A ‘contradiction in terms’ is a phrase or expression that contains words that contradict one another. You cannot say, for example, ‘nice hell’. It’s a contradiction in terms, because the hell is a place of horror and it can never be nice. Similarly, the expression ‘a good proprietary program’ is a contradiction in terms. A proprietary program can never be good because it deprives its users of the 4 basic freedoms that all programs should offer: the freedom to use the program as they wish, the freedom to modify the program, the freedom to give to others copies of the unmodified program and the freedom to give to others copies of the modified program.
By using the expression “‘the best’ proprietary programs” in the title of this article, we meant that among all the proprietary programs, some have more features than others, are easier to use, etc., so, they are considered in general better than other proprietary programs and even the best in their category. However, this doesn’t mean that they are acceptable. They remain bad and unacceptable because they take away the 4 basic freedoms mentioned above. Therefore, even if they had the highest technical quality in the world, these programs would still remain unacceptable. By listing the proprietary programs that are considered ‘the best’ in their computing field, we don’t intend to endorse or recommend their use. On the contrary: we want to convey the message that even the proprietary programs that are considered the ‘standard’ in different domains, can be replaced with excellent free and open source programs that respect their users’ freedom.
The reality, confirmed by thousands of users, is that for all the program categories listed below, there is an excellent FOSS alternative to ‘the best’ proprietary program, even if there may be some rarely used features that the FOSS programs don’t offer. In general, the use of those features can be circumvented.
To decide which free and open source program is the best in a computing field, we took into account the following factors:
- respect for user freedom
- performance
- security
- functional features
- hardware resource usage
- ease of use
- large developer community and large user community (this determines the availability of companies or independant developers that can be hired to develop custom features, plugins, etc. and the availability of ‘community support’ on forums, mailing lists, etc.)
- large number of plugins/modules/apps (such as WordPress plugins, Nextcloud apps, etc.)
- robust, efficient, time-tested, easy to use and popular programming language
- clear and complete documentation
Here is the list with the best free and open source alternatives to ‘the best’ proprietary programs, for each commonly used program category. (When we mention a service, such as the ’email service’, we refer to the programs used to offer that service. Most of the programs listed below (like the browser, the media player, etc.) are standalone programs that have to be installed on a laptop/desktop, but there are also programs (like the ERP & CRM application, the web traffic monitoring application, etc.), that have to be installed on a server.)
Program category | ‘Best’ proprietary program | Best FOSS program |
---|---|---|
Desktop operating system | Windows | Linux Debian • Official website • Wikipedia page • Installation instructions • Download |
Browser | Chrome | Firefox • Official website • Wikipedia page • Installation on Debian • Download • Quick start video tutorial |
Email client | Microsoft Outlook | Thunderbird • Official website • Wikipedia page • Installation on Debian • Quick start video tutorial |
Office suite | Microsoft Office | LibreOffice • Official website • Wikipedia page • It is preinstalled in Debian • Quick start video tutorial |
Raster graphics editor | Adobe Photoshop | GIMP • Official website • Wikipedia page • It is preinstalled in Debian • Quick start video tutorial |
Vector graphics editor | Adobe Illustrator | Inkscape • Official website • Wikipedia page • Installation on Debian • Quick start video tutorial |
Desktop publishing | Adobe InDesign | Scribus • Official website • Wikipedia page • Install on Debian by running: ‘apt-get install scribus’ |
Video editing | Adobe Premiere Pro | Shotcut • Official website • Wikipedia page • Use the portable version on Debian (no need to install) • Download • Quick start video tutorial |
Audio editing | Adobe Audition | Audacity • Official website • Wikipedia page • Install on Debian by running: ‘apt-get install audacity’ • Quick start video tutorial |
Video live streaming and recording | Wirecast | OBS Studio • Official website • Wikipedia page • Install on Debian by running: ‘apt-get install ffmpeg obs-studio’ • Quick start video tutorial |
Media player | GOM Player | VLC media player • Official website • Wikipedia page • Install on Debian by running: ‘apt-get install vlc’ |
3D computer graphics | Autodesk 3ds Max | Blender • Official website • Wikipedia page • Installation on Debian • Download • Quick start video tutorial |
Computer-aided design | AutoCAD | FreeCAD • Official website • Wikipedia page • Installation on Debian • Quick start video tutorial |
Email service | Gmail | Roundcube (+ LEMP stack + Postfix + Dovecot + SpamAssassin + ClamAV + Postfix Admin) • Official website • Wikipedia page • Installation on Debian |
File hosting & file synchronization | Dropbox | Nextcloud • Official website • Wikipedia page • Installation on Debian • Download |
Web-based collaborative document editing | Google Docs Editors | LibreOffice Online • Official website • Wikipedia page section • Installation on Debian |
PDF editing | Adobe Acrobat Pro DC | LibreOffice Draw • Official web page • Wikipedia page • It is preinstalled in Debian • Quick start video tutorial |
Document preparation (math equations, etc.) | Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher | LaTeX • Official website • Wikipedia page • Installation on Debian |
ERP & CRM | Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Dolibarr • Official website • Wikipedia page • Installation on Debian • Download • Quick start video tutorial |
Mass email sending | Mailchimp | phpList • Official website • Wikipedia page • Installation on Debian • Download • Quick start video tutorial |
Web traffic monitoring | Google Analytics | Matomo • Official website • Wikipedia page • Installation on Debian • Download • Quick start video tutorial |
Hosted hypervisor | VMware Workstation Pro | Oracle VM VirtualBox • Official website • Wikipedia page • Installation on Debian |
Optical disc burning | Nero Burning ROM | Brasero • Official web page • Wikipedia page • Install on Debian by running: ‘apt-get install brasero’ |
Social media platform | Friendica • Official website • Wikipedia page • Installation on Debian • Quick start video tutorial | |
Software development and version control platform | GitHub (yes, the software used to run github.com is proprietary, with the exception of a few components) | GitList • Official website • Installation on Debian |
Web video/audio/text communication, including video conferences | Zoom | Roundpin • Official website • Installation on Debian |
Content management system (CMS) | Sitefinity | WordPress • Official website • Wikipedia page • Installation on Debian • Quick start video tutorial |