100 Essential and Must-Have GUI Linux Applications

Last Updated on August 7, 2023

There is a staggering amount of proven open source software available to download. But it’s really difficult to keep up with the cream of the cream. That’s where this compilation aims to help.

We select the best-of-breed GUI (Graphical User Interface) software ranging from projects coded by individual programmers, small teams of enthusiasts, extending to large multinational corporations. The compilation largely reflects software that our volunteers use as their daily drivers.

We mostly recommend cross-platform software, but, where appropriate, make some exceptions. We include a select few proprietary applications along the way. We try to avoid duplication as much as possible. A few of omissions will definitely raise some eyebrows. For example, there’s no room for Firefox even though it’s open source software (unlike Chrome) and some of our volunteers strongly prefer it over any other web browser.

There are so many awesome GUI Linux apps not included in this roundup. Once you’ve digested the 100 apps here, please explore our hugely curated recommended free and open source software.

TUI software is covered here. And CLI software is covered here.

Let’s kick off the 100 essential apps as chosen by our volunteers.

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is a full-blown office suite packed with features. It provides Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts), Base (databases), and Math (formula editing). Users who’ve used Microsoft Office for years will appreciate that LibreOffice has made enormous strides in offering better compatibility with DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX files. For example, LibreOffice’s DOCX is saved in native 2013/2016/2019 mode. LibreOffice has native support for a modern and open standard, the Open Document Format (ODF). ODF 1.3’s most important new features are document digital signatures and OpenPGP-based XML document encryption. The new ODF also boasts improvements in change tracking, and elements first pages, text, numbers, and charts. LibreOffice's Website Mozilla Public License v2.0 Written in C++, XML, and Java

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Thunderbird

Thunderbird is widely and deservedly regarded as an exceptional open source desktop email client, especially on Linux. It’s also a proficient personal information manager, news client, RSS and chat client. Thunderbird is highly customizable, has a rich set of features, and is geared for both novices and professional users. Thunderbird's Website Mozilla Public License v2.0 Written in C, C++, and JavaScript

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Chrome

Chrome is the most widely used web browser. It boasts a minimalist design, security and high-speed browsing. We must give a special mention to Firefox as it's also a top-class web browser and, unlike, Chrome, Firefox is open source software. But we wanted to include a diverse range of the finest software in this round-up, so we've deliberately restricted ourselves to just one web browser. Chrome's Website Proprietary freeware, based on open source components Written in C, C++, JavaScript, and Python

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GIMP

GIMP stands for the GNU Image Manipulation Program, software for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It has a large feature set. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, and more besides GIMP's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in C

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Steam
Steam is a large digital library of PC games. It's not a Linux specific store but it's home to thousands of games that run under this operating system. There are a relatively small percentage of Linux games hosted on Steam that can be downloaded without a charge. Most of the games at this location will need input from your wallet/purse. Steam's Website Proprietary software Written in C++

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Inkscape

Inkscape is a professional design tool perfect for illustrators, designers, artists, and web designers. It offers a great range of drawing tools, a powerful text tool, bezier and spiro curves, all combined with a wide file format compatibility. Inkscape sports capabilities similar to Abode Illustrator. Unlike Illustrator, Inkscape is free and open source software. Say goodbye to subscription software. Inkscape's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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Kodi
Kodi media center is a software media player and entertainment hub for digital media for HTPCs (Home theater PCs). Its graphical user interface allows the user to easily browse and view videos, photos, podcasts, and music from a harddrive, optical disc, local network, and the internet using only a few buttons. Kodi's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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OBS Studio

OBS Studio (Open Broadcaster Software) is software that lets you record video and live stream. It provides real-time capture, scene composition, recording, encoding, and broadcasting via Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP), HLS, SRT or RIST. Pair the software with a capable dedicated graphics card and you'll be creating high quality videos in no time whatsoever. OBS Studio's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C and C++

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VirtualBox
VirtualBox is virtualization software. It allows users to extend their existing computer to run multiple operating systems including Linux, macOS, Windows, and Solaris, at the same time. It's a great way to experiment with Linux distributions without messing up your existing operating system. VirtualBox's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in C, C++, x86 Assembly, and Python

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RStudio

RStudio is an integrated development environment (IDE) for R, a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. RStudio combines an intuitive user interface with powerful coding tools to help you get the most out of R. It includes a console, syntax-highlighting editor that supports direct code execution, as well as tools for plotting, history, and workspace management. RStudio includes a wide range of productivity enhancing features and runs on all major platforms. RStudio can optionally also be run as server which enables you to provide a browser based interface to a version of R running on a remote system. RStudio's Website GNU Affero General Public License v3 Written in Java, C++, and JavaScript

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Stellarium

Stellarium is a software project that allows people to use their home computer as a virtual planetarium. It calculates the positions of the Sun and Moon, planets and stars, and draws how the sky would look to an observer depending on their location and the time. It can also draw the constellations and simulate astronomical phenomena such as meteor showers, and solar or lunar eclipses. Stellarium can be used as an educational tool for teaching about the night sky, or as an observational aide for amateur astronomers wishing to plan a night’s observing. Stellarium's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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Blender
Blender is an awesome 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation. Blender's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C and C++

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VLC

VLC is a multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. Besides playing most multimedia files, discs, streams, devices it also converts, encodes, streams and manipulate streams into numerous formats. While it's a capable music player it lacks gapless playback. VLC's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C and C++

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Ardour
Ardour is a powerful digital audio workstation that gives you everything you need to record, edit, mix, and arrange professional audio. There are an impressive array of plugins available with full sample accurate automation. Ardour's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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Gaia Sky

Gaia Sky is a real-time 3D universe program. It’s developed within the framework of the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Gaia mission to chart more than 1 billion stars. The Gaia mission was launched in 2013, performing astrometry, photometry and spectroscopy of about one percent of all stars of our Galaxy at very high precision. The mission is to create the most accurate and complete multi-dimensional map of the Milky Way. Gaia is a survey mission. Gaia Sky's Website Mozilla Public License Written in Java

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Audacity
Audacity is a really easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder. It's brimming with features such as macros, scripting including a built-in scripting language called Nyquist, and analysis and visualization tools. Audacity's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in C, C++, and Python

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Tauon Music Box

Tauon Music Box is an absolute gem of a music player. Designed to be streamlined but powerful while putting the user in control of their music collection. It’s jam packed with great features even if its interface is idiosyncratic. Faded volume control, 24bit FLAC support and gapless playback provides the ultimate listening experience! Tauon Music Box's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in Python

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Cura
Cura is a state-of-the-art slicer app to prepare your 3D models for your 3D printer. Prepare prints with a few clicks, integrate with CAD software for an easier workflow, or dive into custom settings for in-depth control. Cura's Website GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 Written in Python

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darktable
darktable is a wonderful photography workflow application and raw developer. A virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable lighttable and enables you to develop raw images and enhance them. darktable's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in C

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Celestia

Celestia is software that offers a photo-realistic, real-time, 3D viewing of the solar system, the galaxy and the universe. Celestia is an excellent tool for astronomy education, and is used in homes, schools, museums and planetariums around the world. Celestia's primary star catalog is based on the Hipparcos database of stars with accurately measured distances. It includes all of the stars within 20 light years of the Sun, as well as about 200 double stars. Celestia's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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BleachBit
BleachBit is a very useful tool for system administration. It deletes unnecessary files from the system to free valuable disk space, protect privacy, and remove junk. This software removes cache, Internet history, temporary files, cookies, and broken shortcuts. BleachBit's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in Python

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Deskreen

Deskreen is software that lets you use any device with a web browser as a secondary screen. This device can be a wide range of hardware such as a smartphone, tablet, smart TV, or a notebook. And you can connect as many devices as required. If you have a multi-monitor setup, you already appreciate the virtues of multiple screens. But Deskreen offers many of these advantages without additional outlay. What makes this tool standout is that it's really easy to use. The project has prepared a great how-to guide, but you'll be up and running without reading it! Always a sign of quality and well engineered software. Deskreen's Website GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 Written in TypeScript

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digiKam
digiKam is an image organizer and tag editor. The software offers a comprehensive set of tools for importing, managing, editing, and sharing photos and raw files. The software is particularly strong with its tagging tools. Assign tags, ratings, and labels to photos and raw files. digiKam's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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Foliate

Foliate is a beautifully crated eBook reader. The developer has put a lot of effort in ensuring its easy to navigate around eBooks. The software offers a great range of features with a distraction-free reading experience that lets the interface fade out of view to enable the reader can concentrate on reading. There are other features included in the program which may be important to you. For example, there’s a quick dictionary lookup using Wiktionary and Wikipedia, translation of text using Google Translate, and support for touch screens. Foliate's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in JavaScript

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Discord
Discord is a voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) application designed for gaming communities. The software specializes in text and audio communication between users in a chat channel. Discord's Website Proprietary software The client is written in JavaScript

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GParted

GParted (GNOME Partition Editor) is a GTK+ front-end to GNU Parted, partition-editing application. This software creates, deletes, resizes, moves, checks, and copies disk partitions and their file systems. This is useful for creating space for new operating systems, reorganizing disk usage, copying data residing on hard disks, and mirroring one partition with another (known as disk imaging). GParted's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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FileZilla

FileZilla is an FTP and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive interface. The software includes a site manager which allows the creation of a compilation of FTP sites, with individual setting for port, protocol, login details, starting directories etc. This functionality is similar to bookmarking/cookies included with popular web browsers, saving time when accessing popular sites. FileZilla's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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flameshot
flameshot is an excellent utility for capturing custom areas of a desktop. It’s really easy to use, has a good range of annotation tools which have recently been expanded, and is sleek. flameshot's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in C++

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OpenShot Video Editor

OpenShot Video Editor is designed to be an easy to use, and quick to learn. It's a surprisingly powerful video editor. OpenShot can read and write most video and image formats. It comes with a powerful key frame animation framework, and it’s capable of an unlimited number of key frames and animation possibilities. There are unlimited tracks/layers, over 400 video transitions with real-time previews, advanced timeline, frame accuracy, audio mixing and editing, and much more. OpenShot's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in Python

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Surge XT
Surge XT is a hybrid polyphonic synthesizer which supports MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) and runs as an LV2 plugin, or as a VST. The term “hybrid” usually means that the instrument uses a combination of analog and digital components, ideally providing some of the finer aspects of both realms. Surge XT's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in C and C++

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Kdenlive
Kdenlive is another awesome open source video editor. It offers all the essentials including multi-track video editing, it supports almost all audio and video formats directly, offers tons of effects and transitions, and much more. Kdenlive's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in C++

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GnuCash

GnuCash is a personal and small-business financial accounting program. Designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible, GnuCash allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses. As quick and intuitive to use as a checkbook register, it is based on professional accounting principles to ensure balanced books and accurate reports. GnuCash's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 or v3.0 Written in C, C++, and Scheme

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KeePassXC

KeePassXC is an impressive password manager. It's targeted at people with high demands on secure personal data management. It sports a light interface. The software is a cross-platform community fork of KeePassX. The software lets users store their passwords securely and auto-type them into their everyday websites and applications. The goal of the project is to extend and enhance KeePass new features and bugfixes to provide a feature-rich, fully cross-platform and modern open-source password manager. KeePassXC's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 and 3.0 Written in C++

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Heroic Games Launcher
Heroic Games Launcher ("Heroic") is a free and open source games launcher for Epic Games and GOG. Epic Games is an American video game and software developer and publisher. GOG is a digital distribution platform. Heroic is an open source alternative to the proprietary Epic Games Launcher that runs on Windows and macOS only. Heroic's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in TypeScript

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Okular

Okular is a universal document viewer. Okular is fast and packed with features. This software lets you read PDF documents, comics and EPub books, browse images, visualize Markdown documents, and much more. Okular has a wide range of features that lets you easily manage your documents. These include annotating PDFs, select and view text, thumbnails panel, and signature support. Okular's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 or v3.0 Written in C++

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Mattermost

Mattermost is a self-hostable online chat service with file sharing, search, and integrations. It is designed as an internal chat for organisations and companies, and mostly markets itself as an open-source alternative. Mattermost distinguishes itself from proprietary messaging software thanks to several features including Slack compatibility, good mobile experience, mobile and desktop apps, in addition to web apps. Mattermost's Website MIT License Written in TypeScript and Go

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HexChat
HexChat is an IRC client sporting an easy to use customizable interface. HexChat's Website GNU General Public License v2 Written in C

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HandBrake
HandBrake is a tool for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs. Handbrake can process most common multimedia files and any DVD or BluRay sources that do not contain any kind of copy protection. It comes supplied with built-in device presets, and a huge raft of features. Handbrake's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C and C#

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Krusader
Krusader is an advanced, twin-panel (commander-style) file manager designed for KDE Plasma. Krusader also runs on other popular Linux desktop environments such as GNOME. Besides comprehensive file management features, Krusader is almost completely customizable, fast, seamlessly handles archives, and offers a huge feature set. Krusader's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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CopyQ
CopyQ is an advanced clipboard manager. This software stores content of the system clipboard whenever it changes and allows to search the history and copy it back to the system clipboard or paste it directly to other applications. The tool offers a lot of functionality. CopyQ's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in C++

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Lutris

Lutris is a gaming platform for Linux. Lutris helps you install and play video games from all eras and from most gaming systems. By leveraging and combining existing emulators, engine re-implementations and compatibility layers, it gives you a central interface to launch all your games. The client can connect with existing services like Humble Bundle, GOG and Steam to make your game libraries easily available. Lutris' Website GNU General Public License Written in Python

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KOReader
KOReader is a document viewer for a wide variety of file formats. This is a wonderfully responsive document reader. It’s fast, brimming with features, and highly customizable. The fact that it supports a wide variety of devices is the icing on the cake. KOReader's Website GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 Written in Lua

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PyCharm

PyCharm is an Integrated Development Environment that is primarily targeted for Python and web development. It provides code analysis, a graphical debugger, an integrated unit tester, integration with version control systems, and supports web development with Django An open source version is available as PyCharm Community Edition, and a proprietary version as PyCharm Professional Edition. PyCharm's Website Apache License 2.0 (Community edition), Proprietary (Professional Edition) Written in Python and Java

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MusE Sequencer
MusE Sequencer is a MIDI/Audio sequencer with recording and editing capabilities. It can perform audio effects like chorus/flanger in real-time via LASH and it supports Jack and ALSA interfaces. MusE aims to be a complete multitrack virtual studio. MusE Sequencer's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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Calibre
Calibre is a complete e-library solution. It offers library management, format conversion, news feeds to ebook conversion as well as e-book reader sync features. Calibre is primarily an e-book cataloging program. It manages your e-book collection for you. Calibre's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in Python

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Krita

Krita is a professional free and open source painting program. It's made by artists that want to see affordable art tools for everyone. Krita is really sublime open source software. It's very easy to use, intuitive, and offers features and tools for a wide range of digital painting. We particularly admire its excellent support for displaying brushes, its highly customizable user interface, and easy editing. Krita's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in C++

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Joplin

Joplin is a note taking and to-do application, which can handle a large number of notes organized into notebooks. The notes are searchable, can be copied, tagged and modified either from the applications directly or from your own text editor. The notes are in Markdown format. Joplin was designed as a replacement for Evernote and so can import complete Evernote notebooks, as well as notes, tags, resources (attached files) and note metadata (such as author, geo-location, etc.) via ENEX files. Joplin's Website MIT License Written in JavaScript

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Tabby
Tabby is an infinitely customizable cross-platform terminal app for local shells, serial, SSH and Telnet connections. It sports an integrated SSH client with a connection manager, an integrated serial terminal, full Unicode support, multiple nested panes, flexible tabs, and much more. Tabby's Website MIT License Written in TypeScript

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Pencil

Pencil is built for the purpose of providing a free and open source GUI prototyping tool that people can easily install and use to create mockups in popular desktop platforms. The software is mature and suitable for production use. Pencil is shipped with Android and iOS UI stencils pre-installed. This makes it easier to start protyping apps with a simple installation. Popular drawing features are also implemented in Pencil to simplify the drawing operations. Pencil's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in JavaScript

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Photini
Photini is an easy to use digital photograph metadata (EXIF, IPTC, XMP) editing application. This application enables users to quickly add information to photos. It can set textual information such as title, description, and copyright as well as geolocation information by browsing a map or setting coordinates directly. Photini's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in Python

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Spotify

First launched in 2008, Spotify is a digital music streaming service with a freemium business model. You can listen to a huge library of music and podcasts for no charge if you are prepared to have shuffle play (with limited skips), interrupted listening and lower audio bitrate. Alternatively, there’s the option of Spotify Premium. In the UK, a subscription costs £9.99 per month for an Individual account. This gives you streaming music at 320 kbps, the ability to download music, and full functionality. There’s no actual official desktop available for Linux. But some of their engineers have laboured night and day to produce a native desktop client. Spotify's Website Proprietary software

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QCAD
QCAD is an application for 2D computer aided drafting. QCAD enables users to create technical drawings such as plans for buildings, interiors, mechanical parts or schemas and diagrams. It uses DXF as its standard file format. While other CAD packages are often complicated to use, QCad tries to be different. QCAD's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in C++

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Ulauncher

Ulauncher is a fast application launcher for Linux. It has a minimal design, dependent on only a few resources, very fast, and works on virtually all Linux desktops. The software is lean and fast. It's frugal with system resources, and very responsive. Ulauncher is desktop oriented. You can launch web searches or search folders from the same prompt. There are even basic calculator functions. Ulauncher's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in Python

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QDirStat
QDirStat is a graphical application to show what’s devouring your disk space and help you tidy up the disorder. QDirStat is an extremely versatile and highly configurable tool for uncluttering your storage drives. It offers a wealth of features, it’s very fast, and stable. Support for macOS is experimental at best. QDirStat's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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RawTherapee
RawTherapee is a RAW converter and digital photo processing software. All changes can be applied and batch processed at a convenient time. The software is focused on users ranging from enthusiast newcomers who wish to broaden their understanding of how digital imaging works to professional photographers. RawTherapee's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in C++

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PSPP

PSPP is a program for statistical analysis of sampled data. It reads the data, analyzes the data according to commands provided, and writes the results to a listing file, to the standard output or to a window of the graphical display. PSPP produces tables and charts as output, which it can produce in several formats; currently, ASCII, PostScript, PDF, HTML, and DocBook are supported. The language supported by PSPP is similar to those accepted by SPSS statistical products. PSPP's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in C

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Shortwave
Shortwave is internet radio software. It's a quirky name for software that streams radio stations over the net. It's still great software! Shortwave uses the radio-browser.info community database. Shortwave's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in Rust

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Duplicati
Duplicati is a backup client that securely stores encrypted, incremental, compressed remote backups of local files on cloud storage services and remote file servers. Duplicati's Website GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1 Written in C#

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Rosegarden

Rosegarden is a professional audio and MIDI sequencer, score editor, and general-purpose music composition and editing environment. It combines a track-oriented audio/MIDI sequencer with a standard music notation editor to provide an “all-in-one” solution. The software is a good fit for composers, musicians, music students, and small studio or home recording environments. Rosegarden's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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Scilab

Scilab is a numerical computational package and a high-level, numerically oriented programming language. The software is used for signal processing, statistical analysis, image enhancement, fluid dynamics simulations, numerical optimization, and modeling, simulation of explicit and implicit dynamical systems and symbolic manipulations. Scilab's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++, C, and Java

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Scribus

Scribus is an open-source desktop publishing (DTP) program that allows the creation of page layouts with text, graphics, photos and other visual elements. Scribus is designed for flexible layout and typesetting, and the ability to prepare files for professional quality image setting equipment. The software supports RGB, CMYK and spot colors and, most importantly, provides a robust and very reliable color management that leaves you in control of color display and conversion. While the goals of the program are ease of use and simple easy-to-understand tools, it still offers professional publishing features, such as CMYK and spot colors, easy PDF creation, Encapsulated Postscript import and export and creation of color separations. Scribus' Website GNU General Public License v2 Written in C++

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Gramps
Gramps is genealogy software that is both intuitive for hobbyists and feature-complete for professional genealogists. The software lets users record the many details of an individual’s life as well as the complex relationships between various people, places and events. Gramps' Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in Python

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VeraCrypt

VeraCrypt is disk encryption software that builds on the discontinued TrueCrypt. You can encrypt an entire filing system, including folder names, filenames, all of the content of each and every file, the metadata, free space, and more. It offers enterprise-grade encryption for data you want to protect. Keep your data safe from prying eyes. VeraCrypt adds enhanced security to the algorithms used for system and partitions encryption. It also resolves many vulnerabilities and security issues inherent in TrueCrypt together with a ton of modifications. VeraCrypt's Website Apache License 2.0 and TrueCrypt License 3.0 Written in C, C++, and Assembly

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Kasts
Kasts is a very strong podcast player. The interface is good although could be tidied up particularly around the top section where there is too much spacing, and poor choice of positioning. Kasts' functionality is sufficient although there are a number of areas that warrant an overhaul. Kasts' Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++ and QML.

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VSCodium

VSCodium is a community-driven, freely-licensed binary distribution of Microsoft’s editor VS Code. VS Code is a streamlined code editor with support for development operations like debugging, task running, and version control. It aims to provide just the tools a developer needs for a quick code-build-debug cycle and leaves more complex workflows to fuller featured IDEs. Note VSCodium is not a fork of VS Code, it simply saves having to compile the source code for yourself. While the source code for VS Code is open source, Microsoft's binaries aren't and include telemetry. vscodium.com MIT License Written in TypeScript, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

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KiCad EDA

KiCad is a suite for the creation of electronic schematics. It helps design of schematics for electronic circuits and their conversion to PCBs (printed circuit board) design. KiCad uses an integrated environment for all of the stages of the design process: Schematic Capture, PCB layout, Gerber file generation/visualization and library editing. KiCad's Website GNU General Public License v2 Written in C++

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PeaZip

PeaZip is a file archiver utility and rar extractor. It's based on the technologies of 7-Zip, p7zip, Brotli, FreeArc, PAQ, Zstandard file compression tools, and on secure file compression and encryption PEA project. PeaZip provides fast, high compression ratio multi-format archiving to 7Z, ARC, Brotli, BZ2, GZ, PEA, TAR, WIM, Zstandard and ZIP archives (write supported formats), and works as opener / extractor tool for 200+ archive types including ACE, ISO, RAR, ZIPX files, including ability to manage encrypted archives for supported formats. This software deploys a powerful and complete file manager for editing, viewing, browsing and searching archive files, featuring a wide set of data security functions: strong encryption (AES, Twofish, Serpent), encrypted password manager, optional two-factor authentication (encryption / decryption with password and keyfile), secure delete, and file hashing tools. PeaZip's Website GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 Written in Pascal

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ProjectLibre
ProjectLibre is project management software. It was founded to provide an open source replacement of Microsoft Project desktop. It offers a similar user interface. ProjectLibre's Website Common Public Attribution License Written in Java

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Octave
Octave is a oowerful mathematics-oriented syntax with built-in 2D/3D plotting and visualization tools. It is drop-in compatible with many Matlab scripts. The Octave interpreter can be run in GUI mode, as a console, or invoked as part of a shell script. Octave's Website GNU General Public License v2 Written in C, C++ and Fortran

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Arduino
The Arduino Integrated Development Environment contains a text editor for writing code, a message area, a text console, a toolbar with buttons for common functions and a series of menus. It connects to the Arduino hardware to upload programs and communicate with them. Arduino's Website GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 Written in TypeScript and JavaScript

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Zeal

Zeal is billed as a simple offline documentation browser. It offers easy access to a huge database of documentation, API manuals, and code snippets. The main purpose of the software is to enable you to have reference documentation at your fingertips. What do we like most about Zeal? Besides the huge range of docsets at your fingertips, there's useful support for HiDPI displays, in-page search tool, good font selection, and smooth scrolling. Combined with the fuzzy search functionality, it offers a slick way to access documentation. Zeal's Website GNU General Public License Version 3.0 Written in C++

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Dropbox
Dropbox is a file hosting service. Dropbox helps you create, share, and collaborate on your files, folders, and documents. Dropbox's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 and proprietary software Written in Python, Go, CoffeeScript, and Rust

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TeamViewer
TeamViewer is a comprehensive remote access, remote control and remote support solution that works with almost every desktop and mobile platform. TeamViewer's Website Proprietary software

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Synfig Studio
Synfig Studio is a vector-based 2D animation software. It can produce feature-film quality animation. Its vector tweening lets you transform any vector shape into another. Synfig Studio's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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Telegram Desktop
Telegram is a messaging app with a focus on speed and security You can use Telegram on all your devices at the same time — your messages sync seamlessly across any number of your phones, tablets or computers. Telegram has over 700 million monthly active users. Telegram Desktop's Website Client GNU General Public License v3.0. Server is proprietary software Client is written in C++

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FocusWriter
FocusWriter is a simple, distraction-free word processor. It uses a hide-away interface that you access by moving your mouse to the edges of the screen, allowing the program to have a familiar look and feel to it while still getting out of the way so that you can immerse yourself in your work. Improve your writing productivity. FocusWriter's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in C++

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TeXstudio
TeXstudio is an integrated writing environment for creating LaTeX documents. The aim of the project is to make writing LaTeX as easy and comfortable as possible. TeXstudio has numerous features like syntax-highlighting, integrated viewer, reference checking, and various assistants. TeXstudio's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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Timeshift
Timeshift is software that provides functionality similar to the System Restore feature in Windows and the Time Machine tool in Mac OS. Timeshift protects your system by taking incremental snapshots of the file system at regular intervals. These snapshots can be restored at a later date to undo all changes to the system. Timeshift's Website GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 Written in Vala

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uGet
uGet is a popular download manager brimming with features. It has all the essential functionality such as multi-connection downloads, a download queue, and the ability to pause/resume downloads. uGet's Website GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1 Written in C

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dupeGuru

dupeGuru is a tool to find duplicate files in a system. It has three modes, Standard, Music and Picture, with each mode having its own scan types and unique features. Reliability is crucial with a tool of this type. You don’t want to delete files that are needed. We’ve run the utility intensively, and we’re satisfied that the program is reliable. But we still recommend a good backup strategy. dupeGuru's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in Python

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AutoKey

AutoKey is a desktop automation utility. It allows the automation of virtually any task by responding to typed abbreviations and hotkeys. AutoKey offers a full-featured graphical user interface that makes it accessible for novices, as well as a scripting interface offering the full flexibility and power of the Python language. There are versions for GTK+ and Qt. AutoKey's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in Python

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LinuxCNC
LinuxCNC controls CNC machines. It can drive milling machines, lathes, 3D printers, laser cutters, plasma cutters, robot arms, hexapods, and more. LinuxCNC's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in Python and C

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Skype
Skype revolutionized the communications world with its supreme internet telephony / instant messaging / video-conferencing functionality, so it's only fair it's included in this roundup. It still remains a hugely popular app. Skype's Website Proprietary software

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Makagiga
Makagiga is an easy-to-use, portable application for doing a variety of tasks, such as todo listing, text editing, or RSS reading. Plugins (add-ons) are used to implement its various capabilities. Makagiga's Website Apache License 2.0 Written in Java

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Webcamoid
Webcamoid is a simple, but versatile open source webcam suite for picture and video capture. The application provides a good set of features. Webcamoid's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in C++

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Sonic Visualiser

Sonic Visualiser is an application for inspecting and analysing the contents of music audio files. Sonic Visualiser combines powerful waveform and spectral visualisation tools with automated feature extraction plugins and annotation capabilities. It also has powerful annotation capabilities to help you to describe what you find, and the ability to run automated annotation and analysis plugins in the Vamp analysis plugin format – as well as applying standard audio effects. Sonic Visualiser's Website GNU General Public License v2 Written in C++

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WordPress (desktop app)
The full WordPress.com experience packaged as an app for your laptop or desktop computer. Write and design with no other browser tabs to distract you. Switch easily between managing your WordPress sites and your favorite desktop apps. WordPress's Website GNU General Public License v2.0

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Zim Desktop Wiki

Zim is a graphical text editor used to maintain a collection of wiki pages. Each page can contain links to other pages, simple formatting and images. Pages are stored in a folder structure, like in an outliner, and can have attachments. Creating a new page is as easy as linking to a nonexistent page. All data is stored in plain text files with wiki formatting. Various plugins provide additional functionality, like a task list manager, an equation editor, a tray icon, and support for version control. Zim's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in Python

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Mandelbulber

Mandelbulber is software that creatively generates three-dimensional fractals. Explore trigonometric, hyper-complex, Mandelbox, IFS, and many other 3D fractals. The three dimensional fractal type, the “Mandelbulb” is calculated from a fairly similar pattern to the Mandelbrot set. The difference is that the vector z contains three components (x, y, z) or four dimensions (x, y, z, w ). As they are part of the z vector, they are denoted as (z.x, z.y, z.z). Examples being Hypercomplex numbers and quaternions. Mandelbulber's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in C++ and C

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gretl

gretl is a cross-platform software package for econometric analysis, written in the C programming language. It offers an intuitive graphical user interface, a wide variety of estimators: least squares, maximum likelihood, GMM; single-equation and system methods; regularized least squares (LASSO, Ridge, elastic net), a good range of time series methods, limited dependent variables, and panel-data estimators, including instrumental variables, probit and GMM-based dynamic panel models. There’s also an integrated powerful scripting language (known as hansl), with a wide range of programming tools and matrix operation. gretl's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C

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3D Slicer
3D Slicer is software for visualization, processing, segmentation, registration, and analysis of medical, biomedical, and other 3D images and meshes; and planning and navigating image-guided procedures. It provides powerful medical image processing, visualization, and data analysis tools. 3D Slicer's Website BSD-style Written in C++ and Python

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Ásbrú Connection Manager
Ásbrú Connection Manager (Ásbrú) is a user interface that helps organizing remote terminal sessions and automating repetitive tasks. The project began as a fork of PAC (Perl Auto Connector) Manager. Ásbrú's Website GNU General Public License version 3.0 Written in Perl

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NewsFlash

NewsFlash lets you follow your favorite blogs and news sites. It's designed to complement an already existing web-based RSS reader account. NewsFlash combines all the advantages of web based services like syncing across all your devices with everything you expect from a modern desktop program: Desktop notifications, fast search and filtering, tagging, handy keyboard shortcuts and having access to all your articles as long as you like. NewsFlash's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in Rust

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DVDStyler
DVDStyler is a DVD authoring application for the creation of professional-looking DVDs. It allows not only burning of video files on DVD that can be played practically on any standalone DVD player, but also creation of individually designed DVD menus. DVDStyler's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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React Native Debugger
React Native Debugger is a standalone app for debugging React Native apps. React Native Debugger's Website MIT License Written in JavaScript

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KMyMoney

KMyMoney is the Personal Finance Manager for KDE. It is similar to MS-Money and Quicken, supports different account types, categorisation of expenses, QIF import/export, multiple currencies and initial online banking support. It enables users to keep careful track of their personal finances by providing a broad array of financial features and tools. KMyMoney's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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Pidgin

Pidgin is a chat program which lets you log into accounts on multiple chat networks simultaneously. For example, you can chat with friends on XMPP and sitin an IRC channel at the same time. Pidgin is compatible with the following chat networks out of the box: Jabber/XMPP, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, and Zephyr. It can support many more with plugins. Pidgin supports many features of these chat networks, such as file transfers, away messages, buddy icons, custom smileys, and typing notifications. There are many plugins which extend Pidgin’s functionality even further. Pidgin's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C

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LyX

LyX is an advanced open source document processor. It is called a “document processor”, because unlike standard word processors, LyX encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of documents, not their appearance. Based on a document preparation system for TeX typesetting, LyX can handle documents ranging from books, notes, theses to articles in refereed journals. It also supports right-to-left languages such as Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew. LyX's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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fre:ac
fre:ac is an audio converter and CD ripper with support for various popular formats and encoders. It converts freely between MP3, M4A/AAC, FLAC, WMA, Opus, Ogg Vorbis, Speex, Monkey's Audio (APE), WavPack, WAV and other formats. fre:ac's Website GNU General Public License v2.0 Written in C++

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Gajim
Gajim is a fully-featured XMPP client offering decentralized messaging, end-to-end encryption, and the ability to share pictures, videos, and files. Gajim's Website GNU General Public License v3.0 Written in Python

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We have not included software which is CLI (Command-Line Interface), TUI (Terminal User Interface), or mainly web-based. This is simply because they are covered separately.