Mastodawn

What are some FOSS programs that are objectively better than their proprietary counterparts?

https://lemmy.world/post/28381029

What are some FOSS programs that are objectively better than their proprietary counterparts? - Lemmy.World

Some FOSS programs, due to being mantained by hobbyists vs a massive megacorporation with millions in funding, don’t have as many features and aren’t as polished as their proprietary counterparts. However, there are some FOSS programs that simply have more functionality and QoL features compared to proprietary offerings. What are some FOSS programs that are objectively better than their non-FOSS alternatives? Maybe we can discover useful new programs together :D I’ll start, I think Joplin is a great note-taking app that works offline + can sync between desktop and mobile really well. Also, working with Markdown is really nice compared with rich text editors that only work with the specific program that supports it. Joplin even has a bunch of plugins to extend functionality! Notion, Evernote, Google Keep, etc. either don’t have desktop apps, doesn’t work offline, does not support Markdown, or a combination of those three. What are some other really nice FOSS programs?

Tux960 Apr 18, 2025

LibreOffice, OBS, and VLC are definitely the best out there. And Lichess (Online Chess platform) . Do you agree with me?

Snot Flickerman Apr 18, 2025

LibreOffice only really became better after Microsoft started pushing Office365 which made standard MS Office a lot worse. They were on par with each other until then.

The others 100% were always better.

Dave Apr 18, 2025

You sound like you know your LibreOffice.

My experience is they are quite different but I’ve been able to do the same things for the most part.

But how the hell do I make a pivot table that looks and functions as nice as the plain old default one in Excel?

Snot Flickerman Apr 18, 2025

Excel is the one thing LibreOffice still falls behind on. It’s really hard to compete with Excel, specifically.

CancerMancer Apr 19, 2025

Excel is probably the one sore spot for LibreOffice, but also Google’s suite and really everyone else. Excel is tough to beat, especially when you consider the additional power of things like Power Query and Excel on web having JavaScript functions.

That said: I truly despite pivot tables and I no longer use them. Like pie charts, they are usually useless.

Dave Apr 19, 2025

Whaaaaaaaat? Pivot tables are a 2 second job to summarise large amounts of transaction data or similar by month or year. Lookups or countifs would take so much longer!

Not to mention that you can drill into the data using them.

JustEnoughDucks Apr 19, 2025

Ugh I hate excel. It can’t do the most basic search and replace things reliably in all cases. I have moved literally all data analysis besides the absolute basic “count” and “sum” operations to python in spyder. 200x faster, repeatable, and has never once failed a basic operation like a search and replace. Not to mention the localization issues and the fact that it will fuck things up completely if you install a new printer because Microsoft decided the printer has priority of your document and spreadsheet layouts over choosing a default.

I had some evaluation board software that whenever the value dipped below -1, would place the comma completely randomly in the floating point number.

Excel almost had a heart attack when I asked it to search and replace ”-1” with “-1,” and it found all of the cases just fine, but decides to ignore the replace and not place a comma at all. If I tried to convert them to a number, it freaked out and placed the decimal place also randomly, different than the input. And of course trying to do in-place operations on a column for export is just painful.

Hell, in notepad++ I could just regex the digit range that was preceded by a ”-1” and get everything replaced using a few brackets.

Not to mention how terrible the graphs work in comparison and how bad they look with the default options 😅. But hey, you can automatically put in a drop shadow or frame it in a useless way.

There are some people who can work very efficiently and do some crazy things in excel (like the excel doom) but unless you have literally been using it daily for many years and actively looking for ways to speed up, then it is just as easy or easier to do things in an actual data processing program like matlab, octave, python, or R (And I am not a coder) and you can literally copy paste a file name for the next full dataset.

gigachad Apr 18, 2025

I feel PowerPoint is much more user friendly and functional than Impress

sbird Apr 18, 2025

I really like OnlyOffice, pretty much a carbon copy of the MS Office UI and doesn’t screw up on MS-specific files (docx, pptx, etc.)

Also, I like that OnlyOffice, unlike MS Office, has all the things in one app vs having separate apps for documents, spreadsheets, slides, etc. You can just tab between your different documents!

MudMan Apr 18, 2025

OBS and VLC yeah.

You snuck the LibreOffice hot take in there and... yeah, no, unfortunately.

I don't even think it's better than MS Office, but these days I'd (unfortunately) take Google's Office suite over both.

acockworkorange Apr 18, 2025

Only Office is a much younger project and is leaps ahead. It’s sad really, I used to champion LO since the OOo days. Doesn’t make sense these days anymore.

MudMan Apr 18, 2025

Sorry, freudian slip. Edited to avoid future confusion.

acockworkorange Apr 18, 2025

Nope, you were right and I was agreeing with you, and adding that a much younger project compared to LO is already ahead.

MudMan Apr 18, 2025

Oh, I'm changing it back, then.

FWIW, Only Office IS much better (hey, at least it doesn't open xls files with black text on black backgrounds on dark mode!), and I do think its Google-inspired "apps-as-tabs" thing is the future for this stuff. I'm not sure I'd rank it above those, but it's certainly a much more... competitive, I guess? approach.

acockworkorange Apr 18, 2025

Also the fact that it’s self hostable and can also with offline and can also work as a desktop client for remote collaboration and supports several remote backends.

gedaliyah Apr 18, 2025

I feel the same. It’s my daily driver for about 6 months now in a professional setting with high demands. I have kept the Microsoft suite (and have not yet transitioned Powerpoint). When I go back to compare I can’t stand all the needy Microsoft interruptions getting in my way.

gedaliyah Apr 18, 2025

OBS is absolutely the best software in the field.

toy_boat_toy_boat Apr 18, 2025

i hoped someone would say second only to 7zip.

null_dot Apr 18, 2025

I posted this in another thread yesterday but it’s relevant here too:

I have a small consultancy with several staff and work with documents and spreadsheets all day. We use LibreOffice exclusively.

Occasionally I encounter similar threads discussing the difference between LibreOffice and Microsoft Office, and the comments are all the same. So many people saying LibreOffice just “isn’t there yet”, or that it might be ok for casual use but not for power users.

But as someone who uses LibreOffice extensively with a broad feature set I’ve just never encountered something we couldn’t do. Sure we might work around some rough edges occasionally, but the feature set is clearly comparable.

My strongly held suspicion is that it’s a form of the dunning-kruger effect. People have a lot of experience using software-A so much so that they tend to overlook just how much skill and knowledge they have accumulated with that specific software. Then when they try software-B they misconstrue their lack of knowledge with that specific software as complexity.

That said, IDK if I’d go as far as to say LibreOffice is clearly the “best” because that’s subjective. IMO it’s certainly comparable and is a shining example of great FOSS. Hopefully LibreOffice enjoys some attention in the current move away from American products.

Unquote0270 Apr 18, 2025

Definitely lichess. It makes it very obvious how much of desperate cash cow chesscom is.

sbird Apr 18, 2025

OBS is foss? huh, never knew that. I use it all the time for screen recording

Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼Apr 18, 2025

github.com/obsproject/obs-studio

Contributors to obsproject/obs-studio

OBS Studio - Free and open source software for live streaming and screen recording - Contributors to obsproject/obs-studio

GitHub

sbird Apr 18, 2025

also, I’ve never heard of Lichess. I might have to check that out

TranquilTurbulence Apr 18, 2025

Depends on your criteria. For slightly more demanding calculations, Calc just can’t handle it like Excel does. Then again, using spreadsheets for demanding calculations is just asking for trouble.

Kazumara Apr 18, 2025

LibreOffice is also more compatible that Microsoft Word. It helped me and a friend to save his grandpa’s old writings that were stored in AppleWorks (.cwk) files.

werbebanner Apr 19, 2025

I work with Microsoft Office on a daily basis for work, so professional use. I wanted to try LibreOffice privately, tried it and hat to notice that besides the terrible UI, there are many features missing and it’s just way clunkier. So I tried OnlyOffice, which had some features which I missed at LibreOffice, but now I’m missing other features…

So sadly, there isn’t a real competition for MS Office yet.

algorithmae Apr 19, 2025

MPV blows VLC out of the water when it comes to playback. After using it at work to sift through collectively hundreds of thousands of hours of video, waiting for VLC to do anything feels painful

Yingwu Apr 18, 2025

I’d say Logseq is better than any note-taking alternative that works in the same way. It’s a bit different to regular note-taking apps as it acts more as a knowledge database based on tags, than with a regular file-folder structure. Also I prefer Actual Budget to YNAB, as it’s starting to have even more features than YNAB and actually supports things like bank syncing for major parts of Europe that even YNAB doesn’t. And it’s free to host yourself or really cheap to host through PikaPods. But it’s hard to say “objectively” because in the end, a lot of it is subjective. If people are used to running one program, it’ll be hard to switch to another, even if it’s “objectively” better.

The largest issue with FOSS applications is that many contributors don’t have any UX/UI knowledge, which is a huge factor in why people choose one program over another. I’d argue GIMP is a mess compared to Photoshop, even if GIMP is able to do many, many things that Photoshop is able to.

ocean Apr 18, 2025

Definitely and sadly not better than Obsidian. Also it can’t sync and it stinks for that

Yingwu Apr 18, 2025

From my limited experience with Obsidian, I still preferred Logseq actually. And the syncing is easily done by just storing the markdown files in a cloud folder. But yeah, it’s subjective for sure.

SigmarStern Apr 18, 2025

I have multiple different graphs/vaults/whatever synced by simply storing the markdown files in a synced folder and I never had any issues. The new version of logseq is supposed to use a database and syncing, afaik.

sbird Apr 18, 2025

I like Obsidian too. That said, unless I’m handling a huge amount of notes at once, Joplin works much better, esp. for quick notes and to-do lists. Obsidian’s vaults are a bit annoying to switch through. I still use Obsidian for like one or two things but most of my notes are now in Joplin (which can sync as well!)

ocean Apr 18, 2025

Joplin is awesome on iPhone and Linux but I hate that there isn’t any graphs for note links. It’s super easy to setup and sync though!

sbird Apr 18, 2025

yeah, sync is really simple to do, and I really like that it’s cross-platform

kurikai Apr 18, 2025

Ive used gimp for over 18 years. Im so used to it i find photoshop is a mess lol

MudMan Apr 18, 2025

That's less and opinion than Stockholm syndrome.

There's a very good argument for Blender, though, but 3D software is so specialized that I guess it depends what you're comparing it to.

And while we're on creativity software, the same goes for Godot. Arguable, but very dependent on what you're doing.

sbird Apr 18, 2025

I like godot a lot more than unity. Both are great, but besides being open-source, Godot loads way faster and GDScript is super simple and is built in to the engine vs needing to use a separate IDE. I would say that in terms of 3D graphics, Godot is catching up but not quite there yet compared to the likes of Unity and Unreal.

kurikai Apr 18, 2025

Nah. Its just im used to how to do things in gimp. And am clueless in photoshop

SigmarStern Apr 18, 2025

Logseq is the best note taking app for me. And a lot of my programmer/adhd colleagues. I cannot keep order in my notes and logseq does it for me. It’s so essential for my workflow that I have a monthly donation to the project set up.

sbird Apr 18, 2025

interesting, I’ll have to try loqseq.

That might explain why some FOSS apps have terrible UI. There’s plenty that have really really good UI as well

Romkslrqusz Apr 18, 2025

There is no better archive utility than 7-Zip IMO

Just wish there was a MacOS version

adarza Apr 18, 2025

rar has recovery records. i know it’s a somewhat niche feature, one far more popular in the ‘olden days’ especially in certain uh… ‘venues’… but it’s something i’ve always used when making backups with it.

acockworkorange Apr 18, 2025

Tell me more.

Scrollone Apr 18, 2025

Files shared on Usenet (which may violate piracy laws) are usually packed in the rar format

acockworkorange Apr 18, 2025

In sorry I sold have specified. I’m curious about the recovery feature.

arkanoid Apr 18, 2025

It essentially splits the archive into multiple rar sub-files (*.r00, *.r01, etc.) and then creates several more chunks that contain parity information (par2 files) that go with it. By doing so, if you then lose *.r45 but get *.r00-r99 you can recover the *.r45 file from the parity (par2) data. It’s pretty slick.

acockworkorange Apr 18, 2025

Neat, thank you!

null_dot Apr 18, 2025

you can make par2 parity data for 7z using the par2 util.

fartsparkles Apr 18, 2025

Keka is FOSS, supports 7z for both commission and decompression, and is native to macOS.

GitHub - aonez/Keka: The macOS & iOS file archiver

The macOS & iOS file archiver. Contribute to aonez/Keka development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

sbird Apr 18, 2025

7-zip is foss??? damn, never knew that.

LouSlash Apr 18, 2025

It is FOSS in old-fashioned way

Chris Apr 19, 2025

I use 7zip on my Mac every day. Whatchu talking’ ‘bout, Willis?

kionay Apr 20, 2025

I like using peazip since it’s open source and includes 7-zip along with it

yeehaw Apr 18, 2025

ShareX or flameshot for taking screenshots. ShareX needs some tweaks out of the box but once it’s tweaked it is so much more convenient when you need to make super quick tweaks/edits like adding steps or highlights or something.

sudneo Apr 18, 2025

I agree so much for flameshot. For work I moved to a Mac and we are not allowed to install flameshot (signing issue), and the workflow for taking screenshots (e.g., when writing documentation) is so much worse and slow with the default macOS tooling.

yeehaw Apr 20, 2025

Yes this is my main use case too, documentation. Flameshot and sharex are so quick for it. The osx one blows. So many clicks and drags. I’d rather just click and drag a box instead of spawn a box then move the corners around lol

sudneo Apr 20, 2025

Not to talk about annotations. Take screenshot, click preview, click edit, click rectangle tool, make rectangle (repeat), click done. Instead with flameshot it’s literally 2 clicks. Thanks for writing documentation BTW, on behalf of whomever you work with.

Willem Apr 18, 2025

ShareX is amazing, it just needs a big UX improvement. If you’re not technical of nature, the program is kinda too much at once. I can’t recommend it easely to my family until it has a simpler interface option.

Fizz Apr 18, 2025

Flameshot is so good.

sbird Apr 18, 2025

woah that looks really cool, I have to try those out. 👀