Updated August 2026 · 911 entries

    Open Source Projects With Real Momentum

    Projects shipping commits in at least 9 of the last 12 months, with a recent release and no archive flag.

    TL;DR • real momentum • as of August 2026

    Momentum is the only signal that separates a maintained project from a popular README. These projects committed code in most of the last twelve months and cut a release recently, so building on them is a defensible bet. This view holds 911 projects, refreshed August 2026.

    All 911 projects in this view

    Awesome-Selfhosted

    Alternative to Other lists of free / software

    315k

    A list of Free Software network services and web applications which can be hosted on your own servers

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum

    n8n

    Alternative to Zapier

    201k

    Free node based Workflow Automation Tool. Easily automate tasks across different services.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    Apache-2.0, Commons-Clause

    Ollama

    Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)

    179k

    Get up and running with Llama 3.3, DeepSeek-R1, Phi-4, Gemma 3, and other large language models.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Open-WebUI

    Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)

    149k

    User-friendly AI Interface, supports Ollama, OpenAI API.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    BSD-3-Clause

    RustDesk

    Alternative to TeamViewer

    122k

    Open source virtual / remote desktop infrastructure for everyone

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum

    Immich

    Photo Galleries

    111k

    Photo and video backup solution directly from your mobile phone (alternative to Google Photos).

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    AGPL-3.0

    Supabase

    Alternative to Firebase, Backend-as-a-Service

    108k

    Backend server with REST APIs to manage core backend needs

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum

    Home Assistant

    Internet of Things (IoT)

    90k

    Home automation platform.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    Apache-2.0

    Stirling-PDF

    Document Management

    90k

    Local hosted web application that allows you to perform various operations on PDF files, such as merging, splitting, file conversions and OCR.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    Apache-2.0

    Hugo

    Alternative to Static website generator

    90k
    Actively maintained
    Real momentum

    Syncthing

    File Transfer & Synchronization

    88k

    Syncthing is an open source peer-to-peer file synchronisation tool.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MPL-2.0

    LobeHub

    Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)

    82k

    Modern design AI chat framework supporting multiple AI providers, one click install MCP Marketplace and Artifacts / Thinking.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    ⊘ Proprietary

    Netdata

    Alternative to DataDog, NewRelic

    80k

    Application monitoring and observability platform

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum

    Hoppscotch Community Edition

    Alternative to Postman, API development

    80k

    Fast and beautiful API request builder.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Font-Awesome

    Alternative to Icons

    77k
    Actively maintained
    Real momentum

    Grafana

    Alternative to DataDog, NewRelic

    76k

    Observability and data visualization platform

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum

    Caddy

    Web Servers

    75k

    Powerful, enterprise-ready, open source web server with automatic HTTPS.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    Apache-2.0

    Superset

    Alternative to PowerBI, Tableau, Mode Analytics

    74k

    Modern data exploration and visualization platform.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    Apache-2.0

    Strapi

    Alternative to Contentful, Content Management System/ CMS

    73k

    The most advanced open-source Content Management Framework (headless-CMS) to build powerful API with no effort.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    OpenBB Terminal

    Alternative to Bloomberg

    72k

    Investment research for everyone

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum

    AFFiNE Community Edition

    Alternative to Team knowledge base, Knowledge Bases

    72k

    Next-gen knowledge base that brings planning, sorting and creating all together. Privacy first, customizable and ready to use (alternative to Notion and Miro).

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT, AGPL-3.0

    Prometheus

    Alternative to Time-series database

    66k
    Actively maintained
    Real momentum

    AnythingLLM

    Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)

    65k

    All-in-one desktop & Docker AI application with built-in RAG, AI agents, No-code agent builder, MCP compatibility, and more.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    NocoDB

    Alternative to AirTable, Smart spreadsheet

    65k

    No-code platform that turns any database into a smart spreadsheet (alternative to Airtable and Smartsheet).

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    SUL-1.0

    Astro

    Alternative to Static website generator

    62k

    The web framework for content-driven websites. ⭐️ Star to support our work!

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum

    Coolify

    Alternative to Heroku, Platform-as-a-Service/ PaaS, Platform as a Service / PaaS

    61k

    Self-hostable Heroku alternative

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    Apache-2.0

    penpot

    Alternative to Figma, Collaborative design tool

    59k

    Web-based design and prototyping platform meant for cross-domain teams.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MPL-2.0

    Remotion

    Alternative to Programmatic videos

    57k
    Actively maintained
    Real momentum

    Gitea

    Alternative to Code hosting & collaboration

    57k

    Git with a cup of tea! Painless self-hosted all-in-one software development service, including Git hosting, code review, team collaboration, package registry and CI/CD.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Appwrite

    Alternative to Firebase, Backend-as-a-Service

    57k

    End to end backend server for web, native, and mobile developers 🚀.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    BSD-3-Clause

    Plane

    Alternative to Linear, JIRA, Trello, Height, Project Management, Bug tracking

    56k

    Track issues, epics, and product roadmaps in the simplest way possible (alternative to JIRA, Linear and Height).

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    AGPL-3.0

    Joplin

    Alternative to Evernote, Onenote, Roam Research, Note-taking/ Knowledge management, Note-taking / Personal Knowledge Management

    56k

    Note taking application with markdown editor and encryption support for mobile and desktop platforms. Runs client-side and syncs through a self hosted Nextcloud instance or similar (alternative to Eve

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Jellyfin

    Media Streaming

    56k

    Media server for audio, video, books, comics, and photos with a sleek interface and robust transcoding capabilities. Almost all modern platforms have clients, including Roku, Android TV, iOS, and Kodi

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    GPL-2.0

    Twenty

    Alternative to CRM

    55k

    A modern CRM offering the flexibility of open source, advanced features, and a sleek design.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    AGPL-3.0

    Ghost

    Alternative to Medium, Substack, Company blogs/ newsletters, Web CMS and Blog Engines

    55k

    Just a blogging platform.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Odoo

    Alternative to ERP

    54k

    Free open source ERP system.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    LGPL-3.0

    Jekyll

    Alternative to Static website generator

    52k
    Actively maintained
    Real momentum

    Mastodon

    Alternative to Social network/ Micro-blogging

    50k

    Federated microblogging server.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    AGPL-3.0

    Showing 48 of 911

    How to compete when a free version already exists

    Why 'someone already built it' is the wrong conclusion

    Existence is not competition. A project competes with you only if it is maintained, findable, deployable by your buyer and licensed for their use. Most projects fail at least one of those tests. Run all four before you shelve an idea — or before you assume you have a clear run.

    • Maintained: commits in the last twelve months and a recent release.
    • Findable: your buyer can discover it without knowing the project name.
    • Deployable: the buyer's team can actually run it without a platform engineer.
    • Licensed: the licence permits the use your buyer needs.

    How stars mislead founders

    Stars are a lifetime counter with no decay, so a project abandoned in 2022 still looks like a leader in 2026. In this dataset 222 projects are dormant, abandoned or archived, and several of them sit in the top decile by stars. Sort by momentum and commit activity instead — popularity tells you the project was once interesting, maintenance tells you whether it will still be there when your customer needs a bug fixed.

    The self-hosting cost buyers forget to count

    When a prospect says 'we could just self-host the free one', they are usually comparing your price against zero. The real comparison is your price against hosting, upgrades, backups, security patching, integration work and the engineer hours behind all of it. Quantifying that number is the single most effective response to a free-alternative objection — and it is more persuasive coming with a spreadsheet than with a feature list.

    • Infrastructure: compute, storage, backups, monitoring.
    • Upgrades: breaking releases, migration work, dependency drift.
    • Security: patching, access control, audit trails, compliance evidence.
    • Opportunity cost: engineer time not spent on your buyer's actual product.

    Licences decide business models

    Founders treat licensing as a legal footnote and then discover it dictates strategy. Permissive licences allow closed commercial forks, which is why so many managed services exist around MIT and Apache projects — and also why your differentiation cannot be the code itself. Copyleft licences, especially AGPL, remove the closed-wrapper option entirely, which reduces competition but restricts you too. Source-available licences exist precisely to stop the wrapper business.

    Open source competition: common questions

    How do I know if my startup idea already exists as open source?

    Search this database by category and by the commercial product you would replace. It covers 1665 projects across 130 categories, each mapped to the paid tool it substitutes. If your category shows a "Crowded" verdict, a maintained free version almost certainly exists and your positioning has to account for it.

    Does an open-source alternative mean I should not build my product?

    No. It means free is your price anchor. Plenty of large companies were built next to a good open-source project — the ones that failed were the ones selling the same job at a price the free tool made indefensible. Find the part of the job the project deliberately does not do, and sell that.

    What does the saturation score mean?

    Each category gets a 0–100 score built from three inputs: how many implementations exist, what share of them are still actively maintained, and how far ahead the leading project is compared with the category median. 62+ is Crowded, 38–61 Contested, under 38 Open. 11 categories are Crowded and 88 are Open.

    How is 'real momentum' calculated?

    A project has momentum when it committed code in most of the last twelve months, shipped a release recently and is not archived. 911 of 1665 projects qualify. This is the single most useful filter here — it strips out the popular-but-dead repositories that make a category look more competitive than it is.

    Can I use an open-source project commercially?

    It depends entirely on the licence. MIT, Apache and BSD let you build and sell closed products on top. GPL and AGPL require derivative work to stay open, and AGPL extends that to network use, which blocks most SaaS wrappers. BSL, SSPL and Commons Clause are source-available, not open source, and usually restrict competing commercial use outright.

    Check your idea against the whole dataset

    IdeaProof scores your idea against live competitors, market size and 1,000+ documented startup failures in about two minutes.