capture
      - Audacity: Audio editing

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LarryMade2
Scribus - Desktop Publishing/Layout

Blender - 3D design/animation

------
paramk
Subtitle Edit: for creating/editing subtitles

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brudgers
Emacs.

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cweagans
vim.

~~~
shpx
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
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."

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

Music player:
[http://mpesch3.de1.cc/1by1.html](http://mpesch3.de1.cc/1by1.html)

Batch rename tool:
[http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk](http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk)

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

