Resources

Educational resources and open licenses

Recommended software

I rely on free software every day. Described below are the services and tools I use most (i.e., at least once a week and often daily). Please feel free to contact me for other alternatives or public instances of self-hostable services!

Authelia: Self-hosted single sign-on (SSO) service
Licensing: Apache License 2.0
Could replace the built-in authentication on individual self-hosted services and add authentication to services that do not have built-in authentication

Bitwarden: Self-hostable password manager
Licensing: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
Could replace 1Password, Dashlane, and LastPass

Cryptomator: Client-side file encryption solution that works well with cloud storage
Licensing: GNU General Public License v3.0
Could replace Boxcryptor

Firefly III: Self-hosted personal finance manager
Licensing: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
Could replace Mint and YNAB, albeit with a “fundamentally different” philosophy

FreshRSS: Self-hosted news aggregator
Licensing: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
Could replace Feedly and Inoreader

GnuPG: Used by Keyoxide’s decentralized identity verification and mailbox.org’s encrypted inbox, “GnuPG is a complete and free implementation of the OpenPGP standard as defined by RFC4880”
Licensing: GNU General Public License v2.0 or later
See also Git’s “Signing Your Work” and Keyoxide

Grist: A “modern relational spreadsheet” that supports Excel and Python functions
Licensing: Apache License 2.0 for non-enterprise features
Could replace Airtable and Google Sheets

linkding: Simple bookmark tool that can automatically save bookmarked pages to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine
Licensing: MIT (Expat) License
See also ArchiveBox

mailbox (formerly mailbox.org): Secure mail service provider
Licensing: Based on Open-Xchange, Postfix, and other free software
Could replace Gmail and Outlook

Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird: Web browser (desktop and mobile) and email client that can also manage contacts, calendars, and feeds (desktop)
Licensing: Mozilla Public License 2.0
Firefox could replace Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, etc. while Thunderbird could replace eM Client, Mailbird, and Microsoft Outlook. See FairEmail for a mobile email client

Nextcloud: Self-hosted cloud storage and content collaboration platform
Licensing: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (server)
Could replace Google Drive and Microsoft 365 – CalDAV and CardDAV support also allow for synchronization of calendars and contacts, respectively

ntfy: Self-hostable HTTP-based push notification service
Licensing: Apache License 2.0 and GNU General Public License v2.0
See also Gotify

Rclone: Cloud storage management tool (e.g., move files between different servers)
Licensing: MIT (Expat) License
Could replace a supported provider’s synchronization software (e.g., Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive)

restic: Cross-platform backup tool with data integrity verification, encryption, deduplication, and support for multiple backends
Licensing: 2-Clause BSD License (Simplified BSD License)
See also Awesome restic for other restic-related projects

Shiori: Self-hosted read-it-later application
Licensing: MIT (Expat) License
Could replace Instapaper and Pocket. See also wallabag, which I used until early December 2022

Signal: Secure instant messaging
Licensing: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (server, desktop) and GNU General Public License v3.0 (mobile)
Could replace text messages (SMS/MMS), Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and WhatsApp

SilverBullet: Self-hosted note-taking application with end-user programming features
Licensing: MIT (Expat) License
See also Joplin and Logseq, which are note-taking applications I’ve previously used.

Syncthing: Continuous file synchronization program
Licensing: Mozilla Public License 2.0
See also Syncthing-Fork (Android) and Syncthing Tray (cross-platform)

TeXstudio: LaTeX editor
Licensing: GNU General Public License v3.0
See also The LaTeX Project and a TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange answer comparing the TeX distributions

Vikunja: Self-hostable task management application
Licensing: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
Could replace Microsoft To Do, Todoist, etc.

Zooming Out: “A provisional list of Zoom replacements” that I helped research

Web archives

End of Term (EOT) Web Archive: “a collaborative initiative that collects, preserves, and makes accessible United States Government websites at the end of presidential administrations”

Searchable collections are hosted by the Internet Archive.

Congressional websites at the end of each Congress since 2006: Captured by the Internet Archive under contract with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)

White House websites at the end of each presidential administration: Captured by NARA

GovInfo: “free public access to official publications from all three branches of the federal government”

Other web archiving inititatives and digital resources