The Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy — and

Their Open Source Alternatives

by Jimmy Atkinson - Published: February 7th, 2008

Not every proprietary program can drive a person crazy, right? Some, like Norton Ghost, are
superb tools for anyone to use. But, the fact that these tools are proprietary can drive open
source fanatics up a wall. It’s not the price of the software that makes the real difference
(although it’s a reason to migrate from one software to another for many people); it’s the idea
that proprietary software comes with boundaries that keeps the user experience confined to…
well, being the user. That’s enough to drive any developer crazy.

The following fifty proprietary programs are listed in no particular order within broad
categories along with their open source alternatives. In some cases you could probably write
your own book on frustrations with the proprietary programs shown here. In other cases,
you’ll discover that the open source alternative isn’t quite up to snuff yet. And, in other cases
still, you’ll learn that some proprietary programs are real gems, but that the open source
advocate can replace those gems with equally shiny objects from the open source repertoire.

Basics

1. Windows Vista OS to Ubuntu OS: This is Microsoft’s operating system (OS), and
even Microsoft fans have become disillusioned with this product. Open source OS
alternatives have expanded; but these OS often are difficult for the average user to
install, learn, and operate. Why deal with it when Ubuntu has become so easy to use
that even the most computer illiterate can jump into this operating system with very
little time spent on a learning curve? In fact, users can purchase a Dell computer with
Ubuntu already installed. Remember, however, that when it comes to using open source
software that the open source community often focuses on applications that can be used
through Windows, Mac, Linux, or Unix with the majority seemingly devoted to Windows.

2. Internet Explorer Browser to Firefox Browser: Sure, Internet Explorer (IE) is

free; but, that’s because it comes packaged with Windows’ operating systems. Free is far
different from open source software, where users have more control over how that
software works. While you might feel more comfortable with a proprietary operating
system, you can still use an open source browser like Mozilla’s Firefox, an exceptional
product that expands its use with ‘add-ons‘ created by avid users.
Office Suites

3. Microsoft Office to OpenOffice: If the price makes you feel that Microsoft has
worked you over, then switch! If you compare Microsoft’s Office with other products,
then you’re looking for something that includes an email client, a word processor, a
spreadsheet tool, and a multimedia presentation application. The only product that
provides a competitive edge against Microsoft is Google (that includes Gmail, Google
Docs, Google Presentation and more). But, some would argue that Google isn’t truly
open source. So, the next best bet alternative would be OpenOffice, an open source
project that includes everything you’d find in Microsoft Office except the email client.

4. Mactopia to NeoOffice: Another Microsoft office suite, but this time meant for
MacIntosh computers. Try NeoOffice instead. NeoOffice® is a full-featured set of office
applications, including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, and
database programs for Mac OS X. This suite is based on the OpenOffice.org office suite,
but it has integrated dozens of native Mac features and can import, edit, and exchange
files with other popular office programs such as Microsoft Office.

Office Tools

5. MathWorks MATLAB to Scilab: MATLAB is a highly used application for numerical

computing. It provides a programming language that allows users to work with numbers
in any possible way imaginable through visualization. Scilab is the open source
alternative to MATLAB, and it provides visualization of numerical data just as MATLAB
does. Scilab is partly compatible with MATLAB, and both tools are suited for Windows,
Linux, and UNIX.

6. Microsoft Access to Kexi: Microsoft Access is a versatile tool for creating database-
driven applications and to maintain office or personal data. Access contains an
embedded database engine, but it also connects to other databases through ODBC. On
the other hand, Kexi allows users to design forms to gain access to and to create data,
just like Access. Kexi also contains an embedded database engine and it can import data
to Microsoft Access databases. Plus - Kexi is open source, whereas Access belongs to
Microsoft.

7. Microsoft Word to OpenOffice Writer: If you want to break that office suite down
and begin to replace the suite item by item, then you can start with this product first.
Writer is the word processor component of the OpenOffice.org software package that is
similar to Microsoft Word, and with a roughly equivalent range of features. Writer can be
 used across a variety of platforms, including Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Linux,
FreeBSD and Solaris. Writer also includes the ability to export Portable Document Format
(PDF) files with no additional software, and can also function as a WYSIWYG editor for
creating and editing web pages. One plus over Word is that Writer carries functions and
number formats in its tables from Calc, OpenOffice’s spreadsheet application.

8. Microsoft Excel to OpenOffice Calc: Another Microsoft product, Excel still carries its
productivity pluses as a spreadsheet, but it no longer carries an air of absolute
necessity. Google’s Docs can bring an online, sharing atmosphere to your spreadsheets
now. As for a truly open source product that can replace Excel, try OpenOffice.org Calc.
This tool provides full spreadsheet functionality incl. a huge number of statistical and
scientific functions, pivot tables and charts.

9. Microsoft Visio to Dia: Visio actually is a great application that allows users to go
from complicated text and tables that are hard to understand to diagrams that
communicate information at a glance. The only thing that spoils the context is the fact
that this software is that it’s not open source. Instead, use Dia, a GTK+ based diagram
creation program for Linux, Unix and Windows released under the GPL license. Dia was
‘roughly’ inspired by Visio, which should make this tool easy for transition.

Productivity

10. Blackboard to Moodle: Blackboard has been the CMS (Course Management
System) ‘industry standard’ for educational purposes for many years. This program
allows instructors to build courses, manage student workloads, and more. But Moodle
has gained significant ground as an open source alternative to Blackboard, as it helps
educators to create effective online learning communities in a scalable package that
costs nothing to use.

11. Box to Cabos: If you’re into file sharing, you’ve probably heard of Box.net, if
not used them. Not only can you share files, Box allows you to store your files securely
online, allowing you to access them from any computer, phone or mobile device for a
fee. Cabos, another file sharing program that’s open source, provides simple sidebar
user interface, firewall to firewall transfers, proxy transfers, Universal Plug and Play,
iTunes + iPod integration, “What’s New?” searches, international searches, and more. All
you need is Windows 2000 or later. Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later. Mac OS 8.6 or later.
Granted, you don’t have the file storage capacity, but at least you can share files with
Cabos without that extra storage capacity.
 12. Microsoft Project to Open Workbench: Microsoft allows users to control
project work, schedule, and finances, and effectively communicate project data to other
users. But, it costs to do that with Microsoft. Instead, use open source Open Workbench
to accomplish exactly the same project details for free. When users need to move
beyond desktop scheduling to a workgroup, division or enterprise-wide solution, they
can upgrade to CA’s Clarity™ system, a project and portfolio management system that
offers bidirectional integration with Open Workbench.

13. Mindjet to FreeMind: Mindmapping is a way to share ideas among

individuals and groups for productivity. This type of activity takes time, but it saves
time. So why should you pay for a product when you can save money by using
FreeMind? This latter product will accomplish all the Mindjet does and more. That “more”
is the fact that FreeMind is open source.

Graphic Programs

14. Adobe Illustrator to Inkscape: Adobe’s vector drawing system is one of the
best in the industry. However, like Photoshop, the price can be prohibitive for some
designers and artists. Try Inkscape instead, an open source vector graphics editor
similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X. Inkscape uses the W3C standard Scalable
Vector Graphics (SVG) file format and it supports many advanced SVG features
(markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.). Finally, the streamlined interface is easy to use
to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more.

15. Adobe PhotoShop to GIMP: Even if you’re paying for upgrades instead of
the original package, the price for Adobe’s Photoshop can be prohibitive for some
photographers and graphic designers. Try GIMP to see if this open source tool can’t
provide you with all the power you need for your photography and graphic design needs.
GIMP stands for Gnu Image Manipulation Program, and it’s the solution that comes
closest to emulating the Photoshop environment.

16. Adobe Premiere to Avidemux: Premier is state of the art real-time non-
linear video editing for any format including High Definition (HD). Supports 16-bit color
resolution, GPU accelerated rendering for faster effects and even advanced DVD
authoring. On the other hand, Avidemux provides Windows, Mac, and Linux users with
an easy-to-use open source tool for DVD/DivX converting and editing. Avidemux also
has scripting support for automation and even offers DVD authoring with the addition of
the open source software, dvdauthor.
 17. AutoCAD to Archimedes: AutoCAD is an AutoDesk tool used by any designer
who creates design drafts - mostly architects. Archimedes is an open source computer
aided design (CAD) alternative that focuses primarily on architectural design. AutoCAD
definitely has the winning score thus far, but Archimedes shows promise. The latter
program contains all the drawing features a designer would need, but its interoperability
is weak. Designers still can export scalable vector graphics, so there’s a real market for
this open source tool (this opinion isn’t based upon Archimedes’ newest release).

18. Microsoft PowerPoint to OpenOffice Impress: You can make a move away
from this Microsoft tool with the use of Google’s Presentation or with OpenOffice’s
Impress. Both tools represent full-featured presentation applications that allow users to
create and modify diagrams and pictures right within the application.

19. Microsoft Paint to Tux Paint: While not a serious graphics program, it is
widely used by many computer users, mostly children Try Tux Paint instead of Paint, as
this open source product stands apart from typical graphics people edit software (such
as GIMP or Photoshop) in that it was designed to be usable by children as young as 16
months of age. The user interface is meant to be intuitive, and utilizes icons, audible
feedback and textual hints to help explain how the software works.

20. TruSpace to Blender: Caligari offers a range of products that enable

designers and artists to produce 3D images - at a hefty price. Blender, on the other
hand, provides one tool that provides full multiresolution sculpting capabilities with 2D
bitmap/3D procedural brushes (Paint, Smooth, Pinch, Inflate, Grab) supporting
symmetry. And, that’s just the beginning of Blender’s capabilities. This open source
software is free to download and use.

Web Editors

21. Adobe GoLive CS2 to Mozilla SeaMonkey: GoLive is an integral part of the
Adobe Creative Suites products, so it works with your InDesign documents and allows
those documents to be converted to Web pages. But, you might want to try Mozilla’s
SeaMonkey before you commit to the total Adobe suite option. The Mozilla SeaMonkey
project includes a Web-browser, email and newsgroup client, HTML authoring program
and IRC chat client. The Composer is simple but it handles tables, CSS, positioned layers
and more without sweat. Add-ons currently include Scribefire, the blog blog editor that
integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog.

22. Adobe Dreamweaver to NVU: While this tool is a powerful WYSIWYG (What
You See Is What You Get) HTML editor, other options exist that can save money. NVU
 (pronounced N-view, for a “new view”) is a complete Web Authoring System for Linux
Desktop users as well as Microsoft Windows users to rival programs like FrontPage and
Dreamweaver. Use NVU to create Web pages and manage a Website with no technical
expertise or knowledge of HTML.

23. Macromedia Flash Professional to OpenLaszlo: Developers use Flash to

create multimedia events on the Web. Since the program utilizes vector-based graphics,
it provides a venue that goes beyond the Web. As an open source product, OpenLaszlo
provides developers with a platform to create zero-install Web applications with user
interface capabilities of desktop client software. In other words, OpenLaszlo applications
developed on one machine will run on all leading Web browsers on all leading desktop
OS. These applications, like Flash, provide animation, layout, data binding, server
communication and more.

24. Microsoft Frontpage to Bluefish: While not as powerful as Dreamweaver,

Front Page is a widely used proprietary application used to create Web pages. Take a
gander at this list to understand your many open source options for HTML editors. Try
Bluefish as one option that can save you money and, possibly, time.

25. Windows Notepad to ConTEXT: Yes, you can get the world’s most versatile
HTML editing tool absolutely FREE when you purchase Windows version 2.0 and above.
But, why would you want to do that when you can work with open source ConTEXT? This
application is a small, fast and powerful freeware programmers text editor, developed to
serve as a secondary tool for software developers.

26. Altova XMLSpy to XML Copy Editor: XMLSpy is one of the most popular
XML editors on the market today. Its editing features and support for both schema and
DTD development along with XSLT, XQuery and XPath development make it an ultimate
XML tool. As an open source alternative, XML Copy Editor is a versatile XML editor
primarily focused on text editing with XML files. However, XML Copy Editor provides
many other features including validation of DTD and XML schemas - as well as XSLT and
XPath with tag-free editing. Both tools are Windows applications.

Publishing

27. Adobe Acrobat to PDFCreator: Yes, you have a free trial to create a PDF
through Adobe. However, this PDFCreator easily creates PDFs from any Windows
program. Use it like a printer in Word, StarCalc or any other Windows application.

28. Adobe Framemaker to DocBook: Adobe Framemaker software represents a

powerful authoring and publishing solution for technical communicators who want to
 author and publish technical documentation in multiple languages. While this software is
reliable, so is DocBook, an open source publishing tool. Additionally, you have access to
all the free wikis and documentation that shows how to install, use, and customize the
tools and stylesheets.

29. Microsoft Publisher to Scribus: When it comes to Desktop Publishing (DTP)

Microsoft’s Publisher provides more control over document elements than Microsoft Word
through a DTP-oriented approach. However, professional users still consider this
program an entry-level application. Since it’s part of the Microsoft Office Package, many
users will find its costs negligible as well. With that said, Scribus offers an open source
DTP alternative. Scribus brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/Unix,
MacOS X, OS/2 and Windows desktops with a combination of “press-ready” output and
new approaches to page layout. Scribus supports professional publishing features, such
as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation.

Communications

30. AIM to Pidgin: Give it up. AIM, AOL’s Instant Messenger, no longer rules. The
open source alternative is Pidgin, a multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows
you to use all of your IM accounts at once. Let’s break that down: No matter if you use
Windows, Linux, BSD, and other Unixes. You can talk to your friends using AIM, ICQ,
Jabber/XMPP, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Novell GroupWise
Messenger, QQ, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, MySpaceIM, and Zephyr. Can AIM do
that? No? Well, then.

31. FeedDemon to RSS Bandit: FeedDemon for Windows constantly searches

through feed search engines with keyword-generated searches as well as generalized
searches. It also allows offline reading as it ‘prefetches’ your subscribed feeds.
NewsGator also synchronizes with FeedDemon so you can gain access to news without
your computer. Except for the fact that FeedDemon isn’t open source, it’s an ideal,
robust reader. But, for open source fanatics, RSS Bandit provides an equally robust
alternative RSS and Atom reader that allows you to keep track of all of the news feeds
you follow. Its newspaper view can be customized and the templates are compatible with
those used in FeedDemon. Plus, RSS Bandit allows you to synchronize everything with
NewsGator online. Finally, RSS Bandit also provides access to news on news servers
(similar to Google Groups) - it uses NNTP to read and post to newsgroups anywhere on
the net. It integrates to Google Groups by linking to posts on their website.

32. Microsoft MSN Messenger to aMSN: Microsoft offers MSN Messenger to the
masses as freeware on Windows, and it’s grown from a simple IM application into a
 trendsetter in a competitive market. Features include voice and video chatting, gaming,
remote support - on top of that it allows connection through mobile devices when you
are not near a computer. aMSN, the open source Windows alternative to MSN, aims to
mimic its proprietary competitor as much as possible. Most of its extra features are
added through plug-ins. You can add, at your leisure, POP3 email support and
translation, voice clips, Webcam support, Chat logs, Conferencing support and more.

33. Microsoft Outlook to Thunderbird: Say that you decided to switch to

OpenOffice, but you need an email client to replace Microsoft’s Outlook. Try Mozilla’s
Thunderbird, an application that carries a similar interface and that is easy to use.
Additionally, you can use Lightning to integrate Mozilla’s Sunbird calendar application
with Thunderbird.

34. Skype to Wengophone: Skype is a very strong freeware internet VoIP (Voice
over IP) product in the telecommunications industry. It started with a simple and free
PC-to-PC telephony, but today offers full integration with existing telephone systems.
Skype today also offers voicemail, video conversations and sending SMSs. Its open
source alternative, WengoPhone, also provides free PC-to-PC calls as well as chat and
video conferencing. Created by Wengo, this phone also can provide SMS and call-out
features that allow users to communicate with any phone at reasonable prices.

Media

35. iTunes to Songbird: If you’re accustomed to the equation where “Apple +

iPod + iTunes” equals a ton of money, then you might consider a switch to Songbird.
Songbird is an open source player and a platform committed to “playing the music you
want + from the sites you want + on the devices you want.” Songbird thereby
challenges the conventions of discovery, purchase, consumption and organization of
music on the Internet.

36. Nero Burning Rom to K3b: Nero Burning Rom is a popular tool to burn CDs,
DVDs and Blu-ray discs. This software includes backup, cd copying, audio features and
more, and it’s easy to use. But, it’s not open source like K3b (Windows). This latter
program creates and burns CDs and DVDs, including ripping with DivX/XviD encoding,
DVD copy, ISO burning, Video CD (VCD) creation, Audio CD creation for almost any
audio file, CD-TEXT support for audio CDs, support for DVD-RW and DVD+RW and much
more. Oh, and did we add that it was easy to use?

37. Quicktime to Darwin Streaming Server: Apple’s QuickTime 7 Pro is good

for everything from creating podcasts to transcoding media in more than a dozen
 formats. And, the software isn’t that expensive when compared to other products. But,
why not use an open source application that shares the same code base as Quicktime
Streaming Server? Darwin Streaming Server is an open source project that’s perfect for
developers who need to stream QuickTime and MPEG-4 media on platforms such as
Windows, Linux, and Solaris.

38. TiVo Desktop to Galleon.tv: Tivo-to-Go users were disappointed to discover

that their Tivo software wouldn’t work with Windows Vista. Some answers to this
problem included spending more time and money on various solutions that might work
to restore that software’s functionality. One solution included using the open source
software, Galleon, instead of trying to “fix” Tivo or Windows Vista. Galleon is a free open
source media server for the TiVo® DVR which allows you to enjoy many kinds of content
and interactive applications right on your TV. The server runs on your home computer
and organizes your media collection so that they can be viewed on your home network.
Galleon also brings Internet content and applications to your TV.

39. Windows Media Player to Miro: This application seems ubiquitous…no

matter what you try to open, Windows Media Player is in your face, right? Well, replace
that in-your-face attitude with Miro, an open source program that turns your computer
into an internet TV. Miro has 2,500 unrestricted channels with a huge selection of HD
content. Plus, you have access to any publisher with video RSS feeds, including anyone
on YouTube, Revver, Blip, and many, many more.

Utilities

40. CuteFTP to Filezilla: Sure, CuteFTO is cute, but it’s not free. Sure, it’s
reliable, but so are many other File Transfer Protocol applications. Try Filezilla, a fast FTP
and SFTP client for Windows with tons of features - easy to install, easy to use, very
reliable, secure, and open source.

41. iBackup to ZManda: Who can you trust with your backup files? It’s difficult
to decide, as price alone means nothing. You want safe, reliable servers or tools that can
keep your backups available and intact. iBackup has proven to be worthy of that task,
but you might want to look at ZManda as well. This open source solution protects more
than half a million of servers and desktops running various versions of Linux, UNIX, BSD,
Mac OS-X and Microsoft Windows operating systems worldwide. Not only do they backup
information, they’re into recovery as well.

42. Norton Ghost to Partition Image: Norton Ghost isn’t a shabby backup
system, as it’s a complete tool that backs up everything but the kitchen sink. If you have
 a complete disk failure, Norton Ghost can bring it back to life on a new hard disk
(although you don’t need to make a complete backup every time). You can take this
backup to external drives, CDs or DVDs. If you’re an open source advocate, however,
Norton Ghost doesn’t cut the cake. You’ll want something like Partition Image (for Linux)
or Ghost for Unix (G4U) for Windows or Unix users. Both tools are disk cloners that act
differently, but they’re as robust as Norton Ghost. Read more at their respective Web
sites before you make the jump. (For a complete rescue disk including Partition Image
see SystemRescueCd).

43. Rational Purify to Valgrind: IBM’s Purify is a well respected and much used
debugging tool. It uses topnotch memory corruption and memory leak detection to keep
hard-to-find bugs from any application. As an open source alternative, Valgrind also
detects leaks and other memory related programming errors. But, it also detects
threading bugs and includes a call-graph profiler that detects bottlenecks in code. as well
as threading bugs. A user might say that Valgrind is better than Purify, even if it is open
source.

44. WinZip to 7-Zip: Some of us grew up with WinZip, so it’s sad to say
goodbye. But, we all gotta leave home at some point, and when the open source 7-Zip
beckons, maybe you should heed the call…

Security

45. Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal to Winpooch: Kaspersky Anti-Virus

probably is among the top products on the market for Windows-based anti-virus tools,
mainly because it’s well known for its outstanding detection rates. It commits to multiple
tasks as it protects against viruses, script viruses, checks file archives (such as zip files)
and removes viruses from mail. It also provides protection against spyware as well as
adware. As an open source alternative, however, Winpooch also scans files on your
computer, detects malware, and prevents all the viruses, trojan horses and other
problems that Kaspersky hunts down as well. Winpooch, by the way, adds a real-time
scanning capability that ClamWin (noted below) lacks.

46. McAfee VirusScan to ClamWin: McAfee is well known as one of the oldest
companies in the anti-virus market. Many individuals need to deal with this software
company, as its tools come packaged with many new Windows OS computer systems.
The plus side to McAfee is that it is reliable and that it offers 24/7 support. The downside
is that it’s not open source. ClamWin, on the other hand, is a free Antivirus for Microsoft
Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/2003. It features high detection rates, scheduler, automatic
download of virus database updates and a plug-in for Microsoft Outlook. As noted above,
 ClamWin doesn’t provide on access realtime scanning, but when combined with
WinPooch, this capability is added.

47. Norton Personal Firewall to WIPFW: Many people could work with Norton
in their sleep, as this company has been around that long. The Norton Personal Firewall
for Windows will monitor and check all Internet traffic and it will reject any attack or
intrusion attempt. Ubiquitous popups and permissions are part of the game, as it seems
that each new Website carries its own set of Norton no-nos. As an alternative, WIPFW is
a firewall for Windows based on IPFW for FreeBSD UNIX. It provides virtually the same
features, functionality, and user interface as Norton Personal Firewall. The big
difference? WIPFW is open source.

Financial

48. Authorize.net to OpenSSL: Granted, Authorize.Net’s preferred payment

gateway connection, Advanced Integration Menthod (AIM), provides the highest level of
customization and security to merchants for submitting transactions online. But, why
pay for a secure SSL when you can get an open source product for free? The OpenSSL
Project is a collaborative effort to develop a robust, commercial-grade, full-featured, and
Open Source toolkit implementing the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL v2/v3) and Transport
Layer Security (TLS v1) protocols as well as a full-strength general purpose
cryptography library. A worldwide community of volunteers uses the Internet to
communicate, plan, and develop the OpenSSL toolkit and its related documentation
manages the project.

49. Microsoft Money (Plus) to TurboCash: While Microsfot Money Plus is much
more than a personal accounting software, Turbocash can boast that claim plus more.
Turbocash is open source and free to use. In fact, you might compare TurboCash more
to Quickbooks than to Microsoft Money. However, as a personal finance tool, TurboCash
is much more user-friendly to the average home budgeter than Compiere.

50. Quickbooks to Compiere: Few people are unfamiliar with Quickbooks, as

this software has made its way into many a small business computer. If you feel that
few opportunities exist to switch, think again. Compiere, produced by Global Era,
provides one solution to open source ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and CRM
(Customer Relationship Management) solutions for any small to large business.
Compiere 3.0 marks the introduction of Compiere Professional Edition, a new premium
offering targeted at larger organizations that require more advanced services and
commercial licensing from Compiere.
94 Comments

1. From experience, I can say that Octave and SciPy are the best alternatives to Matlab.

1. Ivan Kirigin

2. You forgot one program: The bloated piece of poo-poo that is realplayer. It is one
program that drives me crazy, but where I don’t know any alternative for playing .rm
files

2. Askrates

3. Few things to say.

1. You’re confusing Ubuntu with Linux. Ubuntu is just one flavour of Linux. You should
point out that there are other distributions out there that are as easy, or easier to set-
up than Ubuntu. Some, like Mandriva, even come with all the codecs for playing DVDs
and work better with WiFi.

2. A program I found better than Kexi as a dataabse front end is Knoda.

3. KDE based distributions like Kubuntu and Mandriva come with Konqueror which
does many things, including ftp made very easy.

4. What’s a virus?

3. DiBosco

4. Hi, like the list of alternatives and found some I never heard of before!
There is always one alternative which I have no idea why it keeps making it way onto
these lists - NVU. While NVU was admirable for it’s vision, nothing has happened to it
for almost 3 years when v1 was released. It’s buggy, prone to crash and corrupt your
HTML. An bug-fixed version KompoZer (http://www.kompozer.net/) was released due
to the lack of any interest from the creators of NVU. At least KompoZer does have an
active release cycle.
Please consider updating your list! (No I don’t have anything to do with either NVU or
KompoZer, just get fed up with NVU being rewarded for doing squat and KompoZer
being ignored for actually fixing problems).

4. Balefire

5. Wow! Great list, lots of information and very helpful. many thanks.

5. Stumbler
6. Awesome list! Thanks for compiling! Some favourites of mine up there…and some I
have not heard of before, but will try now!

6. DrFreemanstein

7. Not only Ubuntu: There’s Mandriva, PCLinux OS, Fedora, SuSE, Linux Mint.

In fact any of the major Linux Distributions are as easy as Ubuntu or easier even
easier in many cases.

7. tracyanne

8. Not only GIMP: but also Krita, which comes with the KDE desktop, but can also be
used with Ubuntu’s GNOME desktop. Krita also provides CMYK color processing.

8. tracyanne

9. Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal to Winpooch:

McAfee VirusScan to ClamWin:

Not really necessary on Linux. But it will stop you from passing viruses on to your
Windows using friends.

The fact of the matter is if your AV picks up a virus it’s probably already too late.

Norton Personal Firewall to WIPFW:

Linux comes with the same firewalls that are used to protect Enterprise gateways.

9. tracyanne

10. You’re Authorize.net to OpenSSL comparison is apples to oranges. OpenSSL is a

library interface that allows various programs to communicate in an encrypted fashion
over the internet as well as performing other encryption-related tasks. Authorize.net is
a payment gateway that is used to accept credit card payments from merchant e-
commerce websites and send the payments through to the merchant’s bank. There are
several alternatives to Authorize.net available but I am not aware of any that are
“open source” as Authorize.net provides a service and is not in the business of
creating and selling software.

To illustrate this point there are many sites that use OpenSSL to communicate with
Authorize.net.

10. Peter

11. “The following fifty proprietary programs are listed in no particular order within broad
categories along with their open source alternatives”
 If that’s true, freewares should not appear in your list. So, instead of ConTEXT
(freeware) you could list NotePad++ (http://www.notepad-plus.sourceforge.net)
which is a true Open Source replacement for notepad.

Also, I agree for most Open Source substitutes you gave on your list except for those:

- Microsoft Access to OpenOffice Base (http://www.openoffice.org/product/base.html)

- Adobe Premiere to …: there is no Open Source non-linear video editor (at the
moment) equivalent to Premiere. The closest Open Source replacement for Premiere is
Kdenlive (http://www.kdenlive.org).
- Microsoft Money (Plus) to GNUCash (http://www.gnucash.org) or KMyMoney
(http://kmymoney2.sourceforge.net)

Thanks for sharing your findings!

11. Etienne Savard

12. @Other Linux People

I think he merely suggested Ubuntu to suggest one easy to install and easy to use
distro of Linux. It by no means has a claim to “best” or “easiest to use” distro - but it
surely is a good and easy to use one. For this type of list, it helps to have one
alternative - even if there may be a list.

As for Office Suites, I think that Open Office is far better than Google Docs and other
Google Apps. I don’t mind the lack of an e-mail client - it provides all the office
computing power that I need.

12. Brian Rock

13. Great List. However I am not sure that K3B [Nero alternative] is a Windows app. I
believe that is Linux-only.

Askrates, try Real Alternative and Quicktime Alternative that use Media Player Classic
to render rm and mov files. Work perfectly on my system. Just google for download
links. [Not too sure about them being open-source, but they are freeware]

Balefire, here’s another vote for KomPozer over NVU.

13. Ruc Razy

14. I live in Ecuador, and it is impossible for us to buy a licensed AutoCAD or Illustrator.
I’ve been using The Gimp and Inkscape since a couple of years, and I’m downloading
Archimedes right now!

Best Regards
 14. Paul

15. What about the VLC player..It reads most of the formats.. I love it

15. true

16. 2. Askrates — check out VLC, it plays everything. It is also open source, and even Free
software (GPL).

Yes, just having open source code doesn’t mean its Free software, not restricting your
abilities on how you use it. Free software doesn’t restrict your use or its distribution.
Luckily, most (all?) of the software above is Free software I like that most!

16. lefty.crupps

17. OpenOffice also allows you to create .pdfs with just a touch of a button. No need to
download more software when you already have a program that does what you like!

17. Alli

18. Askrate, you can alsways use the open-source version of the realplayer called helix.
Helix runs on just about every os and platform there is.

18. Paul

19. How about RDBMBs

MS SQL 2000 to postgreSQL

19. Pradeep

20. The OSI and FSF do not consider SciLab to be free/open source. Second
recommendation of Octave and/or SciPy.

The backup software is amanda, not zmanda (they are merely a company that
currently supports the software). It serves a different niche than online backup
providers.

Gnucash is an excellent, cross platform program for personal accounting.

20. noksagt

21. Topaz exclusively uses Open Source software with the exception of the operating
system.

Thank you for your fine list!

21. Topaz
22. Askrates - there is a program called Real Alternative which is exactly what it’s name
suggests - http://codecguide.com/about_real.htm

22. Sav

23. an excellent notepad alternative - excellent is an understatement - is textpad. sure,

you get an infrequent reminder to purchase, but it comes fully-featured and it’s light-
weight.

23. ramon

24. for mindmapping i suggest to give VYM a try as well as for project management give
TaskJuggler a chance! both are uniqe names, use google for finding them.

24. s

25. The choices available to business users are impressive. Innovation is alive and well in
open source software. Thanks for publishing the list.

The Compiere listing (#50) incorrectly attributes Compiere software to Global Era, Inc.
More correctly, Compiere, Inc. offers commercial backing, support and services to its
global network of nearly 100 authorized partners across 25 countries.

25. Bill

26. That’s a great list! Thanks! I will be getting some of the software you listed definitely.
However, there is still one big problem I cannot solve: how can I synchronize my data
(contacts, meetings) between my PC, my PocketPC PDA (terrible ActiveSync) and my
Nokia (non-symbian) phone without using MS Outlook? I am using Thunderbird &
Lightning, but have no clue what to use with it.

26. OHaleck

27. Love WinPooch, however, my experience on two systems - one Win2kSP4, one WinXP
- has been that it makes the PC unusable as it schedules the AV (ClamWin in my case)
to be a nearly the highest priority and nothing else can get CPU time. Otherwise, it is a
great product. I hope the issues get solves quick b/c I would love to be using it more.
That said, it is only a 0.6.x release at the moment - so they know they’re not a mature
product yet. Can’t wait to see 1.0!

27. TemporalBeing

28. There is something wrong with this list: at least one program is currently only
supported on windows: OpenWorkbench
 Check this:
http://www.openworkbench.org/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemid=6#platforms

I think it is not a good alternative because it “forces” you to use a non open source
piece of software.

You may check ganttproject which is licensed under GPL and supports
Windows/Linux/MacOSX

Pep

28. Pep Pla

29. Balefire,
The nvu index page links to Komposer. I don’t think they’re trying to hide it.

29. planetmcd

30. Errata in this. Check your facts.

From the ConTEXT FAQ:

“Can I get ConTEXT source files?
This is a freeware project, not OpenSource.”

Try Notepad++ instead:

http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/

30. Free Gamer

31. Mactopia isn’t a product; it’s the branding for Microsoft’s Mac software area. The
product is “Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac” or “Office:Mac 2008″. It’s also “Macintosh”,

no capital I.

31. Sylvan

32. Like several other posters have already mentioned: VLC media player from
videolan.org. VLC plays Flash videos, those annoying real media files as well as the
equally annoying Quicktime videos. And, unlike many bloated media players (i.e.
Windows Media Player, Real Player), VLC is lightning fast.

32. reiterating

33. The GIMP is NOT a Photoshop alternative for anything other than home usage.

You cannot operate in a professional or even serious hobby manner with the GIMP.
 Yes it’s great for what it is, but it is NOT a replacement for Photoshop.

33. RobbieCrash

34. great list–have been trying to get a premiere alt. for ages will now try avidmux
will try winpooch as well
let you know

34. bazer49

35. Internet Explorer is not free of charge, you can only legally use it if you own a
Windows license.

35. Jadd

36. I don’t see the logic in changing from Skype. The software is free and available on
Win/Linux/Mac. It’s the original open source telephone in my opinion. I remember
toying with it when it was probably in the state of development of the company you
note and that was many years ago.

Skype to Skype is free. Options to receive and make calls from Skype and non-Skype
users are cheap and well integrated. Plenty of third party support.

That change recommendation just doesn’t make sense.

Enjoy.

36. Tim Fuller

37. What’s the best alternative to MS SharePoint?

37. J

38. gimp != photoshop, the gimp interface is horrid just the menubar itself is a crime.

OpenLaszlo? Should have mentioned the apps are compiled down to flash and thus are
not a flash alternative wholly.

38. HPAVC

39. Your list has convinced me to stay with Windows. Most Windows apps you’ve
mentioned been matured over the years, and there are fewer vendors to deal with for
support.

At least the Open Source community is keeping the vendor community on their toes.

39. Pondfish
40. AlsoI think Kexi is not free for Windows.
OpenBase that comes with OpenOffice works ok if you are used to Access.

40. j0rge

41. Box to Cabos?

More aptly Box to Google Docs or Sourceforge, Cabos doesn’t provide well anything its
an app + p2p network at best.

Box is used by people to shuttle files to people (an accountant can have all their
clients upload QBK files or what have you to their box account) that isn’t happening
with Cabos

41. HPAVC

42. Nice list! I’ve been looking for some alternatives to some programs and this post
helped me big time!

Thanks for putting this list together.

–TW

42. Tyler

43. NVU vs Dreamweaver: DW includes many prepackaged ASP/JSP/PHP/CFML scripts for

quick, visual, point-and-click programming. It’s a great timesaver: put the functions in
and tweak them as needed after the fact. Last I looked, NVU does nothing like this.

I’d happily switch to an open-source, Mac-compatible alternative if I knew of any.

43. Jason Friesen

44. You do realize that Box != Cabos right?

1st of all, Box.net does offer a 1GB free account. 2nd of all, Box.net is nothing like
Cabos. Cabos is file searching/sharing. Box.net is file storage (and sharing if you
decide to). Totally different kinds of products.

44. xxdesmus

45. gimp is by NO MEANS a photoshop alternative

Inkscape is by NO MEANS an illustrator alternative.
gimp and inkscape are both train-wrecks, interface-wise and neither support CMYK.
There is a reason Adobe’s apps are the industry standard. It is because they are great,
solid, versatile and can be used regularly in a professional production environment
 AND by a hobbyist to produce the same high-level work. this can NOT be said for The
Gimp nor inkscape. Now apologize.

45. Mr Rabbit

46. FeedDemon’s open source now.

46. Not My Real Name

47. @HPAVC
You can get something called GIMPShop, which is GIMP but with a photoshop
interface.

47. Not My Real Name

48. s/NVU/Kompozer

48. J.Dautz

49. Wow, nice propaganda you f**king hippie.

You’re also a f**king idiot if you think that Dia compares with Visio or that *any*
Linux desktop can approach the usability of Windows. F**king idiot.

49. Not a Hippie

50. Great list. The only thing I disagree with is Dia. I have used MS Visio for years and
have searched high and low for another program that is close, and have yet to find
one.

50. mego22

51. Nice list, I hope you republish with some of the fixes and additions mentioned in the
comments.

- vlc really deserves to be there; how else are you gonna play your region 2 dvds?

- the Gimp interface causes allergic reaction for many designers, but it does some
things (script foo) that Photoshop doesn’t, and behaves much better than adobe’s
recent bloatware.

- the QuickTime to Darwin Streaming Server comparison is another apples/oranges

thing. QuickTime is a player/encoder. Streaming Server is a server. And anyway, just
use Apache to “stream” your video.

Cheers!
 51. Chris Snyder

52. To build Flash SWF, can use directly Flex Builder or Flex SDK + FlashDevelop.
OpenLaszlo can also generate SWF but is like PHP Ming, all features not supported…

52. Mem's

53. avidemux is NOT a replacement for premiere. in fact, it’s nowhere near the type of
package which premiere is. try cinelerra as the proper non-linear editor. it IS open
source, there’s just no community-based development.

simply trying to help those aspiring video producers/editors out there.

53. OmahaVike

54. Photoshop cannot be replaced by GIMP. GUI is just not as comfortable, from personal
experience.
Songbird is awesome, but I still think iTunes is better.
Except for those two that I personally tried, hell yeah (Firefox FTW ^^).

54. Edan

55. Kexi is not free. It is $55 to buy.

55. Carl

56. Very nice list. I’ve used many with great success but there are many I have not
noticed before and look forward to trying out.
In the past I’ve used Real Alternative and QuickTime Alternative to replace Real and
Quicktime with great success. VLC is excellent also.
A nice replacement for Word is AbiWord.
Paint.net is a good replacement for Windows Paint, but as far as I know it’s just for
Windows.

56. zorax

57. you forgot parition magic gparted

57. vj

58. Greetings everyone! There IS good non-linear video editing software available for
Linux and MacOS, and it is named: Cinelerra. I have used it for some local cable TV
commercials and online video as well. I recommend it highly, and encourage you to try
it out. I am not a compensated shill for the authors of this software, simply a happy

end-user. Here is the Wikipedia link for more details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinelerra
 58. NonLinearMan

59. Is there an open-source alternative for hosting emeetings? Something similar to

WebEX, Centra…

59. 275

60. Great list.

Instead of NVU I would suggest Radria

http://radria.sqlfusion.com/
Its active, i’ve been using it for sometime and I love it.

60. philippe

61. Funny. Most of this OSS stuff is nice for the poor or amateurs but not for pros.

61. rico

62. Tim Fuller: Skype is NOT open source, at all. It also uses a proprietary protocol.
Whereas other VoIP clients like Wengo and Gizmo are interoperable, Skype only works
with other Skype clients. It’s as proprietary as software gets.

62. mathew

63. Good list but:

Adobe Premiere to Avidemux

Is like comparing an F117a to a hot air balloon.

63. Rikki

64. Great list! However you give the impression that by switching to the open-source
“alternative” you are sacrificing something to gain its freedom … in many cases the
open-source programs are wonderful in their own right and far more fully featured
than their closed counterparts.

64. MasterPatricko

65. Any real valid alternative to Active Sync that drove me crazy more than one time?

65. Luca

66. Another recommendation for Octave– unlike Scilab, which is only “partially
compatible” with MATLAB (it’s not, though, and the translation scripts suck hard!),
Octave is fully compatible with MATLAB syntax– though it doesn’t implement all of
MATLAB’s features. It’s really useful if you don’t work in a vacuum and actually want
 collaborate with other groups or feel like using some elaborate user-written MATLAB
extension.

66. nate

67. “What’s the best alternative to MS SharePoint?”

We use eGroupware.

67. mdwstmusik

68. yes. lets all attack someone fanatically in an irritating and almighty fashion.

68. .

69. OpenSSL is in no way a substitute for Authorize.net. OpenSSL is a programing library

that facilitates secure/encrypted connections between a variety of programs.
Authorize.net is a payment gateway that companies use to process payments of credit
cards and e-checks. In fact, may people use OpenSSL to communicate with
Authorize.net.

It’s kind of like saying that Firefox is an open source alternative to EBay (or something
like that).

Just my 2 cents.
The Dude

69. The Dude

70. I’m surprised no one mentioned MPlayer. It runs on *nix/OS-X/Windows and plays FLV
and that Real player crap that may still be laying around on your HDD… and it plays
just about everything else too.

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/

70. emptyset

71. kompozer > nvu

71. Derek Buranen

72. You’re only missing one thing and that is Free GIS software.. there’s such a wealth of
it out there. I’d like to say thats far too ’specialized’ to speak of, but you did mention
AutoCAD.

72. Andrew B.

73. Awesome list, thanks!

 73. Terry Smith

74. I don’t see the logic in changing from Skype. The software is free and available on
Win/Linux/Mac. It’s the original open source telephone in my opinion. I remember
toying with it when it was probably in the state of development of the company you
note and that was many years ago.

Uhh… Skype is not free software. Yes, there’s no charge, but that doesn’t make it free.
It has never to my knowledge been free or open source.

74. Spook

75. I like OpenProj as an alternative to MS Project. OpenProj can open and work with MS
Project files:
http://openproj.org/openproj

75. Danny

76. Thanks for the great list. know it took some time to compile it. I like the ability to try
out alternatives to the boxed programs. I use Mac and PC because I can’t get some
programs to work on each one. This list will give me something to work on for a while.
I would love to drop the PC. Thanks.

76. Broker Boyce

77. Turbocash link is dead. The front page loads but everything else is dead. Not an
encouraging sign.

77. Bob

78. Cool list, but I do not thing NVU is a good replacement to dreamweaver.
Quanta, Kompozer and Radria are better alternatives.
The last one is web based and compatible mac, windows and linux. It includes tons of
modules and Add-On scripts that NVU doesn’t have.

78. Tom

79. SM player plays just about everything and includes codex

79. Mr smokey bear

80. I used to use Bluefish, but now I use Geany. I love EditPlus on Windows, Geany is a
very nice alternative. My favorite feature is regex search/replace across multiple files.

80. Sam
81. Microsoft Visio comparing with Dia???? You are OUT OF YOUR MIND. Dia can’t do 90%
of the things that Visio does. Wanna bet?
Also, it is extremely lame to compare Adobe Illustrator with Inkscape and Adobe
Premiere with Avidemux.

What’s gonna be next? Comparing MS Calc vs Gnome Calc?

81. Mr. Open Source

82. Although nice in terms of a list, you are off the mark at least 2 things. Cabos and
box.net don’t compare at all. Online storage versus a filesharing program, it’s wrong.

With openlazlo vs Flash Proffesional….again….openlazlo is at best a competitor to

Adobe Flex. Guess what ? Adobe Flex’s code is opensource. Why you failed to mention
that is a mystery to me. But it makes me think you want to pitch opensource against
big corporate. Which is wrong, really.

82. howard

83. very nice list!

followed many of the links, thanks!

never mind nay sayer, most folks have opinions on such matters, which are just that -
opinions.

83. dean

84. just wanted to note that the filezilla client is now available for linux and mac, in
addition to windows.

84. bobafred

85. Let me fix that for you.

Basics

1. Windows Vista OS to Ubuntu OS

Debian

2. Internet Explorer Browser to Firefox Browser

SeaMonkey (Mozilla)

Office Suites

3. Microsoft Office to OpenOffice

KOffice
4. Mactopia to NeoOffice

Office Tools

5. MathWorks MATLAB to Scilab

Isn’t Ocatve the thing to use here?

6. Microsoft Access to Kexi

Yes

7. Microsoft Word to OpenOffice Writer

KWord

8. Microsoft Excel to OpenOffice Calc

KSpread

9. Microsoft Visio to Dia

Dia is ugly, use Kivio

Productivity

10. Blackboard to Moodle

DO IT NOW! BB is aweful!

11. Box to Cabos

Box sounds like file sharing site trying
to sound legal. If you want to pirate^w
I mean “share some perfectly legal files”,
use BitTorrent. Good clients include
Deluge, rtorrent, transmission and
KTorrent.

12. Microsoft Project to Open Workbench

KPlato or Planner

13. Mindjet to FreeMind

Graphic Programs

14. Adobe Illustrator to Inkscape

OK

15. Adobe PhotoShop to GIMP

Krita

16. Adobe Premiere to Avidemux

Ha ha, very funny. Not comparable.
17. AutoCAD to Archimedes

18. Microsoft PowerPoint to OpenOffice Impress

KPresenter

19. Microsoft Paint to Tux Paint

20. TruSpace to Blender

closest you’re going to get

Web Editors

21. Adobe GoLive CS2 to Mozilla SeaMonkey

GoLive has what to do with SeaMonkey?

Use Kompozer (bugfix of NVU, which is

derived from Mozilla (SeaMonkey) Composer.

Or use Quanta. Or vim.

22. Adobe Dreamweaver to NVU

Kompozer or Quanta or vim.

23. Macromedia Flash Professional to OpenLaszlo

No and No - Use HTML, CSS and JS, not this
other crap

24. Microsoft Frontpage to Bluefish

Kompozer or Quanta or vim.

25. Windows Notepad to ConTEXT

Vim, or if you insist on a gui non-modal
editor use Scite or Kate or GEdit or leafpad
On Win32, Scite or Notepad2 or Notepad++

26. Altova XMLSpy to XML Copy Editor

Publishing

27. Adobe Acrobat to PDFCreator

OK

28. Adobe Framemaker to DocBook

What do you think the connection is
between page layout software and a
documentation system? Use Kword or
Scribus or even LaTeX (kile or lyx
if you want a latex editor).

29. Microsoft Publisher to Scribus

Yes

Communications

30. AIM to Pidgin

Any of the many good Jabber/XMPP
clients. Psi is one good one.
AIM via a server transport.

31. FeedDemon to RSS Bandit

Newsfox (Firefox/SeaMonkey ext.)

32. Microsoft MSN Messenger to aMSN

MSN via a Jabber server transport.

33. Microsoft Outlook to Thunderbird

All email clients suck. tbird,
Claws, mutt and Gmail suck the
least (in different ways).

34. Skype to Wengophone

OK

Media

35. iTunes to Songbird

Amarok or Rhythmbox or
mpd or xmms2

36. Nero Burning Rom to K3b

Yes, or brasero

37. Quicktime to Darwin Streaming Server

38. TiVo Desktop to Galleon.tv

Tivo to MythTV

39. Windows Media Player to Miro

Miro is a new catagory, not
comparable to anthing, esp.
not WMP. To replace WMP, use
mplayer or gxine. VLC is ok-ish.
 Utilities

40. CuteFTP to Filezilla

Yes, or Konquoror

41. iBackup to ZManda

tar+bzip2

42. Norton Ghost to Partition Image

OK

43. Rational Purify to Valgrind

44. WinZip to 7-Zip

Ok-ish, better to uncompress with
the appropriate cli tool. Compress
with bzip2

Security

45. Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal to Winpooch

Winpooch?!

46. McAfee VirusScan to ClamWin

On win32 yes. On Linux do not bother
with clamav unless you run a Mail
server with Win32 clients

47. Norton Personal Firewall to WIPFW

Core Force is based on OpenBSD’s PF

Financial

48. Authorize.net to OpenSSL

What?! Not comparable

49. Microsoft Money (Plus) to TurboCash

GnuCash or KMyMoney

50. Quickbooks to Compiere

85. Kelly

86. IMO Amarok is much more widely used than songbird…

86. Jack
87. greit list, I also love crimsom editor (now open source as emerald). AbiWord is
excellent too, if you want a light full text editor, …
Eclipse and Aptana are really good programming/web editors (Aptana is free, but
maybe not os

87. Xurxo

88. All these apps may be great for a home user, but have you actually ever tried them in
a production environment ? Try keeping a network secure while running any of those
‘to’ apps. Especially in educational environments where every CIS major who takes 1
class thinks they’re suddenly an expert ? No to mention the fact of person info
security. AND interoperability. I’ve been running Vista for over a year with no issues
other than drivers, and that’s pretty much cleared up.

88. Wyno

89. There is no replacement for MATLAB. Just type ‘why’ on the command line to discover
why.

89. Patrick

90. great firewall and anti-virus for free http://www.comodo.com

90. Mike

91. I can’t really speak for most of the programs on the list, but I can say for sure that
GIMP does not even approach the capability of Photoshop. I find the interface to be
non-intuitive and it lacks even the most basic controls that set Photoshop apart from
competitors. I support open source software, but Adobe is a company which has
shown that proprietorship has clear and overwhelming advantages to open source in
some cases.

91. Scott

92. You forgot one of my favorites - PHP with MySQL in place of those huge oracle
databases. i run my website off mysql and couldnt be happier with it.

92. Tobes

93. Got an alternative to Quicken 2007?

93. Brian

94. Re: Matlab. Try Maxima. (type Maxima CAS into a search engine). Highly
recommended.
 94. Peter Nicol

95. - SyncBack for back ups

- Eclipse for Java programming
- WinMerge to compare text files
- Password Safe for storing all your passwords and more
- AVG antivirus software
- EditPlus for text editing
- Sunbelt Kerio Firewall
- xplorer2 instead of windoz explorer
- Agent Ransack instead of windoz explorer searching
- Rename-It! to bulk rename files
- Sequoia View to visualise harddisk usage

95. mike