OPEN SOURCE alternatives for the MOST POPULAR productivity apps (2026 edition)

4:02 I disagree with this part. I always recommend switching to open-source (or at least Linux-friendly) alternatives on Windows first. Makes it easier to go one app at a time, learn and evaluate if it fits your needs. Replacing the OS is a lot easier when you can avoid the frustrations of having to set up and learn a bunch of new software at once and maybe don't even know what to use.

Nick, if you need to censor sensitive information in videos, never use blur. There are AI tools that are able to unblur content. Always use solid color boxes.

I've ditched windows for good!

One little thing I really appreciate is Cinnamon Calendar, because you can simply integrate pretty much any online calendar service into your taskbar calendar. I never understood why Microsoft doesn't integrate that into the Windows system calendar, when they already develop the entire productivity suite around Teams and Outlook.

_I've been using Linux Mint for three weeks now, and I don't miss Winslop at all._

=== PDF editing === 1:39 Onlyoffice (has now a reliable PDF-Editor) 2:31 PDF Arranger (adding, removing, reordering pages, fusing pdf documents) 2:59 Papers (for handwritten anotations, additional textboxes) === Project Management === 4:29 Planify 6:15 super-productivity === Notes === 7:05 Joplin 7:55 Appflowy 8:29 Anytype 9:53 Logseq 11:00 Affine 11:12 Trillium Notes !!! He forgot to mention „cherrytree“ wich is small, simple, has encryption and just does the job === Communication, Collaboration === 11:40 Mattermost 13:00 Thunderbird 14:18 Nextcloud 16:15 Proton Docs 16:55 Cryptpad (his suggestion: hava look at Framasofts instance „Framapad“) 17:25 Onlyoffice, Collabora

I think that, from now on, I will be pronouncing "To-do lists" as "Tudolist" :D

15:42 Nextcloud is involved with the euro-office only office fork so we should be getting a like for like replacement if the only office integration did stop working

I did not know OpenOffice handles pdfs so well. Good to know. Thank you.

Logseq's answer to folders is hierarchy - if you name two pages as "foo/bar" and "foo/baz", you'll end up with a "foo" index page that will list "bar" and "baz" as subpages

Papers is wonderful now for me signing for Tax. Also I love your constant 40k insertion, well done to spread our propaganda

I love Linux & Open Source software more and more each day! I do absolutely everything on Linux & with Open Source software!

Moved from windows a month back and have never been happier. There is a substitute for almost anything. Some of them do have a bit of learning curve but much better than MicroSLOP in the long run

Anytype is heavily underrated, not full replace for notion/obsidian yet, but very close

Take a look at TuxCare's CVE tracker to identify where you're vulnerable, and how you can fix that! /cve-tracker/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social_organic&utm_campaign=cvetracker_launch&utm_term=the-linux-experiment&utm_content=youtube_announcement

Zulip is also a nice alternative of discord or slack

I actually migrated the other way, from Joplin to Obsidian a number of years ago now. I just wasn't a big fan of the additional layer of abstraction the db provided on top of my preferred file/folder structure (guess I'm kinda old school there). Either way I'm happy that my data stays local and in a common open format.

4:02 I acctually believe it's the other way around to ease in the transition for people and to helo them get used to stuff slowly instead of overwhelmed. Change one tool here, then anothee there, slowly over time untill u have everythinf u need usable on linux. Then change to linux and worry abiut distro/de/wm/whaever else while knowing and beinf accustumed to the apps you use already

4:50 When Caps lock is on 😂😂

Thanks for a very informative video.