Ask HN: Which "open-source alternatives" have succeeded?

1. hn-search

   1 1,985 555 2.9 TypeScript

   Hacker News Search

   

   https://hn.algolia.com/?q=open+source+alternative

   I have some personal hypotheses on why this is a common pattern, but I am mostly wondering whether any of these have really succeeded as projects / businesses. Are there any examples of these "open source alternative"-type products really taking off?

2. CodeRabbit

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   CodeRabbit: AI Code Reviews for Developers. Revolutionize your code reviews with AI. CodeRabbit offers PR summaries, code walkthroughs, 1-click suggestions, and AST-based analysis. Boost productivity and code quality across all major languages with each PR.

   

3. Outline

   2 204 31,082 9.9 TypeScript

   The fastest knowledge base for growing teams. Beautiful, realtime collaborative, feature packed, and markdown compatible.

   

   GitLab, Mattermost, RocketChat would be a few good examples of products that began as OSS alternatives to well-established players. I'm not sure if any of these ever pitched themselves explicitly that way on HN though

   Outline (https://www.getoutline.com) is successful on most metrics you'd judge a business and OSS project on.

4. Dokuwiki

   3 20 4,262 9.4 PHP

   The DokuWiki Open Source Wiki Engine

   

   DokuWiki.

   This database-free FOSS wiki engine [1] with a focus on simplicity is 19 years old, still gets updated, has useful extensions for additional features, is a great choice for many uses, has adopters that use and love it, and has an estimated 50,000-250,000 installations [2].

   As someone said, "DokuWiki is and will remain king for many simple reasons" [3].

   [1] https://www.dokuwiki.org

5. Bitwarden

   4 1,061 16,205 9.9 C#

   Bitwarden infrastructure/backend (API, database, Docker, etc). (by bitwarden)

   

6. Canvas LMS

   5 34 5,904 10.0 Ruby

   The open LMS by Instructure, Inc.

   

   Canvas is an open-source learning management system used at universities: https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms

7. Jellyfin

   6 1,048 37,851 9.9 C#

   The Free Software Media System - Server Backend & API

   

   With how anti-consumer the recent Plex moves have been, Jellyfin [1] has gotten really popular among self-hosting community. It is arguably the best alternative to Plex in terms of features and the amount of freedom given to the user.

   [1] https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin

8. darktable

   7 397 10,492 10.0 C

   darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer

   

9. SaaSHub

   www.saashub.com featured

   SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews. SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives

   

10. findroid

    8 31 2,983 9.4 Kotlin

    Third-party native Jellyfin Android app

    

11. obs-studio

    9 2,375 62,814 9.8 C

    OBS Studio - Free and open source software for live streaming and screen recording

    

    OBS Studio - I found this to be a very valuable and successful application for video and audio editing, with some amazing companies sponsoring them. - https://obsproject.com/

12. WackoWiki

    10 3 49 8.6 PHP

    WackoWiki is a light and handy Wiki-engine.

    

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