this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2024
222 points (83.6% liked)

Open Source

31018 readers
765 users here now

All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!

Useful Links

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
222
Paying for software is stupid… 10 free and open-source SaaS replacements (www.youtube.com)
submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
56 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Remember, for every paid SaaS, there is a free open-source self-hosted alternative. Let's take a look at 10 FOSS tools designed to replace popular tools like MS Office, Notion, Heroku, Vercel, Zoom, Adobe, and more.

...

⭐ Repos mentioned

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

SAAS isn't about subscription perse although they have them of course. Its about "not needing to take care of". It's software on "someone else's computer" just as with public cloud. In a SAAS construct a provider does the hosting, computing, connection, install, configuration and maintenance. Absolving clients from that burden.

Comparing proprietary desktop applications (even with a subscription) with FOSS alternatives is useful, it's just not SAAS.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So it seems like if you're using Office on desktop, not SaaS, but they do offer it in a browser, so would that count? Technically, if it's in JavaScript or something like that, computing is handled locally, but it still feels close enough to count.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

My understanding is roughly, for example:

  • Microsoft Word desktop application: not SAAS.
  • Microsoft Word online: SAAS (just like any other service accessible by browser but not a "localhost")
  • Onedrive: SAAS, storage with local explorer integration.
  • Exchange server on prem: not SAAS, increasingly diffucult to do.
  • Exchange server by MS: SAAS
  • Microsoft Outlook Classic for desktop: not SAAS.
  • Microsoft Teams for desktop: SAAS although local install but its just another frontend instead of browser.
  • Office365: SAAS but really a container for every tool in the MS online toolbox together.

Some caveats: Word handles spellchecker in their cloud and clippy 2024 (Copilot) integration blurs the line.