Top open source windows programs

You can go one step further and self-host your Mattermost account for peace of mind. Plus, Mattermost has all the features that you would expect from a collaboration tool. Features like file sharing, group chat, seamless integration with enterprise systems, and the ability to create custom workflows are just a handful of reasons why Mattermost should be on your radar.

Download: Mattermost Free, premium version available. HandBrake is an open-source video encoder that has been around since It allows you to convert any video format to a format of your choice. You can also batch scan and encode multiple video files at once. Download: HandBrake Free. Shotcut is a free, open-source alternative to commercial video editing software like Adobe Premiere Pro. Like Premiere Pro it is a timeline-based editor where you can drag and drop assets.

You can dock panels and remove them as in Premiere Pro. Finally, Shotcut has a sizeable collection of free educational resources on its website. These resources go a long way in ensuring users have a strong knowledge base to take full advantage of Shotcut. Download: Shotcut Free. Out of all the apps on this list, a web browser is the most useful. The software can easily recover deleted partition tables as well. Efficient use of time is essential for the successful execution of any task, and computer-based activities are no exception.

If you're looking for the best open-source time-tracking software, look no further than eHour. A Web-based, time-tracking tool, eHour is ideal for companies that need accurate information on how much time employees are spending on projects. It allows you to create multiple projects per customer, and assign multiple users to a single project. That's not all. It's possible to configure days off, sick leave, etc.

You can lock timesheets, generate an Excel summary of all reports and even configure automatic email reminders. Whether you're an individual or a business owner, it's important to keep track of your or your company's finances.

There are many financial-accounting programs that can help you do that, and GnuCash is one of the best. GnuCash is an open-source personal and small-business accounting software. Easy to use yet powerful, GnuCash lets you track bank accounts, stocks, income, and expenses.

It's based on professional accounting principles and thus, ensures balanced books and accounts reports. Featuring a double-entry bookkeeping system, GnuCash has a checkbook-style register that provides a convenient and familiar interface for logging financial transactions. You can enter split transactions and have multiple accounts displayed in a single register window. A summary bar shows all of the relevant account's balance information.

GnuCash lets you configure recurring transactions and set up automatic reminders for due transactions. An integrated module makes it easy to display financial data as bar charts and more.

However, regular users can also use it for things like converting analog audio to digital tracks. Regardless of the category you fall in, Audacity is just what you need. Among the most popular open-source software, Audacity is a cross-platform audio editor. It lets you digitize recordings from other media and can capture streaming audio as well. You can dub over existing tracks to create multi-track recordings, and record multiple channels at once.

Audacity supports sample rates of up to ,Hz. You can import and export raw files, and export. For editing, Audacity has unlimited undo and redo support. There are also several experimental modules that can further improve its functionality. Tracks and selections can be fully manipulated via keyboard, and there's a range of keyboard shortcuts available to further ease things up. In today's always-online world, it's not enough for you or your business to have a website.

That website also needs to stand out from the competition. There are many feature-loaded Web design applications that you can use to create great-looking websites, with OpenElement being the best open-source software. Thunderbird is an email client that also incorporates a calendar, a chat client, and the ability to accept RSS feeds, among other things. The emails, on the other hand, are listed in a clumsy style that may detract from your user experience.

Mozilla created Thunderbird, an email client. It was launched in to meet the growing need for a dedicated email client. Mozilla has shifted its focus away from Thunderbird in recent years because it does not feel it can have the same industry-wide impact as Firefox. It can import and export data from other password managers, and it has a built-in password generator that can generate random passwords.

Whenever software has an open source license, it means anyone in the world can download, modify and distribute it without paying fees to its original creator. By contrast, successful open source initiatives are built on the hard work of potentially thousands of collaborators who have voluntarily given up their time to create something awesome. Such an accessible development system has some serious advantages. Open source software is often more secure because people from around the world scrutinize new releases and bugs get reported and addressed fast.

Also, people are motivated to add cool new features to open source platforms which means open source software is often just as good, if not better, than competing pay-to-use programs.

While open source software is used in everything from networks to web servers, here we'll focus on the best open source software for you to download and run on your desktop or laptop. We've also featured the best laptop for programming. Some would actually argue that LibreOffice is the more fully-featured of the two, thanks to its dedicated developer community which is adding new tools and tricks all the time. For example, in the latest update, LibreOffice added a QR code generator tool so you can quickly create mobile-friendly links.

An alternative well-known open source office tool is Open Office, which offers many similar features to LibreOffice. The reason that LibreOffice has taken the top spot today is that it is much better at preserving Microsoft file formats.

The only downside to this awesome free office software is that editing documents collaboratively online is a bit tricky. Recently, an online editing option has been added but it still requires some technical know-how to implement. Read our full LibreOffice review. You can use VLC media player to open audio and video files in just about any format without having to hunt down extra codecs.

VLC also works for streaming media such as podcasts and online radio stations. But perhaps the greatest VLC media player feature is playback control. You can change almost everything about how your media is displayed from hardware optimization to adding subtitle files from third-party sources. Like some of the other amazing open source offerings mentioned here, VLC is constantly being upgraded with new goodies and features to explore.

The latest updates to the free video player have included the ability to stream to other devices like Chromecasts and degree video support for VR headsets.