Switch to these open source apps if you're stuck on Windows or Mac OS!

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00:00 Intro
00:33 Sponsor: Stay private on the internet with Safing
01:28 Why use Open Source Software?
02:57 Graphics, 3D work, photo editing
03:04 GIMP: Alternative to Photoshop
04:06 Krita: Alternative to Photoshop
05:09 Inkscape: Alternative to Illustrator
06:01 Blender: 3D Modeling
06:46 Darktable: Alternative to Lightroom
07:37 Media Tools
07:40 VLC: Video player
08:21 Audacity: Audio Editing
09:07 Productivity Apps
09:09 LibreOffice: Office Suite
10:05 OnlyOffice: Office Suite
10:48 Video production
10:51 Kdenlive: Video Editor
11:48 Handbrake: Video Converter
12:38 More Apps!
13:42 Sponsor: Get your Linux laptop or desktop
14:19 Support the channel

GIMP

It's an amazing piece of software, that I personally use for all my design needs, for mockups at my freelance job, for youtube thumbnails, or for quick photo edits.

Krita

If you're more into digital painting, Krita is what you're looking for. It's super flexible, again, with panels you can move around to suit your workflow, it has tons of brushes, and you can further extend that by downloading new ones.

Inkscape

For vector graphics, the go-to open source app is Inkscape. Whether you want to mockup an application or a website, or design an icon, or just draw something, Inkscape can do it all!

Blender

For 3D modelling, your probably already know about Blender. One might argue it's THE best tool for the job, used by animators, VFX artists and modelers all around the world.

Darktable

Darktable lets you edit your photos non destructively, and your original images are preserved.

VLC

For video playback, you can't find something as versatile as VLC. It's not the prettiest, but it will play virtually anything, even badly damaged files, that it can even repair.

Audacity

Another example of an app that doesn't look good at all, but that lets you do a TON of stuff. It's a powerful audio recording and editing station. It can digitize anything, import and export virtually any format, and even combine audio files.

LibreOffice

LibreOffice: if you've ever used OpenOffice, forget all about it, because LibreOffice is where it's at. It's faster, it looks better, it's more stable, and it's extremely customizable to let you work with either a toolbar and menubar, or with a more modern ribbon.

OnlyOffice

Another solution is OnlyOffice. Its compatibility is better than LibreOffice, and I've been using it for a year or so, now, trading files back and forth with people using MS Office, without any issues whatsoever.

Kdenlive

For video editing, Kdenlive will probably be your go-to. It's a wonderful non linear video editor, with very powerful features to organize your media, edit your project, and render it in a format of your choosing.

Handbrake

For converting video into other formats, handbrake is what you need. It can rip DVDs into a single file, convert any format to any other, using any codec you might want for audio, and for video, and any container format you prefer.

[DrakaSAN]

Note that Audacity tried to add trackers and get out of open source license agreements, original devs took off with the last open source version and continued under the Tenacity name instead

[The_Mup]

Heres some other open source work software that I use:

KiCad = Electronics circuit designer/PCB designer with built in 3d modeling and Spice simulation. (Big community / Alternative to Eagle)
LibrePCB = Another circuit/PCB designer under development
FreeCAD = Mechanical 3d design (alternative to SolidWorks)
PrusaSlicer = GTK friendly 3d print slicer software

[MrSpeakerCone]

Audio Engineer here: Audacity is great, but it was purchased in 2021 and they changed their privacy notice with some worryingly vague wording.
There's a really good fork of it called Tenacity which is worth looking into as an alternative

[chestermc]

For the past decade-ish I've been almost exclusively using open-source apps on Windows because they do everything I need and much more for free, and now that I've fully made the jump into Linux with Ubuntu LTS, transition has been seamless.

[Tom-vgnb]

Nick, thanks for putting the spotlight on the open source software. Open source community, thank you for all you do.

[nWestie]

One you didn't mention but is great is OBS for live streaming, it is an amazing piece of software, and basicly the standard software for live streaming. Although I guess this means it doesn't quite fit in the 'proprietary alternatives' category

[hell_jpeg]

Krita's been my main art program for 8+ years at this point. I tried it when I was getting started with digital art, now I'm still using it for illustration & I don't see that changing anytime soon. Always nice to see it get the spotlight

[JonathanKayne]

Some other Open Source Programs:
- Calibre for eBook Management
- KiCad for PCB design
- MuseScore for Sheet Music work
- GNU Octave for Mathematics (Basically Matlab)
- OBS Studio for Video Recording/Streaming

[Leonardo-G]

For composers out there frustrated with Finale and Sibelius, I'd like to add MuseScore to this list.
It's a pretty robust musical notation editor, that's intuitive to use, customizable, and it has improved significantly over the last few years in terms of design.

[liquidmagma]

i use vlc, mpv as backup and tenacity(fork of audacity).
yt-dlp is a great and simple command line tool for downloading audio/video from pretty mutch anywhere.
if you feel limited by handbrake, ffmpeg is also a great command line tool for cutting, joining, converting and encoding of almost any audio/video file. i recommend looking up examples for using it cause the documentation can get overwhelming with the amount of options.

[SamuelPortela]

Great video, as always. You did a very good job covering open source options for so many different purposes. Also, I like the pace of your videos, it does not get boring after minutes watch to it.

[Morpheusdarkson]

Thanks for helping me switch to Linux Nick. Your videos Have been a godsend for my easy switch to Linux and it’s easy for me to use now and it hasn’t crashed yet! Thanks an bunch.

[mr.anirbangoswami]

Darktable is actually pretty good and is more than good enough for hobbyist raw photographers. It's amazing, intuitive and resembles Lightroom. The only thing I didn't like was images getting very pixelated upon zooming, something which never happens in Lightroom

[Eichro]

Thanks about these! I already knew (and used!) most of them, but was still at loss at video editing. Great to know open source got me covered for that too, now all that's left is to see if it's any good.

[markt.]

Love this! I'm early in the journey of switching from Windows to Linux, but am finding the apps very capable and completely adequate.

[xtrct]

I’d like to add Ardour on this list. Ardour is probably one of the greatest DAW for audio mixing (their audio routing is very powerful), only to be held back by mediocre included plugin, but they also support VST (Win, Mac, Linux) and AU (Mac) so it probably doesn’t matter for a lot of people that use external plugin anyway. The only complaint from me is that their MIDI handling isn’t as good as Logic, Cubase, Ableton, or even LMMS for that matter.

[rw]

Great video. Love your honesty about being too lazy or not interested in learning certain things. No one has to be interested in everything. But you point the way to the tools for things that I am interested in. Bravo.

[jeffmonterola]

Hi Nick, love your channel! Your videos made me switch to Linux! Currently on Ubuntu coming from ElementaryOS :)

[LeonisYT]

You always have something new in these that I've never heard of. Definitely replacing my Evernote with Joplin.

[Evalynder]

I love Blender for video editing, but I think that's probably just my prior experience in 3D with Blender, which streamlined the workflow with all the hotkeys I already knew like the back of my hand. Compared to Premiere Pro it is definitely a bit more esoteric and bare bones, but it still works great as a video editor. I use it for all my video editing needs and I am steadily refining my workflow in the process.