The Repository

In this current stage, this repository is for software that can at least replicate the feature sets of some hosted consumer-type software. It is in its very early phase and will be constantly updated and hopefully grow over time. I’m always glad about input, so if there’s software you’d like to see listed here, contact me.

$ = commercial software

Blogging

  • WordPress – The most commonly used free blogging software in the world. Sports their famous 5-minute installation. Most webhosts support this out of the box. There is a hosted service (wordpress.com), but for obvious reasons, you’d want to go with their self-hosted version. Here’s our short intro to WordPress.
  • Movable Type – Another powerful blogging software. Used to be very popular, but is now used only sporadically. Its base version is free and it is open-sourced.

Microblogging

  • StatusNet – An easy-to-install, open-source and free self-hosted Twitter clone. How and why and if you should install it is described in this review.

Analytics

  • $ Mint – A flexible, easy-to-use analytics and monitoring tool. Well worth the 30USD (per domain). I’ve written a few more words about Mint here.

Photography

  • Ownstagram – A personal, self-hosted Instagram clone. Not more, not less. Read the review here.
  • WordPress – Yes, again. WordPress is quite versatile and lets you create your own photo-tumblr with WordPress and its mobile app. There is also quite a number of plugins which allow for self-hosted galleries. There will be a post up about this soon.
  • Lychee – A full-featured image hosting and sharing application. Easy to install, easy to use and completely free. Here’s our short review.

Collaboration

  • Zimbra – It is a rather complete online collaboration and email suite. While this may be overkill for personal use, there’s a lot of good things people are saying about it. Expect a review in the near future.

Online Storage

  • FileRun – Modeled after Google Drive, FileRun is a lightweight alternative to Next/Owncloud. It’s free to use for up to 3 accounts and some limited functionality. Enterprise versions are available for a one-time payment. Review is here.
  • Nextcloud – A fork of the popular Owncloud, Nextcloud delivers all of the goodness of Owncloud, plus a few more improvements. Here’s a review.
  • Owncloud – It’s like an open source replacemente for Dropbox or Google Drive. Still a bit rough around the edges, but looks very promising. Here’s an old review.

Reading

  • Selfoss – A simple, rather bare-bones feedreader. Easy to install, easy to set-up and mobile friendly. And free. As in beer. Here’s our review.
  • Tiny Tiny RSS – A very functional, extendable feedreader. Not pretty but powerful. Here’s the review.
  •  $  Fever – If you like your feedreader web-based, there’s not a whole lot of choices left. One that stands out is Fever, which has a minimalist design and an interesting approach to feed-reading. It’s not free, but quite worth the 30USD. Here’s my review.
  • Wallabag – Save articles to read them later. Tough install, but versatile and almost feature-complete. Read our review here.
  • FreshRSS – a more recent addition to self-hosted feedreaders, FreshRSS incorporates what made Google Reader great and adds a whole lot of other great stuff. Review here.

Communication and Sharing

Social Networks

  • Diaspora – Created by a group of students, this de-centralized social network gives you total control over your data and also allows users to install it on their own servers. Currently that’s far too complicated for everyday users, but may change in the near future.

Social Bookmarking

  • Shaarli – Reminicent of delicious, the first and most prominent social bookmarking service, Shaarli is an open-source, self-hosted social bookmarking service. Very easy to install and feature-complete. Read the quick review here.

Short URL Services

  • Polr – a fast and robust URL-shortener. Easy to install, but has no dedicated WordPress Plugin. Review is here.
  • YOURLs – Like using your own short URL? While Bit.ly offers free hosting for your own short URL, it’s actually really easy to set up your own, right on your webspace. YOURLs does this without a hitch and also comes equipped with a bunch of plugins (WordPress included, of course). Read our review here.

Productivity

Note-taking

  • OpenNote – This very basic but sleak and easily deployable app is an easy to use alternative to the mightily popular Evernote. Read our review here.
  • Turtl – An encrypted alternative to Evernote, that can be self-hosted (if you know your way round a server). Read the review here.

 

6 thoughts on “The Repository”

    1. Hi Andy.

      I’ve actually looked into Paperwork, but haven’t yet come round to testing it. It seems like an OK contender, but I fear, as can be expected, it’s not nearly as full-featured as Evernote.

  2. For social networking, Mastodon has been getting a lot of traction lately and is great. A federated, FLOSS, self-hostable social network more or less along the lines of Twitter, but with some interesting specificities.

    And what about Seafile for the Dropbox-alternative category?

    1. Totally! The repository really is anywhere from complete, so I’m always happy to add new software, after checking it out. I’ll do soon!

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