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What apps would you love to have open-source alternatives for? (lemmy.world)

submitted 7 months ago by ClearCutCoconut@lemmy.world to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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It seems like the FOSS community is continuing to grow, and FOSS apps keep getting better (Immich reallh blew my mind recently), which is a big win 😎 but there are still many apps I use that I would kill for an open source alternative. I am curious what you guys think? Are there any apps you'd love alternatives for?

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[-] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 118 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Discord. It's extremely popular and has no direct alternatives (Matrix spaces thing isn't ready at all yet)

EDIT: I didn't know Revolt and Zulip existed. I'm doing a research on them now

[-] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 42 points 7 months ago

Matrix is also extremely complicated to sign up for. I tried getting some tech savvy friends to sign up for Matrix the other day. Even for someone tech-savvy it is waaaaaaaay too complicated. Many of the clients don't even have a sign up option, you need to sign up elsewhere first.

[-] ClearCutCoconut@lemmy.world 23 points 7 months ago

Yeah...for many of these programs the onboarding is so daunting, even for those who are tech savvy. Laymen don't stand a chance with something that is that complicated. It doesn't often seem to be a technical issue either, more-so a user experience or design problem

[-] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 20 points 7 months ago

It doesn’t often seem to be a technical issue either, more-so a user experience or design problem

Oh 100%. The problem is that there's a lack of UX designers and such in the Open Source community. There's technical people building stuff but they often don't know how to make a good user experience (or in some cases they don't care to).

[-] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 7 months ago

IDK why this always gets downvoted. UI/UX some of the biggest issues with FOSS software, and is a massive barrier to entry to someone who isn't a massive computer nerd willing to put up with that shit.

[-] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 6 points 7 months ago

I guess they take any criticism of open source as if you are against the whole movement. I don't understand either.

[-] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 7 months ago

honestly i don't even think it's a FOSS problem, this is a problem with every UI ever made in the last three years essentially.

Unless it's literally making money off of you having an account, there is no incentive to design a good UI from the ground up. The solution here ironically, is simply don't skill issue, or document it very well.

[-] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 7 months ago

personally when it comes to the onboarding im more on the side of "self host your own onboarding, for friends and family and shit, and then federate out from there if needed."

Theoretically doing a clean onboarding shouldn't be very difficult. More involved i suppose, but if you don't have the time to figure out how a federated instance works, (or to properly document it) you shouldn't be on the internet, you have more pressing matters to attend to.