5 open source apps which give me a premium experience for free

Why spend on pricey apps when open source does the job for free? Here are 5 open source apps I use daily without paying a dime.

Are you tired of paying thousands for apps and services? Don’t worry, today I am going to tell you about five of my favourite open-source apps that I use daily. These apps are completely free to use, but keep in mind that some of them are only available for Android. Give them a try, and you might just find your new go-to apps without spending a dime.

Joplin: Note-taking and to-do app

Replace your pricy apps with these open source ones

By Amit Rahi

For the past seven years, I have tracked consumer tech through constant shifts in hardware, platforms, and the way people actually use devices. Covering everything from budget gear to flagship hardware, I focus on what readers need to know, not on buzzwords or launch cycle hype. My expertise spans gaming laptops and chairs, high-performance PCs, gaming monitors, printers, smartwatches, earphones, headphones, Bluetooth speakers, tablets, and more, with a particular emphasis on how these products hold up in daily use. Reviews, explainers, buying guides, and news pieces all share the same goal: giving readers enough detail to make confident decisions without wading through fluff. Away from deadlines, I spend a lot of time gaming and watching films and anime, which naturally filters back into the work. Performance, comfort, display quality, and sound are judged the way players and viewers experience them, not just by lab numbers, which keeps my coverage grounded in real scenarios rather than just benchmarks.

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Joplin is a really good notetaking app that comes with a simple interface and is available on all major platforms. It lets you sync the notes across platforms and the best part is that you can import your notes from Evernote to Joplin.

It saves your notes locally on the device and also lets you sync with Joplin Cloud, Nextcloud, OneDrive and Dropbox. The interface is clean and easy to use, but can be highly customised with plugins and themes.

RedYou: Android RSS reader

I love to read news from my favourite websites first thing in the morning, but opening all the websites one by one is tedious. To read all the latest posts, I use ReadYou. It is an open-source app available only for Android, featuring a clean and simple interface.

It uses the Material You design and has zero distractions between you and your feed. You can create custom feeds for different topics, and it can send you notifications when a new article is published. It can parse full content, so there is no need to open a browser to read the entire story. Apple users can use NetNewsWire, an open-source app available for iOS and macOS.

LocalSend: Cross-platform file transfer

I am an Android user but use a MacBook as my work laptop, and sharing files between these two devices can be frustrating. LocalSend is a lifesaver in this situation. I can share files across my Android and MacBook easily without using wires, even for large video files.

The LocalSend app is available on all platforms and is very simple to use. There are no ads on either the phone or desktop versions. You can share not only files but also text from the clipboard, text messages, and even entire folders.

Bitwarden: Password manager

AdAway is hands down the best ad blocker for Android users like me. It’s completely free and open source, which I love. The app works by updating your device’s hosts file to block ads system-wide, not just in browsers but across all apps. If your phone is rooted, it’s even easier to set up, and the results are fantastic.