Nowadays there are free alternatives to almost all categories of commercial software.
Some free software are comparable in capabilities to commercial ones, and in some categories there are more free software, so you can choose.
I did a little research on the current state and as a result I created this table of alternatives systematized by category:
• The first column contains the name of the category,
• The second column contains the names of the most popular commercial software for that category,
• The third column contains the names of free software alternatives for that category.
The situation often changes, and maybe I haven't done enough research either, so if you know of a new category or software (commercial or free) that should be added to the table, please let me know, I'll be happy to expand it. I hope this table will help a lot of people and save them a lot of money.
Note: Be patient when you start using a free software, you may spend a little more time while mastering it, but in time the effort will pay off.
| Category | Commercial software | Free alternatives |
| 2D Animation | Moho Clip Studio Paint Adobe Animate Cartoon Animator | Krita Synfig Pencil2D TupiTube Glaxnimate Friction |
| 2D CAD (Computer Aided design) | AutoCAD BricsCAD IntelliCAD NanoCAD DraftSight ZWCAD | FreeCAD Draft QCAD LibreCAD NanoCAD Free Solid Edge 2D Drafting |
| 2D and 3D CAD Viewers | CAD Exchanger Kisters 3DViewStation CADBro DMU Reviewer Glovius CAD Viewer 3D FastView 3D Tool Workxplore HOOPS TransMagic | CAD Assistant C3D Viewer eDrawings Viewer Solid edge free viewer Mayo |
| 3D Animation | Modo LightWave 3D iClone Houdini Cinema 4D MotionBuilder Maya 3ds Max | Blender Anim8or |
| 3D CAD (Computer Aided Design) | NX Catia Solid Edge Solid Works T-Flex ZW3D Ascon Kompas-3D Creo Inventor IronCAD Alibre Fusion 360 KeyCreator Cobalt OnShape Rhinoceros 3D SketchUp SpaceClaim | FreeCAD Salome shaper SolveSpace OpenSCAD FlatFab |
| 3D CAD for Children | LeoCAD Tinkercad 3D Slash Goxel | |
| 3D Modeling | Autodesk Maya Autodesk 3ds Max Cinema 4D ZBrush Design Doll Houdini 3D-Coat Cheetah3D MODO Poser Autodesk Mudbox | Blender Wings 3D MeshLab MathMod TopMod MakeHuman Anim8or Seamless3d Art of Illusion SculptGL Dust3D |
| 3D Printing | Craftware Pro Simplify3D KISSlicer ChopChop3D Slicer 3DXpert Lychee Slicer ChituBox | Slic3r Cura Repetier Host MatterControl OctoPrint PrusaSlicer |
| 3D Rendering | V-Ray D5***** 3Delight***** RenderMan MentalRay Maxwell Render 3Delight Chaos Corona Lumion OctaneRender | POVRay CADRay Kerkythea YafaRay LuxRender Mitsuba Appleseed |
| 3D Scanning | GigaMesh CloudCompare Meshroom | |
| ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) | Tuleap | Endeavour Agile |
| Antivirus | Kaspersky Avast AVG Comodo Avira | |
| Audio (Record, Edit, and Mix) | LMMS Audacity Ardour | |
Audio Players Music players | MediaMonkey Jriver Media Center | FooBAR2000 DeaDBeeF Exaile JuK Quod Libet qmmp MusicBee AIMP Amarok Audacious WinAmp Clementine Rhythmbox** XMMS ** |
Backup Synchronization (files and folders) | Syncovery Acronis True Image Image for Windows MAX SyncUp Macrium Reflect FreeFileSync | Amanda Back in Time** Bacula Bup DirSync Pro git-annex Dual Commander (Synch) Free Commander (Synch) Unreal Commander (Synch) Altap Salamander (Synch) |
3D CAD (Architecture and Engineering) BIM (Building information modeling) | Autodesk Revit ArchiCAD AllPlan Tekla Structures Microstation Renga SketchUp Rhinoceros 3D | FreeCAD BlenderBIM FreeCAD Arch Sweet Home 3D |
| Bootable USB, LiveUSB | Ventoy Universal USB Installer UNetbootin Rufus DasBoot balenaEtcher Universal USB Installer | |
| CAD Kernels | Parasolid ACIS ShapeManager C3D Toolkit | OpenCascade |
| CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) | Ansys Msc Nastran Msc Patran ADAMS Abaqus Adina LS-Dyna FEMAP Nastran NX NEi Nastran | Code_Aster SALOME FreeCAD FEM OpenFOAM Gmsh ONELAB Elmer FEM CalculiX FreeFEM ParaView Project Chrono SOFA Framework |
| CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing) | GibbsCAM Esprit SmartCAM SolidCAM SprutCAM MasterCAM hyperMILL and almost all 3D CAD software | FreeCAD Path BlenderCAM LinuxCNC CAMotics PyCAM F-Engrave LaserGRBL LaserWeb Grbl |
| CMS (Content Management Systems) | Adobe ColdFusion Headless CMS Sitefinity | Drupal WordPress Joomla TYPO3 django CMS b2evolution Backdrop CMS |
Computer Algebra System (CAS) or Symbolic Algebra System (SAS) | Maple Mathcad Matlab Wolfram Mathematica SMath Studio* | Xcas Yacas GeoGebra GNU Octave Maxima SageMath Scilab Reduce |
| Desktop Publishing | Adobe InDesign iStudio Publisher Affinity Publisher QuarkXPress Xara Page & Layout Designer PageStream | Scribus Lyx (LaTeX) |
| Desktop Sharing, Remote Access | GoTo TeamViewer* RustDesk* ThinLinc* AnyDesk* NoMachine* Splashtop Mikogo | TightVNC Remmina |
| Diagramming | ConceptDraw DIAGRAM Edraw Max | Dia |
| eCommerce | SupaDupa Spree Shopify Adobe Commerce | OpenCart Prestashop Zen Cart WooCommerce (WordPress) VirtueMart (Joomla) OsCommerce Drupal Commerce |
| EDA (Electronic Design Automation) | OrCAD Altium Designer Eagle Proteus DipTrace CADStar | Fritzing KiCAD FreePCB Pcb-rnd LibrePCB Horizon EDA |
| Electronic Circuit Simulation | Tina | Qucs Qucs-S LTspice Ngspice KTechLab SapWin |
| E-mail Client | Canary Mail* eM Client* GroupWise Mailbird | Mozilla Thunderbird Claws Mail GNOME Evolution** Kontact SeaMonkey Geary ** |
| Encryption | BestCrypt Dekart Private Disk | Cryptomator AES Crypt VeraCrypt GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) |
| Engineering | OpenVSP FREE!ship XFLR5 FlightGear | |
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), Accounting, CRM, SCM... | SAP Oracle NetSuite Sage Microsoft Dynamics | Tryton metasfresh iDempiere ERPNext Dolibarr Apache OFBiz |
| Files compression | WinZIP WinRAR | 7z |
| Font Editors | FontDraw FontLab TypeTool 3 | FontForge BirdFont |
Infographic, Scientific Visualization, Data Visuelization | Origin Matlab FlexPro | Graphviz VisIt ROOT ParaView Veusz Orange MayaVi LabPlot gnuplot – samo linux GNU Octave Gephi |
| Interactive Geometry | Dr. Geo C.a.R. | |
Office Productivity Software - Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Presentation, Database | Microsoft Office WordPerfect OnlyOffice Office Suite Ability Office Group Office SoftMaker Office WPS Office | LibreOffice Calligra Apache OpenOffice |
| OS - Operating system | Microsoft Windows | FreeBSD Ubuntu Linux Debian Linux MX Linux Mint Linux Fedora Manjaro EndeavourOS and many more |
| Orthodox file manager | Total Commander | Free commander Unreal Commander Double Commander Altap Salamander Multi Commander File Commander |
| Mind Mapping | Xmind | FreePlane |
| Machine Learning | Knime* | Shogun (toolbox) Weka Torch Orange mlpack |
| Messenger, Instant Messaging | Threema Messagenius Wickr | Asterisk Telegram Element Jami Tox Signal |
| Note-taking Software | Microsoft OneNote Obsidian * Standard Notes * EverNote Roam TagSpaces*** | Xournal++ LogSeq Joplin QOwnNotes Zettlr RNote** GNote** TiddlyWiki |
| Password Manager | RoboForm**** Kaspersky Password Manager LastPass**** Bitwarden* 1Password | Password Safe KWallet KeeWeb KeePassXC GNOME Keyring |
| PDF Editors and Creators | PDF-Xchange Editor Nitro PDF Pro Acrobat PDFCreator Foxit PDF Editor DoPDF CutePDF ABBYY FineReader PDF PDFill PDF reDirect | PDF24 Creator PDFtk Free PDFill PDF Tools LibreOffice Calligra |
| PDF Viewers, Document Viewer | ABBYY FineReader PDF Foxit PDF Reader doPDF | XpdfReader MuPDF Evince** Acrobat Reader Okular STDU Viewer Sumatra PDF |
| Personal Accounting Software | Moneydance Moneyspire MoneyWiz Quicken | HomeBank KMyMoney GNUCash |
| Photogrammetry | RealityCapture Pix4D PhotoModeler Metashape 3DF Zephyr | |
PDM (Product Data Management) PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) | TeamCenter (Siemens PLM) WindChill (PTC) Pilot-ICE (Ascon) T-FLEX DOCs Enovia (Dassault) | |
| Project Management | ConceptDraw PROJECT Microsoft Project TeamPage RillSoft OpenProject* OnePager | FastTrack Calligra Plan TaskJuggler** Taiga ProjeQtOr ProjectLibre GanttProject |
| Raster Graphics Editor | Adobe PhotoShop Affinity Photo PixelMator Pro Clip Studio Paint Corel PaintShop | GIMP Krita Paint.NET MyPaint Pinta LazPaint PhotoDemon |
Raster Graphics Image Organizer | digiKam KPhotoAlbum** Geeqie** | |
Raster Graphics Image Stitching and Panorama | PTgui i2k Align Panoweaver Affinity Photo Photoshop | Hugin |
Raster Graphics Image Viewer | IrfanView * FastStone * XnView * ACDSee | PhotoQt ImageGlass PicView Shotwell ** qView KPhotoAlbum** Gwenview** gThumb** Gonvisor |
Raster Graphics Raw Photo Editor | Adobe Lightroom | RawTherapee DarkTable |
Raster Graphics ScreenShot Software | ScreenToGif GreenShot ShareX | |
| Screencasting Software | Snagit Camtasia FlashBack Screen Recorder BandiCAM ActivePresenter | OBS Studio VLC media player SimpleScreenRecorder** ShareX ScreenToGIF CAM Studio |
| Statistics | StatsDirect Statistica Statgraphics Stata SAS Rguroo Minitab Genstat SPSS NCSS JMP EViews | SOFA Statistics Simfit Mondrian JAMOVI ADMB Gretl Epi Info |
| Vector Graphic Editor | Adobe Illustrator Affinity Designer CorelDRAW DrawPlus WinFig Linearity Curve Xara Designer Pro+ | Inkscape Karbon SK1 Synfig Studio Knotter LibreOffice - Draw Xfig** Pencil2D |
| Video compositing | Adobe AfterEffects Davinci Resolve Avid Lightworks Hitfilm Express | Olive (prototype) |
| Video Editing | Adobe Premiere Corel VideoStudio Camtasia | ShotCut Natron VSDC Free Video Editor Kdenlive Avidemux Flowblade** LosslessCut OpenShot Pitivi ** |
| Video Players | WinDVD RealPlayer PowerDVD PotPlayer JRiver Media Center JetAudio | VLC Media Player mpv media player SM Player MPlayer ALLPlayer KMPlayer Kodi MediaPortal WinAmp GNOME Videos |
| Web Browsers | Chrome Safari Firefox Opera YaBrowser Tor Maxthon SeaMonkey Brave Edge Konqueror** | |
Web Conferencing Video Conferencing | GoTo Microsoft Teams Zoom*** Mikogo TeamViewer* | BigBlueButton Jami Jitsi Apache OpenMeetings |
* - Free for personal or non-commercial use
** - Only for Linux OS
*** - Free for a limited number of users
**** - Free for a single device
***** - Free under certain conditions