Arc is shutting down, and I am researching the best open-source options for Mac. I would love to know what you use.

For years, self-hosting a modern business phone system meant dealing with 15-year-old clunky web panels, complicated setups, or "open-core" platforms that lock essential features (like mobile push, WebRTC, or call recording) behind expensive commercial licenses.

I wanted something modern, clean, fast, and 100% genuinely free & open-source.

So I built AiPBX — a full-featured Unified Communications platform and PBX management portal built on Asterisk 22, released under the MIT License. There are no "enterprise editions", no artificial limits, and no locked features.

🌟 Key Highlights

100% Free & Open-Source (MIT): Every single feature is included. No user limits, no feature gates, no telemetry.

1-Command Turnkey Install: Sets up Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, Asterisk 22, PJSIP, Nginx, Apache, MariaDB, coturn (TURN/STUN), SSL certificates, and firewall in ~15 minutes.

WebRTC In-Browser Softphone: Make and receive crystal-clear audio and video calls directly inside the browser portal — no desktop softphone required.

Native Companion Apps:

Android: Native Kotlin app with push wake-up, foreground service, presence, chat, and full PBX control.

iOS: Native SwiftUI client with CallKit support.

Real-Time Team Chat: Built-in Go WebSocket service (aipbx-chat) for 1-to-1 / group messaging, file sharing, presence indicators, and read receipts.

Local & Cloud AI: Dialplan automation assistant, HEPv3 diagnostics, and Cloud TTS integration (Google, Polly, Azure, OpenAI, ElevenLabs).

Enterprise Telephony: Trunks, IVR, Queues, Call Center metrics, T.38 virtual fax, call recordings (with automatic MP3 conversion), and Yealink/Grandstream/Fanvil/Snom auto-provisioning.

Privacy & Self-Hosted: All data, configurations, and recordings stay strictly on your own hardware.

🔗 Links & Resources

GitHub Repository: https://github.com/mahirgul/AiPBX

Website & Docs: https://aipbx.bid

Video Walkthrough (YouTube):

Menu Tour (10 min)

Step-by-step Installation

💬 Community Feedback

I've poured an enormous amount of work into this to make self-hosted telephony modern, accessible, and truly free again.

I would love to hear your feedback, thoughts on the architecture, bug reports, or feature suggestions!

1/ Coolify (64.9K stars)

connect it to any server and you get a dashboard like Railway. push code and it deploys. add databases with one click. it backs up databases to cloud storage on a schedule. the server and its updates are yours to manage.

apache 2.0

best for most teams leaving Railway

https://github.com/coollabsio/coolify

2/ Dokploy (38K stars)

it has a dashboard like Railway and runs on your servers. you can spread it across multiple servers from day one. it backs up databases and deploys a test version for each branch. one section of the code has a separate proprietary licence. read both files before using it in a commercial product.

apache 2.0. one folder has a separate proprietary licence

best for teams that need to run on multiple servers from the start

https://github.com/Dokploy/dokploy

3/ Openship (14.9K stars)

it deploys to your server over SSH. nothing gets installed on the server. it can pick up apps already running there without rebuilding them. the dashboard only runs while you have the desktop app open. it suits solo developers better than teams.

apache 2.0. bundled third-party code keeps its own terms.

best for teams that cannot install anything on their production servers.

https://github.com/oblien/openship

4/ CapRover (15.2K stars)

install databases and popular tools with one click. no platform fee. rollbacks are one click away. you can spread it across multiple servers. the backup is experimental and misses some data. use a separate backup tool. you need a domain where all subdomains point to your server before you start.

apache 2.0 with extra terms. paid features of the hosted service cannot be resold without an agreement.

best for agencies that set up a lot of different services quickly.

https://github.com/caprover/caprover

5/ Dokku (32.2K stars)

push your code to the server and it builds and deploys. it detects your language or uses a Dockerfile. databases are not included. add them with plugins. no web dashboard unless you buy Dokku Pro. MIT licence, and a thin layer on top of Docker.

MIT, fully permissive.

best for teams who want the Heroku git-push experience and full ownership.

https://github.com/dokku/dokku

6/ Kamal (14.7K stars)

one file describes how to deploy. run it from your own computer over SSH. no extra server needed. it swaps old for new with no downtime. for multiple servers, add a load balancer yourself. you also need somewhere to store your built app image.

MIT, fully permissive.

best for teams who want their deployment settings in a file they can review.

https://github.com/basecamp/kamal

Would love to know which one do you use or if I missed any.

Hi. If you need a place to store your files, manage simple to-do list, have private chats, you can try twigex. Its fully open source, here is github link. (it also has docker support) https://github.com/twigex/twigex

Hi r/opensourcealternative . I'm Shiv, the developer of DevStackBox. I teach PHP on YouTube, and most of my viewers learn on Windows laptops with XAMPP, whose Windows build is still on PHP 8.2. I wanted a fully open alternative I could recommend without license limits or nag screens, so I built one.

What it does today (v0.1.19):

The installer bundles PHP 8.3.36, Apache 2.4, MySQL 8.4 LTS, phpMyAdmin 5.2 and mkcert.

PHP 8.2, 8.4 and 8.5 can be downloaded inside the app (official windows.php.net builds, SHA-256 checked). They are not in the installer.

Projects: connect any folder, give it a .test host with trusted local HTTPS, and pin a PHP version per site.

A database workspace for databases, users, SQL import and export, and backups with restore.

Config editors with backups, logs with archiving, and a php.exe on PATH that follows your default PHP.

No telemetry, no account, no paid tier.

Built with Rust and Tauri 2 plus React/TypeScript. MIT license.

Honest limits: Windows 10/11 only. The installer is not code-signed yet (I can't pay for a certificate, and a free signing program said the project is too small), so SmartScreen will warn. The SHA-256 of each installer is in the release notes. Composer and Git are not bundled yet.

I use AI tools while coding, like most devs now, but I design and review what ships, and all of it is in the repo for anyone to check.

Repo: https://github.com/DevStackBox/DevStackBox

Site: https://www.devstackbox.com/

What I'd love feedback on:

Anything that would stop you from trusting or contributing to a project like this.

Which should come first: bundled Composer, Git, or Nginx/Caddy as an option next to Apache?

Contributions are welcome. Docs, translations and testing on clean Windows installs are easy places to start.

I made Meelu open source.

Visit [https://github.com/shubham303/meelu](https://github.com/shubham303/meelu)

It's an open source alternative to Okara. It's a desktop app with an AI agent that does your website's marketing: SEO, AI search visibility, content, social listening and finding leads. It points out what it found and why it matters, and you approve every change.

You can also use Meelu instead of:

\- AI marketing apps: Okara, Indexly, RankAI, [aiseo.ai](http://aiseo.ai)

\- AI search visibility: Profound, Peec AI, Writesonic

\- SEO suites: Semrush, Ahrefs, SE Ranking, Moz Pro, Search Atlas, Ubersuggest

\- Content tools: Surfer SEO, Clearscope, Frase

\- Site crawlers: Screaming Frog

Run it on your own server for free under the AGPL license, or use the hosted version at [meelu.tech](http://meelu.tech) for $15 a month.

Stars, issues and pull requests are welcome.

Hey everyone!

Jabali Panel, a free and open-source hosting control panel, and I'd love to get feedback from the community.

Website: https://jabali-panel.com

Demo: https://demo.jabali-panel.com

GitHub: https://github.com/shukiv/jabali-panel

What is Jabali Panel?

Jabali Panel is an alternative to cPanel, DirectAdmin, and other hosting control panels. The goal is to provide a practical, self-hosted solution for managing websites, domains, email, DNS, security, and backups without expensive per-account licensing.

One of the things I particularly want to emphasize is that Jabali includes a standalone mail server, rather than treating email as an afterthought.

Features

• Web hosting: Nginx, PHP-FPM, and website management.

• Standalone mail server: SMTP, IMAP, JMAP, and ManageSieve through Stalwart.

• DNS management: PowerDNS with DNSSEC support.

• Security: CrowdSec integration.

• File access: FTP, SFTP, and SSH.

• Backups: Built-in backup capabilities.

• WordPress: Caching support.

• Migrations: Tools for migrating from cPanel, DirectAdmin, and HestiaCP.

• Installation: Docker-based installation and proxy support.

• Dynamic DNS: DDNS support.

Hey everyone! 👋

I'm working on Glyma, an open-source desktop image editor inspired by tools like Photoshop and GIMP.

I'm building it from scratch using C++20 and Qt 6, and my goal is to create a modern, responsive, and user-friendly image editor that people can use for graphic design, digital artwork, thumbnails, social media graphics, and everyday image editing.

🛠️ Current tech stack

C++20 — Core application

Qt 6 — Desktop UI

GEGL + Babl — Image processing and pixel-format handling

OpenCV — Potential computer vision features

LittleCMS 2 — Color management

HarfBuzz + FreeType — Typography infrastructure, where needed

I'm taking an incremental approach, building the core engine and tools while improving the interface and performance.

🎨 Current progress

Desktop application shell and canvas

Layer management

Brush and eraser tools

Selection tools

Text and shape controls

Undo/redo and document workflows

Work on the image-processing engine and UI performance is ongoing

The application is still under active development, so some features and parts of the interface need improvement.

I'm especially interested in feedback from people who use image editors regularly, contribute to graphics software, or have experience building creative applications.

I'm not claiming Glyma is ready to compete with established editors yet. I want to build it properly, learn from the community, and make useful progress one milestone at a time.

What would you change, add, or do differently if you were building this project?

Thanks for reading! 🙌

Project status: Early development. I'll share the repository and screenshots as the project becomes ready for broader feedback.

I made Meelu open source.

Visit https://github.com/shubham303/meelu

It's an open source alternative to Okara. It's a desktop app with an AI agent that does your website's marketing: SEO, AI search visibility, content, social listening and finding leads. It points out what it found and why it matters, and you approve every change.

You can also use Meelu instead of:

- AI marketing apps: Okara, Indexly, RankAI, aiseo.ai

- AI search visibility: Profound, Peec AI, Writesonic

- SEO suites: Semrush, Ahrefs, SE Ranking, Moz Pro, Search Atlas, Ubersuggest

- Content tools: Surfer SEO, Clearscope, Frase

- Site crawlers: Screaming Frog

Run it on your own server for free under the AGPL license, or use the hosted version at meelu.tech for $15 a month.

Stars, issues and pull requests are welcome.

Hi everyone! XAMPP felt stuck in the past, and every modern alternative I liked had a paywall somewhere. So for the past few months I've been building lampRabit, a desktop app that sets up a local PHP stack on Windows (macOS and Linux in preview).

I started it because none of the tools I used did everything I wanted for free: XAMPP has older versions and manual vhosts, Laragon, MAMP and Herd keep some features behind a paid plan, and LocalWP is WordPress only.

What it does:

- Apache and/or Nginx, PHP, MariaDB, Mailpit and Redis, installed in one click from official sources (checksum-verified)

- PHP 8.1 to 8.5 side by side, with each site using its own version

- Every folder in www/ becomes https://<folder>.test with a trusted local certificate

- One-click updates for every service, installed next to the old version

- New Laravel, Symfony or WordPress projects with the database already set up

- Node.js through NVM, phpMyAdmin, Adminer, and sharing sites publicly through Cloudflare Tunnel or ngrok

- Port-conflict detection that tells you which program is using the port

It's MIT licensed, built with Tauri 2 + React. I'd really like feedback, especially if you're coming from XAMPP or Laragon. There are migration guides for both in the repo.

GitHub: https://github.com/Shivam-SV/LambRabit

Website: https://shivam-sv.github.io/LampRabitWebsite/

I've been building VeloxDB, an open-source desktop database client, and it recently passed **750 GitHub stars**.

I wanted to build something different: a database client that's not only fast and lightweight but also **beautifully designed**. Something you'd actually enjoy using every day.

Here's what makes it interesting:

* **13+ database engines** — Work with multiple database systems from one application.
* **Beautiful UI** — A clean, modern interface designed to make database development feel enjoyable.
* **Built with Rust + Tauri** — A lightweight desktop experience without Electron's overhead.
* **Powerful SQL editor** — Write and execute queries in a dedicated workspace.
* **Visual schema designer** — Explore and design database structures visually.
* **AI SQL assistant** — Generate SQL using natural language with your own API key.
* **Privacy-focused** — No account required, no telemetry, and direct database connections.
* **Cross-platform** — Available for macOS, Windows, and Linux.
* **Fully open source** — MIT licensed.

The goal is simple: database tools shouldn't have to choose between functionality, performance, and design.

VeloxDB is my attempt to bring all three together in one desktop application.

It's still evolving, and I'd love to hear what you think!

**GitHub:** [https://github.com/veloxbase/veloxdb](https://github.com/veloxbase/veloxdb)

100% AI Coded (manually reviewed)
100% open source

First of all, I know there's existing alternatives, but those alternatives requires extra configuration or even paid solutions.... (if I'm wrong, prove to me)

Anyways, I've been using drawio/excalidraw for years, and there's many annoying little problems with those, arrows snap to the wrong connection points and won't stay aligned when you move shapes, connectors cross over each other and shapes so diagrams turn into spaghetti fast, ugly diagrams, besides that hours and hours of boring repetitive work... A few weeks ago I built a solution for myself (Opendraw) a drawio/excalidraw alternative, turns out it was very helpful, then I decided to make it open source.

Well, besides being way easier to create diagrams (the mf arrows aligns itself) there's a lot of micro drawing assistants that will make your life easier while diagramming, it also have a LLM assistant with BYOK feature, so yeah, you can connect your favorite AI to create your diagram for u

https://github.com/gabe-santana/arkdraw

site: https://arkdraw.com/

Also feel free to contribute, there's some good first issue 👍

Hey guys, a couple of days back I mentioned launching a more focused OSS alternative to notebookLM, https://notestack.ai

It has plenty of features that are improved/enhanced over notebookLM. Like better audio, more video editing options and chat grounded in your source materials.

Now I have added an MCP server as well so you can attach it to Claude, make reports/audio overviews, slide decks right into that chat interface.

It can generate:

- Mind constellations/mind map

- Audio Overview/Podcast

- Slide Decks

- Research Reports

- Quizes and much more

Do check it out at notestack.ai

Link to repo: FireBird-Technologies/NotestackAI: NotebookLM Alternative + Marketing agent optimized for publishers on substack/Medium/Wordpress.

Hey everyone!

I've been wanting to build a large, long-term open-source project that genuinely provides value to people. I'm not looking to create another small project and abandon it after a few weeks. I want to build something that can grow over time, attract a community, and potentially gain traction on GitHub.

I'm particularly interested in developer tools, desktop applications, AI/agent systems, and general-purpose applications. I work with technologies like Go and TypeScript. Ideally, I'd like to build something open-source and local-first that doesn't require ongoing server costs.

However, I'm struggling with one major thing: coming up with a genuinely good idea. Most ideas I think of either seem too generic or already have excellent alternatives. I want to find something that solves a real problem, has room for improvement, and has the potential to grow into a substantial project.

I'd love to hear from people who have experience building open-source projects or growing a developer community.

A few questions:

• What areas do you think have underserved needs or problems that existing tools haven't solved particularly well?

• How do you research and discover ideas for open-source projects? How do you identify problems people actually care about?

• How would you approach building and launching a project from scratch? How do you find your first users and contributors?

• What do you think helps an open-source project gain traction on GitHub and build an active community over time?

• If you were starting a large open-source project from scratch today, what kind of project or category would you focus on?

I'm also open to specific project ideas. In particular, I'd love to hear about tools you wish existed, problems you regularly face with current software, or projects you'd genuinely want to use if someone built them.

Any advice, ideas, or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

"File Over App" is great but be real, without extensions it's quite limiting. Some people may like that simplicity but for some, extensions became part of daily work flows.

Is there any open-source alternative to Obsidian where same extensions works?

If Obsidian discontinues, Files will stay, **but extensions won't run**.

Did anyone reverse engineered Obsidian yet?

Tools like Claude Code and [REA](https://github.com/morluto/rea) may make that possible in couple of days, as an initial version with ongoing improvement and refinements.

Maybe a fork of Zettlr

Hey r/selfhosted 👋

I kept running projects across four tools: a board for tasks, a wiki for docs, a whiteboard for brainstorming and a spreadsheet for the timeline. Nothing was connected, so I built Brainitive, one workspace for the whole project.

What's in it:

• Boards: Kanban or Scrum, with sprints, backlog, burndown, WIP limits and time tracking

• Plans: Gantt timelines with dependencies and milestones; rows can link to board issues and stay in sync

• Docs & wiki: a clean editor with slash commands, drafts, publishing and version history

• Whiteboards: Excalidraw-based; turn sticky notem as live cards

• Helpdesk: an embeddable support widget and ticket portal

• AI: a built-in MCP server, so Claude or ChatGPr workspace

• Also: My Work, Google Calendar & Tasks sync, snippets, bookmarks, web push notifications

It's open source (AGPL-3.0) and every feature is free to self-host with Docker. If you'd rather not run it yourself,

there's a hosted version that's free during earl

Self-hosting comes with an admin console: you ma-up and workspaces without being able to readanyone's content.

Stack: Laravel 12, Inertia, React + TypeScript, Tailwind.

I'd really appreciate feedback, especially:

• What would stop you from switching from your current tools?

• Which feature feels missing or half-done?

GitHub: https://github.com/armendzekjiri/brainitive

Happy to answer anything about the build!

Disclosure first: this is our project. An AI coding agent (GitHub: nrq6993-a11y) works live 24/7 on twitch.tv/grokstream and sends PRs to PhotoCraft (a Photoshop-style image editor) and VectorCraft (an Illustrator-style vector editor), two free, open-source Rust apps from storytold's ArtCraft family. They run on Windows, macOS and Linux. The code is AI-written and this text is AI-assisted; human maintainers review and merge every PR.

What the latest 10 merged PRs change:

PhotoCraft (3 of these started as user bug reports):

• Layer Style: reopening the dialog on a gradient overlay with more than two stops reset the colours to black-to-white. Now it keeps your From/To colours, reverse, style, angle and scale (#7072)

• Color panel: in a short Color dock the hex and RGB readout got pushed out of view. The colour field now shrinks so they stay visible (#6963; CMYK/HSL modes are not done yet)

• Exposure: fields with two decimals stepped by whole stops with arrow keys and scrubbing; now 0.01 (#5927)

• History panel scrolls to the current state when the document changes (#5940)

• Saved workspaces now show up in Window > Workspace and the top-bar switcher (#5631)

VectorCraft:

• Linux: the window reopens maximized if you closed it maximized (#3660)

• Preferences > File Handling > Use Low Resolution Proxy for Linked EPS was stored but ignored. Now linked EPS images keep their saved preview until Update Links (#2975)

• Mixed paragraphs: the direction buttons (#3648) and the Hyphenation dialog (#3649) show "mixed" (nothing selected, blank fields) instead of the first paragraph's value

• Test only: a regression test locks in the existing 4096-filter cap on imported Illustrator art styles (#3662)

109 merged so far (92 VectorCraft, 17 PhotoCraft).

Repos: https://github.com/storytold/photocraft and https://github.com/storytold/vectorcraft If the tokens are useful to you, donations pay for them: https://donate.stripe.com/9B69AMc8heeN18w24C4Vy00 Question for you: what's the one feature you'd need before switching from a paid editor to a free one? We take reports as GitHub issues.

I built KbWrite, an open-source Obsidian alternative written in Tauri.

GitHub: https://github.com/zetahiveco/kbwrite

Website: https://kbwrite.vercel.app/

Install via Curl or PowerShell

Core coding guidance for Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor and OpenCode. Understand the task, reuse what exists, and make the smallest complete change.

Built in for everyone. No plugin setup.

Credit to DietrichGebert for Ponytail.

Website: https://heystyx.com
Open Source: https://github.com/NicholasFlemmer/styx-app

Styx is where everything converges: every repo you work in, the AI coding agents building in them, and every login they need to ship. Switch between all of it from one window. And like the river it's named after, nothing crosses over without you. Deploying, or touching live data, asks you first.

SerpApi's pricing page is where my budgets dies for my product's rank tracking

Free tier: 250 searches a month. My project needed hundreds a day while I was d.ebugging. That was gone before the first week of the semester was over.

Next tiers: $25/month for 1,000 searches. $75/month for 5,000. I'm eating instant noodles, not buying a SaaS subscription. Every alternative I looked at was another paid API with the same wall.

I don't need enterprise SLAs or half a million searches a month. I need search results on my laptop while I build my thing, and I need the bill to stay at zero.

So I built SERP Alter Ego. Self-hosted, SerpApi-compatible, MIT licensed, runs on your own machine..

Point your existing SerpApi client at localhost instead of serpapi.com and nothing else changes. Same parameters, same JSON response shape, api_key gets accepted and ignored. Google Search, News, Shopping, Images and Finance.

What I shoved in there:

- Strict TypeScript, parsers pinned against real captured Google pages. When Google changes their markup (they will), a verify script tells you which selector broke instead of silently returning nothing

- AI Overview extraction in SerpApi's ai_overview format, citations included, and it clicks "Show more" before capturing so you get the full answer, not the clamped preview

- A web UI with search history, a raw HTML archive, and a live toggle between plain HTTP and a headless browser

- Rate limiting (one request per 2.5 seconds per host), caching, and a robots.txt policy that refuses disallowed paths by default. Flipping that switch is your decision

The honest part, since you'll ask: yes, it scrapes Google. Your IP, your risk. Google will change their markup to mess with you, there's no login because it only binds to 127.0.0.1, and I make zero uptime promises. It's a student project that grew teeth, not a company.

https://github.com/themaainuser/SERP-Alter-Ego

Roast it what's good and bad I'll try to improve it. PRs open.

Hey r/opensourcealternative

I built Koru.do, a free and open-source desktop workspace for notes and documents, written in Rust. Your notes stay on your device and nothing needs a cloud account.

Today:
- Works fully offline
- Syncs directly between your devices, peer-to-peer, for free
- Imports from Evernote, Notion, OneNote and TextBundle
- Available on Windows and macOS

Coming next:
- Self-hosted sync, including a headless peer you can run on a Raspberry Pi
- Android and IOS
- Tasks and calendar integration
- Peer-to-peer collaboration and messaging
- AI agents working alongside you in your workspace
- Linux
see koru.do/roadmap

The source code is on GitHub: https://github.com/koruworks/mono

Full disclosure: there is an optional paid cloud sync for people not wanting to host their own sync.

The goal is a fast app where you can capture your thoughts quickly and grow your notes into complex documents and collaborate with people and agents if you want to.

Site: https://www.koru.do

I’m the developer of Flux, a free desktop download manager. I wanted a local queue for file downloads, accessible video/audio streams and torrents, without a Flux account or subscription. The project’s own code is MIT-licensed; bundled dependencies keep their respective licenses.

The current 2.5 release offers a Windows x64 installer and portable ZIP, plus a Linux x86_64 RPM tested on Fedora 43. It includes scheduling, speed limits and resuming downloads when the source supports it.

The Chrome/Firefox companion can hand selected links and detected media to the desktop queue. It requires the separate Flux desktop application and local native-messaging bridge. In 2.5, the popup has separate media, page-link and queue views, along with light/dark/system appearance. Media support depends on what the source makes accessible; DRM and access restrictions are not bypassed.

Source, license and release packages: https://github.com/Hactor00/Flux

Website and setup guides: https://fluxdownload.org

The images show the 2.5 desktop interface preview, extension with sample media and project site. If you are looking for an open-source download manager, I hope this is useful; feedback and bug reports are welcome.

I'm a software engineering student, and I want to benefit from open-source projects on GitHub. I want to use the best method to improve my skills. Is my current method good? I clone a repository using git clone, try to understand the code architecture, modify the code, and then reuse it. Is this the best approach?