Ten paid subscriptions, and the open-source GitHub repo built to replace each one.
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Big Idea
The argument in one line.
Ten popular SaaS tools all have a free, open-source, self-hosted alternative on GitHub, trading a monthly bill and vendor lock-in for ownership of your data and the software itself.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
You're paying monthly for tools like Granola, Loom, 1Password, HubSpot, or QuickBooks and want to see what a self-hosted, open-source alternative actually offers.
You care more about owning your data (meeting recordings, passwords, financial books) than the convenience of a hosted SaaS.
You're comfortable running a server or NAS box yourself, or willing to learn, since self-hosting is real ongoing work.
You want real GitHub star counts, release cadence, and license terms before trusting an open-source tool with business data.
SKIP IF…
You want zero setup and zero maintenance responsibility. Every alternative here still requires you to run and back up your own server.
You need mobile apps or deep AI features that some of these younger projects, like Doodle Note with 2 GitHub stars, don't have yet.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
Andrew Warner runs down ten paid subscriptions and the open-source, self-hosted GitHub project that replaces each one: Doodle Note over Granola, Cap over Loom, Vaultwarden over 1Password, Ghost over Substack, Twenty over HubSpot, LanguageTool over Grammarly, Umami over Google Analytics, Nextcloud over Google Drive, Chatwoot over Intercom, and SlowBooks over QuickBooks. For each pair he names the SaaS pricing and lock-in problem, then what the open-source project ships, its GitHub stars and license, and the real cost of self-hosting: you own the data and the code, but you're now responsible for the server, backups, and updates yourself.
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Granola's AI meeting notes get transcribed on someone else's servers; Doodle Note runs entirely on your own machine instead.
02:42 – 04:30
02 · Cap vs Loom
Loom's async video demos live on Loom's servers and get used to upsell your viewers; Cap is a 21,000-star open-source alternative you can self-host.
04:30 – 06:00
03 · Vaultwarden vs 1Password
1Password logins lag as vaults grow; Vaultwarden is an unofficial, 66,000-star Bitwarden-compatible server that works with the real Bitwarden apps.
06:00 – 06:45
04 · Zapier SDK (sponsor)
Sponsored segment on letting your own software's users connect their favorite apps through the Zapier SDK.
06:45 – 08:33
05 · Ghost vs Substack
Substack takes 10% of every transaction forever; Ghost, a 13-year-old nonprofit under MIT license, takes 0% and puts the publication on your own domain.
08:33 – 10:12
06 · Twenty vs HubSpot
HubSpot's free CRM hides its real cost behind a per-seat Professional plan; Twenty is a self-hosted open-source CRM with no seat tax on custom fields.
10:12 – 12:09
07 · LanguageTool vs Grammarly
Grammarly Pro runs $144 a year and pushes upsells at every spell check; LanguageTool is a free, open-source checker covering 30-plus languages.
12:09 – 13:30
08 · Umami vs Google Analytics
Google Analytics is free but the cost is your visitor data; Umami is privacy-focused, GDPR/CCPA compliant, and needs no cookie banner.
13:30 – 15:45
09 · Nextcloud vs Google Drive
Google Drive gets expensive and hard to leave; Nextcloud gives you a file server you own, though self-hosting it is a genuine ops job.
15:45 – 17:24
10 · Chatwoot vs Intercom
Intercom charges per support seat; Chatwoot merges live chat, email, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Telegram into one free inbox, minus the AI agent.
17:24 – 20:42
11 · SlowBooks vs QuickBooks
QuickBooks Online Advanced runs $3,300 a year with a limited AI integration; a fed-up entrepreneur built SlowBooks so his books and AI access stay on his own machine.
20:42 – 21:02
12 · Build Your Own
Closing point: every tool on this list exists because someone got frustrated enough with a paid product's limits to build and give away their own replacement.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
Substack takes 10% of every transaction forever, with no cap, while Ghost takes 0% of your revenue under a nonprofit MIT license.
1Password's login button now takes seconds to respond, and vault lag gets worse the more passwords you store.
Vaultwarden is an unofficial Bitwarden-compatible server with 66,000 GitHub stars that works with the official Bitwarden apps on iPhone, Android, and Chrome.
HubSpot's free CRM is the hook, but sequences, forecasting, and custom reporting sit behind the $90-a-seat Professional plan, which runs $1,080 a year.
Grammarly Pro costs $144 a year, while the open-source LanguageTool covers more than 30 languages for free and only withholds proprietary AI features like tone detection.
Umami is a privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics that ships GDPR and CCPA compliance out of the box with no cookie banner needed.
Nextcloud replaces Google Drive with a file server you own, but self-hosting it is a real operations job you have to patch and back up yourself.
Chatwoot merges live chat, email, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Telegram into one inbox, but its AI agent feature is locked to the paid plan.
QuickBooks Online Advanced costs $3,300 a year, and its AI integration only exposes a limited pool of financial data rather than the full picture.
SlowBooks Pro ships under a source-available license, not a standard open-source license, so the code is visible but usage rights are restricted.
If the machine hosting your self-hosted password vault dies with no backup, every password on it is gone for good.
Cap, the open-source Loom alternative, hit 21,000 GitHub stars and 82 releases after launching on GitHub in November 2023.
Takeaway
Ten SaaS bills you can replace with a GitHub repo
OPEN SOURCE SWAPS
Every one of these open-source alternatives trades a recurring bill and someone else's servers for a tool you run yourself, at the cost of becoming your own IT department.
01Doodle Note vs Granola
Granola's AI meeting notes get transcribed on someone else's servers, which matters if the conversation covers a lawsuit, a medical issue, or anything sensitive.
Doodle Note runs entirely on your machine: it captures your mic and the other side of the call, transcribes on-device, and never uploads the audio.
It's an early project (2 GitHub stars, Windows still in beta, no phone app), so it fits people who want the utility more than the polish.
02Cap vs Loom
Loom's async video demos and bug reports live on Loom's servers, and every video you share gets used to pitch the recipient on signing up for Loom.
Cap is an open-source Loom alternative with 21,000 GitHub stars: record and save locally for free, or use Cap's cloud for videos up to five minutes.
Using the official Cap app for client work requires a commercial license, and self-hosting it means managing Docker, storage, and a public URL yourself.
03Vaultwarden vs 1Password
1Password's login autofill and search get slower as your vault grows, turning what used to be instant into a multi-second wait.
Vaultwarden is an unofficial, 66,000-star Bitwarden-compatible server that works with the real Bitwarden apps on iPhone, Android, and Chrome.
Self-hosting your password vault means if the machine it's on dies without a backup, every saved password is gone for good.
05Ghost vs Substack
Substack takes 10% of every transaction from paid subscribers forever, with no cap, on top of whatever you already pay per reader.
Ghost is a 13-year-old nonprofit publishing platform under MIT license that takes 0% of your revenue and ships free and paid memberships built in.
With Ghost your publication lives on your own domain and design; with Substack you're renting a feed inside their platform and app.
Self-hosting Ghost is real work, which is why Ghost's own hosted plan exists for writers who don't want that job.
06Twenty vs HubSpot
HubSpot's free CRM is the hook, but sequences, forecasting, and custom reporting sit behind the Professional plan at $90 a seat per month, or $1,080 a year.
Twenty is a self-hosted open-source CRM with contacts, companies, pipelines, and workflows that live on a box you own, or you can use Twenty's cloud instead.
Custom objects and fields on Twenty don't carry an extra per-seat tax the way scaling a HubSpot plan does.
07LanguageTool vs Grammarly
Grammarly Pro is $144 a year and pushes a paid-plan upsell at nearly every spell check.
LanguageTool is a free, open-source grammar and spell checker covering more than 30 languages and dialects that runs on your own machine.
Both Grammarly Pro and LanguageTool's paid tier gate complex sentence rewrites, tone detection, and fluency improvements behind proprietary, closed-source AI models.
08Umami vs Google Analytics
Google Analytics is free, but the real cost is the data: every visit, every page lingered on, and every campaign that brought a visitor in belongs to Google.
Umami is privacy-focused analytics with no personal tracking data, no cookie banners, GDPR and CCPA compliance out of the box, and a script small enough to load fast.
Umami's tracker bypasses most ad blockers for more accurate counts, though it lacks Google's ad integrations and some advanced funnel tooling.
09Nextcloud vs Google Drive
Google Drive costs $199.99 a year for 5TB through Google One, and if Google changes its storage rules, migrating your files off is slow and difficult.
Nextcloud is a self-hosted file server, complete with contacts, calendars, and an app catalog, that syncs to the devices you already have.
Self-hosting Nextcloud is a genuine operations job: you patch it, back it up, or pay Nextcloud GmbH for enterprise support and hosting.
10Chatwoot vs Intercom
Intercom charges a seat for every person who answers customer service, with costs climbing past a thousand dollars a year per seat.
Chatwoot consolidates live chat, email, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Telegram messages into one inbox, with a help center, private notes, and canned replies included free.
Chatwoot's AI agent, Captain, is only available on the paid plan, so the free, self-hosted version doesn't include AI support staff.
11SlowBooks vs QuickBooks
QuickBooks Online Advanced runs $3,300 a year, and its AI integrations only expose a limited slice of your financial data rather than the full picture.
SlowBooks Pro was built by a fed-up entrepreneur who wanted his bookkeeping data to stay on his own computer and connect freely to AI tools like Claude, Codex, or Grok.
SlowBooks ships invoices, bills, payroll, inventory, and bank feeds, and can migrate existing books from six other accounting systems.
SlowBooks is released under a source-available license, not a standard open-source license, so read the terms before assuming you can redistribute it.
12Build Your Own
Every alternative in this list exists because someone got frustrated enough with a paid tool's limits to build and open-source their own replacement.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
Self-hosting
Running software on a server or computer you own and maintain yourself, instead of using a company's hosted cloud version. It gives you full control over the data but makes you responsible for uptime, security, and backups.
MIT license
A permissive open-source license that lets anyone use, modify, and redistribute the software, including commercially, with almost no restrictions beyond keeping the original copyright notice.
AGPL-3.0 license
A copyleft open-source license that requires anyone who modifies the software and runs it as a network service to also release their modified source code.
Source-available license
A license that lets you view and sometimes run the source code, but doesn't grant the full freedoms of an open-source license, such as unrestricted redistribution or commercial reuse.
GDPR
The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, a law that controls how companies collect, store, and use personal data about EU residents.
Bitwarden-compatible server
A backend server that speaks the same protocol as the official Bitwarden password manager, so Bitwarden's existing apps on phones and browsers can connect to it without modification.
“This is about more than free. This is about the ability to build because everything I'm showing you is open source.”
states the whole video's thesis in one line, works as a cold open for a short→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
06:52
“Substack takes 10% of every transaction forever, no cap.”
sharp, specific number that lands as a complaint anyone can repeat→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
07:23
“Ghost takes 0% of your revenue.”
tight contrast line, punchy enough to stand alone→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
05:52
“If the computer that you host dies and you have no backup, those passwords are gone. This is now your responsibility.”
an honest warning that undercuts the pitch, good for a caveat cutaway→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
19:21
“You get fed up, you can create your own thing. Talk to Claude. Talk to Codex. Talk to Grok and have it do it for you.”
call to action for builders, works as a closing line→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
The Script
Word for word.
Read-along
Don't just watch it. Burn it in.
See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.
17px
metaphorstory
I'm about to show you how to save money by replacing subscriptions that you pay for right now with free alternatives But this is about more than free. This is about the ability to build because everything I'm showing you is open source You can use it to build your own and I see people doing this all the time Timestamps and links below, of course, so you can get right to it and start to build.
Presented by Zapier, the AI automation company. Let's start with Granola versus DoodleNote. Granola, hugely popular AI meeting note taker.
What it does is it records what you're saying as you're saying it, transcribes it, and then gives you meeting notes afterwards. But with Granola, the meetings leave your machine. They go to somebody else's system.
They sit on somebody else's servers. That means your lawsuit strategy, if you're getting a divorce, if you've got a medical issue, it's all going to somebody else's system. And granola gets expensive.
You may feel comfortable paying $35 a month or whatever you decide is your right plan. But maybe you say, I've got team members. I want them all to use it.
Are they going to use it enough? Should I pay or not? It starts to get expensive when you start to consider it.
I want you to look at a free alternative where you don't have to think about that, where you can just think about the utility. You see, a guy I met got frustrated with the fees and lack of customization. He's a listener, a viewer, just like you.
So he created his own meeting note taker. Isn't that the beauty of the world today? You can just make your own software.
And then he did something that I am not doing enough of, but I want to. He shared it on GitHub so that you could use it. And it's available for you right now.
Like Granola, he does not slam a bot. into your Zoom or, in fact, let's talk about this. You know when you go on Zoom or Google Meet and it's you and the person you're trying to have a conversation with and then this robot right there?
The beauty of Granola is it doesn't have that. Same thing here with DoodleNote. It's on your computer, it's not in the meeting, and it's all there for you.
So what do you get with it? No bot. It captures your mic and the other side of the conversation from your computer.
Transcriptions happen on device. The audio never leaves. Your notes use a local model.
In fact, the beauty of this is... Sean and I were talking about how he intentionally wanted you to have all the transcripts from your meetings on your computer So if you want to connect Claude or open claw or whatever it is you can and start to get what you need from it I will say this it is Mac on Apple silicon right now Windows is still in beta comment if you want access we've had issues before where Windows wasn't available I want him to make it available to you early before other people get it just comment Let us know if you want it, but let's talk about some of the things that you need to notice number one is It only has two GitHub stars, and I think one of them is for me.
If you like it and want to support it, give him more stars, but be aware this is new. It's still being updated. Windows is still in beta.
There is no phone app, though I have to tell you, I've had the Granola phone app for, I don't know, for a long time. I used it twice. Not really a big deal for me.
If it is for you, this is not going to be the right replacement. You are early here, and if you decide that you do want the hosted sync, it's $10 a month. Let's go on to the next one.
Loom vs. Cap. How many of us use Loom now as the default video async?
That means you want to talk about what's on your screen, you show your video, you record a thing about it. You reach for it. But the problem with Loom is, yes, your demo lives on their servers.
Yes, your bug reports and everything else lives on their servers, and it's up to them to decide whether they want to clean out old ones or not. But I think the bigger issue is when you share a video, they use it to sell Loom to your viewers. So if I create a video of what's going on on my screen and I send it to you, Loom keeps trying to get you to sign up to Loom.
That's not my goal. All right, and their prices are up to $240 a year, and it gets expensive if you start giving it to your team. So a company built an open -source Loom alternative.
It's called Cap. It went on GitHub November 2023. This one has been around for a while, 21 ,000 stars, and it's an open -source alternative.
It's going to allow you to save the file on your computer, share it for free. You can also use it in their cloud for up to five minute videos for free. That's short, but I think that's plenty.
And if you decide that you want to use a cloud storage solution like AWS, you don't have to pay them. Obviously you have to pay the cloud storage solution for it, but those are peanuts. Here's what it comes with.
Screen recording, camera, microphone, all in one recording. You get instant mode for a quick link once you're done. You get studio mode so you can edit.
Are you really editing these things? I guess so. A little bit of polish, a little bit of background, a little bit of zooming.
It's available and it's both Mac and Windows. But let's talk about the things that you need to notice if you use this. Number one, the instant mode is...
Short. Number two, the website asks for a commercial license if you use the official app for client work. And self -hosting can be a process.
Though my hunch is if you're watching this, you kind of like that kind of process. Let's go on to the next one. 1Password vs.
Vault Warden. 1Password is the password manager that's now become the standard for a lot of businesses. That's how you save your passwords and share them with your team.
But what I've found is with 1Password, the login used to be instant. Now it's taking seconds. And I know it seems petty to complain about it.
seconds but when I need to log in and I press that button to get one password and it takes half a minute that's painful also the bigger your vault gets the more it lags so if you're not having that issue and I am it's because I have a lot of passwords it's going to be an issue for you keyboard shortcut misses and it feels like a website that you now have to wait on not an app that you already paid for So someone created an unofficial bitwarden compatible server gave it away for free.
This has been around since February 2018 66 ,000 stars. It's not a toy. It's something you can actually run and It works with the official bitwarden app.
So you got an iPhone works Android Chrome browser all of it works Hey, by the way, how do you like my little highlighter tool that I just added on let me know in the comments. All right Here's what it comes with.
It's a personal vault that the official Bitwarden apps already know how to talk to. You've got organizations, collections, password sharing, really all the things that you're used to are available, including an admin page for the person who's actually going to be running the box. It's probably going to be you, right?
And let's make this super clear if it's not obvious enough. If the computer that you host dies and you have no backup, those passwords are gone. This is now your responsibility.
But I think you can live up to that. Okay. Next, Zapier.
Listen up. If you're building, wouldn't it be great if when you're building a tool, you can let your users connect the apps that they need into it? So if they want to connect their Notion, their email, their this, their that, 9 ,000 apps, you can enable them to connect it.
All right? And you don't have to manage it yourself. You use Zapier SDK.
You can try it right now by going to zapier .com. If you know Zapier as the company that is like trigger automation, it's still that, and it's great. but it has done so much that they should probably change their name.
I've been saying from now on we should call it Zapier so you can see them as a different company. This is the company that will allow you to create software and enable your users to use their favorite apps with your software. Okay, next, Substack vs.
Ghost. Substack is the biggest paid newsletter platform. How many journalists do you see now have lost their jobs?
They've got a Substack. I get it. What they do not get is that Substack charges rent on your readers.
And the more readers you get, the more they're going to charge you. So that means a moment, someone pays you. Actually, I'd say in addition to that, in addition to paying per user on there, Substack takes 10 % of every transaction forever, no cap.
And I don't mean to just pick on Substack. This is the way these models work, right? So a nonprofit publishing platform decided that they're going to build an alternative, put it under MIT license.
We're looking at Ghost. You probably heard it. If you're listening to this, there's a good chance you've already used Ghost.
Your friends have used Ghost. It's been around since 2013, 55 ,000 stars, a lot of releases. big company, and they take 0 % of your revenue.
It comes with paid memberships that are built in. The publication lives on your domain, your design. Let me rant for a little bit and tell you that one of the annoying things for me being subscribed to somebody's Substack is that Substack wants me to then use their system, use their app, use their setup.
I don't want that. I don't like it, and I don't want them all lumped in. You get, with Substack, a feed you rent on their platform.
With Ghost, you own the site. Here's what it ships with. In addition to the email newsletter thing, you also get a publication on a website for you.
So you get the web, not just email. You get member signups, free or paid, 0 % fee on payments, though obviously if you use Stripe, you're going to be paying Stripe a processing fee, but you know that, right? You put it on your own domain, your own design, boom.
But worth noticing, self -hosting, ghost, it's work. It's not easy, right? I should say it's not easy.
It's work. It's not hard. But that's why their hosted plan exists.
A lot of writers do not want that job. Again, if you're listening to me, probably don't give a rat's ass. It's easy for you.
Shoot, I'm trying not to curse. Okay, next. HubSpot CRM verse 20.
HubSpot is a CRM that new sales teams love. They reach for it now. Salesforce is more for like established companies.
Newer companies just hit up HubSpot. But with HubSpot, the CRM is the hook. Then they got sequences, forecasting, custom reporting.
It all sits behind their professional plan. And the bill is per seat. That means you add more people on the team.
you add more seats. They're very good in the beginning, very cheap, but it grows and it gets more expensive. And by then you've already built your whole system on their platform, which is why they become a multi -billion dollar business.
HubSpot. Also costs $90 a seat per month. We're looking at over $1 ,000 a year.
It gets up there. So when a team put open source CRM on GitHub, I was interested. It's called 20.
I think they even own the domain 20 .com, you know, with the word 20 in it. It's everything that you're looking for. You can self -host it.
They've got contacts, companies, pipelines, workflows. It all lives on a box that you own and you control. You can also, if you choose to, use their cloud.
This is the way a lot of these models work, right? Give it to you for free, but if you want to use their cloud, you pay. That's the way it works here with 20.
I'm a little embarrassed by this. I saw it earlier today, but to be honest with you, this image here, I just did not get a chance to fix it because I'm here in Mexico and I'm trying to make my setup work here. It's going to be a little slow at first or a little buggy at first.
So this image is one of those things. Still hurts my heart that I see it here. All right, let's keep going.
All right, here's what you get with it. You get contacts, companies, real pipeline. I already said all this.
Let's move on. Let's talk about the thing that is worth bringing up, and that is that their license is other on GitHub. Some of their files are commercial.
Okay, next, Grammarly versus LanguageTool. Grammarly is the writing check software that most people already have installed. I know I do.
You probably do. But the thing about Grammarly that's annoying is at every step, they... try to push their paid plan.
Every spell check is another opportunity for them to self -check. This is what their homepage looks like. They're kind of mimicking what it looks like to use their software.
What they should do is have a box right up here that says, hey, switch over to paid premium. That's the way I experience their software. Constant upsells.
And Grammarly Pro is $144 a month. And if you speak English fairly well and you're not a writer, even if you are a writer, you don't really need the pro plan. So a team put a write writing checker on github it's called language tool it's open source it works in more than 30 languages actually i think it's it's about 30 languages um with different dialects included all right so you can run it on your own machine point it uh point the browser add -on to a local service server your sentences do not have to leave your system here's what it comes with grammar spell checking and punctuation checks like i said more than 30 languages and dialects uh browser add -on okay But here's the thing that I think is worth noticing, and I don't think you'll care.
I know I don't care about it. With Grammarly Pro and with language tools paid, whatever they call it, premium tier, the stuff that you don't get is the complex sentence rewrites, the tone detection. I don't care about that.
I don't like their tone detection. The fluency improvement. So if you're somebody...
for whom English is a challenge, you're probably going to want to pay for either Grammarly Pro or Language Tool. But if you're not, and what you're looking for is just to make sure you're not making a fool of yourself, and you need a quick spell check, well, Language Tool, free, easy to use, available for you. And they give you more than Grammarly does for free.
And they don't give you the agita of constant upsells. Next, Google Analytics vs. Umami.
Google Analytics is a tracker most sites already run. You probably have it on your system. Maybe you installed it day one and then you stopped looking at it.
But Google gets every visit information from it. They get every page that a user lingered on. They get to see the campaigns that brought people in.
The standard product is free, but the cost is the data that you give Google. And if you and I are being honest with ourselves, it's too complicated. We don't need all that stuff.
So InWalk's Umami. It's privacy focused. So that means there's no personal tracking data collected.
There's no cookie banners because it's fully compliant with GDPR. I don't know what CCPA is, but I know it matters to a lot of you. Fast loading.
This matters to everybody. Here's the other cool thing. Let me just go over to this here.
This one. Accurate. metrics because it bypasses most ad blockers to capture true traffic counts and you get total data ownership and here's the part i like a lot it's just simple it's clean it makes sense you don't have to be overly complicated to make sense for most people You know what?
I don't think I'd gotten to write in here. I thought I wrote in one of my versions. What you're missing with Umami is the ability to connect to Facebook for ads.
What you're missing is some of the more advanced funnel systems in it, though it does still have funnels. All right. Let's move on to Google Drive and NextCloud.
Google Drive is the default file folder for a lot of offices. It comes with Google Workspace. So if you signed up for it, you have it.
If you signed up for Gmail, you have it. And then you start to ratchet up the cost. The thing is, though, your files then live on Google.
Your contacts and everything live on Google. And if they change the rules and you need to leave, it becomes really hard. I know because that happened to me.
And by the way, I didn't have anything random or crazy on my drive. It wasn't because of what I had on my drive. It's because they had a limit at one point on how much you could put on the drive.
And I, because I shoot a lot of video, not just here, but also for a family, I ended up needing more space and they didn't have it to offer. So I had to move my data off and they don't make it easy. I had to end up paying a company in New Zealand to connect Google Drive to some other software to get my files off as easily as possible.
But it took multiple days to get it off. I think they also will... ratchet back the speed when I'm trying to get the data off, which made it really difficult.
And they are, for some people, expensive. I know that $199 a year for 5TB doesn't seem like much, but look at what it costs to get hard drives. And for me, I had more than 5TB.
I just wanted to keep everything, especially today with AI. I can go back and analyze stuff. I might as well just save it.
If you look at hard drive costs and the cost of a NAS system, you pay it one year, and then you have it forever. All right. Someone put something called NextCloud on GitHub.
It's a system that you can run yourself. It comes with a file server that you choose that you own, not a drive that you rent. It syncs to computers and phones you already have.
You share access control with people. By the way, for those of you who are saying, Andrew, a lot of this is AI written, I think you prefer AI written. Look at the typos that I have here.
This is not the best. Maybe not typo. I think I could have written that better.
All right. Contacts, calendars, all in the same system. The thing that's worth noticing, though, is this is a process.
I'll be honest with you. When I set up my system, it wasn't just like create an account and go. It was connect the NAS.
I had to call the support number on the company that made the NAS system that I used for it. But I paid once. It was a little bit of time on a Sunday.
And now I just have it and I don't have to pay. And you have your expense one year and you end up with something that you can use forever. Number nine.
Did I tell you you should subscribe? Does it even matter to subscribe? I wonder if it does.
All right. Intercom versus Chatwoot. And I would love for you to subscribe.
Intercom is a support inbox that a lot of SaaS companies just pay for. It is the coolest software to use. But with Intercom, every person who answers customer service is another seat that you have to pay for.
And their costs start to go up over a thousand a year for each person. So a team created an alternative. It's called Chatwoot.
It consolidates. interactions from live chat on your site, from email, from WhatsApp, from social media, all in a single view. And look at this beautiful single view.
It just makes sense, right? And you can put an agent in the replies, but let's be open. That agent, the AI agent part, is only a part of their AI plan.
I'm a little disappointed in that. What they should do is they should let you bring your own agent for free or use their agent setup within the paid plan. I'm disappointed that they don't have that.
here's what it comes with you got the inbox like i said earlier with everything integrated including whatsapp by the way did i tell you i'm in mexico that's why the echo is probably driving my editor crazy has to edit it out um where whatsapp is huge now you get a system that incorporates whatsapp instagram messages telegram messages uh you get help center so people can answer their own questions private notes so you can talk about your customers behind their backs you get labels canned replies all of the stuff that you're looking for but again worth noticing the AI staff is part of their paid plan.
If you do a Google search, you'll see Chatwoot comes up as a response, the top result for Chatwoot, but it says Chatwoot AI. That is what their meta title tag is. But the AI is just part of the paid plan.
You can't get it on this free thing. Still great for your team. And I have to...
Point out the things that are disappointing. Let's talk about QuickBooks versus SlowBooks. QuickBooks seems like the only bookkeeping app for small businesses.
It doesn't have to be. But QuickBooks is now loaded with useless, distracting features. All I need is a place to keep track of all of my expenses and my balance sheet and see the income statement report.
I don't need their junky upsells. I can't literally, for the life of me, remember one of the upsells to even complain to you about them, but they're flooded all over the page. I bookmark my income statement, and I still can't find it within their useless, distracting feature list.
And they keep trying to upsell me more. And let me point this out to you. Their AI integration is a lie.
They are lying to you or misrepresenting. Here's what happens. Claude comes out with all these connections, and they say, and we have a QuickBooks connection.
And you're like, oh, yeah, I'm so proud I'm in QuickBooks. QuickBooks is cutting edge. They're very AI -centric.
They are not. They don't give you access to all of your data using the AI integration. They give you access to a limited pool.
And guess what? When it comes to finances, knowing a little bit about your finances is as bad, if not worse, than knowing none because you get confusing information. Do not believe that.
Should I say lie? Maybe like, am I going to get sued for that? I don't like it.
i think that it's um i think they're misrepresenting can i say that they're exaggerating they're making it sound a little marketing let's let's move on quickbooks online also gets expensive it's not just for you it's about all the people on your team who have it look at this ai ask me anything because they want you to use their stupid ai system to ask anything i don't i want to use my ai agent not your stupid agent whatever you named it bob let's move on so fed up entrepreneur who I talked with.
He is so freaking fed up. He decided to build his own replacement. He wanted the data on his computer.
He hated that when QuickBooks went from software on your desktop to software in the cloud that he couldn't keep his data. He got really irritated. And so he wanted to own the data.
And he also wanted something that works with AI. This is, again, one of the beauties of the world today. You get fed up, you can create your own thing.
Talk to Claude. Talk to Codex. Talk to Grok and have it do it for you.
He did that. So you can get invoices, you can track bills. I actually don't even need invoices.
What you really need, I think, from these apps is a place to store your data that you can query with AI and get reports that are accurate. That's the most important thing. And here you get all that.
And of course, you can connect your Codex, your Grok, and everything else into it. Here's what it ships with. Invoices and bills, which I don't really need from them.
US payroll, I don't need from them either. Inventory, fine. If you need that, I get it.
Bank feeds, very important. And a set of books. on your computer that you host, that you have.
It's not that hard, people. QuickBooks is annoying. But here's the thing.
Again, always a warning is if the books are on your machine, you're the person who is responsible for saving it. Also, the license is source available. I'm going to ask them why it's source available.
Also, it doesn't have a lot of stars, but honestly. I don't think it's that complicated. I don't know.
He's not bragging about it enough. I found him on Twitter through somebody who was talking about how great it is. It's basically him creating simple software that just works for him, and he's inviting other people on GitHub to come in here and contribute.
If you look at the contribution, it's mostly him, I think, doing the work on this. There's not much to add to this. Honestly, I hope he doesn't add too much.
Okay, that's it. If you got any value out of this, hit subscribe hit like tell me which repo you liked and tell me which direction you'd like me to go in for the next one of these things like what's another topic that you'd like me to do and finally if you like this one i got the original 10 subscriptions that you can kill by by replacing them with open source it's right here go follow that and i'll see you in there next
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Andrew Warner opens with a promise that goes past savings: everything he's about to show is open source, so you can run it, customize it, or build your own version the way ten frustrated builders already did. Ten paid tools get a free, self-hosted replacement, one GitHub repo at a time.
Frameworks
Named ideas worth stealing.
00:00list
The 10 SaaS-to-open-source swaps
Granola -> Doodle Note
Loom -> Cap
1Password -> Vaultwarden
Substack -> Ghost
HubSpot -> Twenty
Grammarly -> LanguageTool
Google Analytics -> Umami
Google Drive -> Nextcloud
Intercom -> Chatwoot
QuickBooks -> SlowBooks Pro
The full lineup of paid tool to open-source replacement pairs covered in the video, each with a GitHub repo, star count, and license called out.
Steal fora swipe list for pitching open-source alternatives to any SaaS-fatigued team
CTA Breakdown
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
20:42subscribe
“hit subscribe hit like tell me which repo you liked and tell me which direction you'd like me to go in for the next one of these”
Low-friction ask placed at the very end, after the full list has delivered its value, and paired with a pointer to a related prior video on the original 10 subscriptions.
Add Modern Creator as a preferred source and Google shows you more of our breakdowns in Search, Top Stories, and AI Overviews. It only changes what you see, and you can undo it in your Google settings anytime.
Add to Preferred SourcesOpens your Google source preferences with us pre-loaded. Tick the box and you're done.
Two hosts count down the week's ten hottest GitHub repos, from a security-scanned Claude plugin index to a self-hosted finance tracker wired to 2,500 banks.
A weekly roundup episode where the host and a Zapier guest run through ten open-source repos built to pair with a coding agent, from screenshot-to-code to a proxy that cuts terminal noise by up to 90 percent.
Ben Senescu built OpenSEO to kill his own Semrush bill, wired it straight into Claude, and now watches open-source contributors fork it into CRMs and content tools he never planned to build.
Andrew Warner and Adam run down this week's most-starred GitHub repos — three AI design tools, a parallel-agent "tokenmaxxing" rig, a video-comprehension skill — and pull the geophysicist who built the #1 trending AI job-search framework on camera to explain how it got him hired.
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