Ask HN: Best open source/free software in their own category?

  • That may sound silly but humble Notepad++ should be a part of your list of great opensource software. Although at first glance it does not require spending time on learning its functionalities it offers a lot of plugins that allow to replace proprietary software (i.e. I'm using XML-plugin and that allows me to work with XMLs without using specialised software like Altova).

    Also TrueCrypt - I'm using it all the time (although there are changes in maintenance community the last stable version was proven to be clean - I still trust old good truecrypt)

  • Natron: for cross-platform video compositing (Adobe After Effects alternative) at http://natron.inria.fr/

    Synfig: for cross-platform 2D vector animation (Adobe Flash alternative) at http://www.synfig.org

    Scribus: for desktop publishing (Adobe InDesign alternative) at http://www.scribus.net

    FlashDevelop: for ActionScript development (Adobe Flash Builder alternative) at http://www.flashdevelop.org/

    MyPaint: for intuitive full screen digital painting (Autodesk Sketchbook alternative) at http://mypaint.intilinux.com/

  • Radio Station Programming: LiquidSoap http://www.liquidsoap.fm/

    Streaming: Icecast http://icecast.org/

    Low bandwidth, low latency audio codec: Opus http://opus-codec.org/

    Lossless audio codec: FLAC http://xiph.org/flac/

  • Video downloading: youtube-dl

    https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl

  • VirtualDub - video manipulation software that does some things better than 99% of its competitors (including direct-stream processing, which for some reason most commercial editing suites don't). Not a replacement for Avid / FCX / Premiere / whatever by any means, but it does some stuff better than anything else.

    http://www.virtualdub.org/

    Also, grep.

  • password manager: KeePassX[0] (or MacPass[1] on OS X)

    KeePassX works cross-platform and there are ports for Android and iOS.

    0: https://github.com/keepassx/keepassx

    1: https://github.com/mstarke/MacPass/

  • VLC for video playback?

  • I am fond of ardour for mixing audio recordings.

    Lilypond is my favorite music notation software, but I have a predilection for text-based formats.

    Of course TeX and its descendents remain world-class for serious document production, even if XSL-FO-based systems have made a big dent there.

  • OBS - Cross-platform broadcaster software (for recording and live streaming). Better than any of its competition in my opinion.

    https://obsproject.com/

  • It's my own, but I'd like to think that Cachet (https://CachetHQ.io), although in beta is a good replacement for StatusPage.io

  • Zotero is an excellent EndNote alternative

    OpenShot is an imovie like video editor, I like it because it's easy to use

    Rhythmbox is a featureful itunes-like music player.

    Audacity isn't protools, but it's great for mixing audio

  • FFTW -- Fast Discrete Fourier Transform. Reason: it routinely beats proprietary FFT routines on real & complex and single & multidimensional transforms, and with better accuracy.

  • QGIS: GIS software that isn't worse then the big closed source programs and is better at certain specific things.

  • iOS, take your pick: https://www.cocoacontrols.com

  • I'm happy with https://atom.io

  • LibreOffice: word processing

  • Blender : for 3D modelling.

  •   - Greenshot: Screenshot capture
      - Audacity: Audio editing

  • Scribus - Desktop Publishing/Layout

    Blender - 3D design/animation

  • Subtitle Edit: for creating/editing subtitles

  • Emacs.

  • vim.

  • Free software (not open source) but really great stuff (I use them everyday):

    Music player: http://mpesch3.de1.cc/1by1.html

    Batch rename tool: http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk

    Flashcards learning (open source): http://ankisrs.net/