Useful Free Software List

Free software for graphic editing, video editing, and more - oh my!

  1. Shriker
    A list of free applications that you may download and use on your computer. This list will continuously be improved upon and updated.

    Graphic Editing and Viewing
    • Krita :windows::penguin: - A KDE program for sketching and painting, offering an end-to-end solution for creating digital painting files from scratch by masters
    • GIMPShop :windows::mac: - A free Open Source image editor that is similar to the popular Adobe Photoshop. Specifically GIMPShop is a version of the GIMP that has been edited to be more user-friendly for Photoshop users.
    • Blender :windows::mac::penguin: - The open source software for 3D modelling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback.
    • Inkscape :windows::mac::penguin: - An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, or Xara X using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.
    • LICEcap :windows::mac: - Simple animated screen captures.
    Media Players and Video Editors
    • VLC Media Player :windows::mac::penguin: - A highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
    • MediaMonkey :windows: - A great free music organizer/player.
    • Winamp :windows::mac: (The Basic version) allows you to like, play music and things. The player itself is highly customizable.
    • SUPER :windows: - The fastest and simplest tool to encode full length movies to any other format without any time or function limitation.
    • Audacity :windows::mac::penguin: - A free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.
    • foobar2000 :windows: - An advanced audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include full unicode support, ReplayGain support and native support for several popular audio formats.
    • Wax :windows: - A high performance and flexible video compositing and special effects software. The idea for Wax is to be very general purpose and flexible in video compositing and effects, so that you can compose your dream video sequence with ease every time.
    Word Processing
    • OpenOffice :windows::mac::penguin: - A multi-platform office productivity suite. It includes the key desktop applications, such as a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to other office suites.
    • yWriter :windows: - A word processor which breaks your novel into chapters and scenes, helping you keep track of your work while leaving your mind free to create.
    • AbiWord :windows::penguin: - A free word processing program. GNU Free Software.
    • Google Docs - Completely platform agnostic. Write directly in your browser.
    • LaTeX - :windows::mac::penguin: - A high-quality typesetting system; it includes features designed for the production of technical and scientific documentation. LaTeX is the de facto standard for the communication and publication of scientific documents.
    Web Development
    • Visual Studio Code :windows::mac::penguin: - A source code editor developed by Microsoft for Windows, Linux and macOS. It includes support for debugging, embedded Git control, syntax highlighting, intelligent code completion, snippets, and code refactoring.
    • Atom :windows::mac::penguin: - A hackable text editor for the 21st Century
    • Aptana Studio :windows::mac::penguin: - The world’s most powerful open-source web development IDE. Aptana Studio harnesses the flexibility of Eclipse and focuses it into a powerful web development engine.
    • NetBeans :windows::mac::penguin: - Fully-featured Java IDE written completely in Java, with many modules available, such as: debugger, form editor, object browser, CVS, emacs integration, etc. Excellent for PHP development. Cross platform.
    • Notepad++ :windows: - A free source code editor (and Notepad replacement), which supports several programming languages, running under the MS Windows environment.
    • FileZilla :windows::mac::penguin: - A fast and reliable FTP client and server with lots of useful features and an intuitive interface.
    • FreeFileSync :windows::mac::penguin: - Free Open Source software that helps you synchronize files and synchronize folders for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.
    • 7-Zip :windows: - Packing/Unpacking utility. Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
    • WinRar :windows::mac::penguin: - A powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format.
    • PuTTY :windows::penguin: - A free Telnet/SSH Client.
    • jEdit :windows::mac::penguin: - A programmer’s text editor with a great deal of features and sytax highlighting for more than 130 file types.
    Local Development Environments
    • WampServer :windows: - Allows you to create an Apache server environment on your computer with PHP and mySQL. Useful for testing and debugging code before uploading it to internet.
    • XAMPP :windows::mac::penguin: - An easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl.
    • MAMP :mac: - Installs a local server environment in a matter of seconds on your Mac OS X computer, be it MacBook or iMac.
    • Homebrew :mac: - The missing package manager for OSX.
    • MacPorts :mac: - System for compiling, installing, and upgrading either command-line, X11 or Aqua based open-source software on the OS X operating system. Ie. Homebrew hardcore mode.