404trends #10 | Open-Source Startups Surging | Building an app in 24h | Demand for Alternatives

Dear friends, coding wizards, and anyone who's tried to fix a 'simple bug' that turned into a three-day agony

It’s Thursday, and I understand that I’m not quite consistent with my reports, but life's been a whirlwind of back-to-back meetups, tech talks, and events. Meanwhile, my neighborhood's still in the throes of construction chaos, turning every day into a guessing game of 'which route will be blocked today?'

Anyway, I’m so excited to come back with another dive-deep report, today we’ll talk about Open-source. Put your swimming caps on and let’s dive in.

What’s Inside:

• Big tech in Open-source (you already know these names)

• Popular Open-source tools

• Launches on Product Hunt

• Investments in Open-source

• Exploding GitHub Repositories

• Ideas on how to make money with Open-source

• Building and launching a tool into 10k users in one day

Quick Stats For Nerds

• Open-source services market was valued at over $25 billion in 2022, and is expected to grow to $138.61 billion by 2032.

• 2023 saw the largest number of first-time open-source contributors

• 70-78% of companies use open-source software, and 50-65% of developers contribute to open-source projects.

• 96.3% of top 1 million websites run on open-source software, like Linux.

• The Linux kernel had 20,323,379 lines of code as of 2018, making it the single largest open-source project on the planet

Rising Trend: Open-Source Contributions

Open source refers to a type of software where the source code is made freely available for anyone to view, modify, and enhance.

Why It Matters:

Open-source software is popular because it's free and customizable, making it a cost-effective choice for users and companies. It's constantly improved by a global community, ensuring high quality and security. Being open source also means avoiding commitment to just one company's products, offering more flexibility. This combination of benefits is why more people are choosing open source.

Big Companies Involved in Open-source

• Amazon Web Services (AWS)

• The Apache Software Foundation

• Red Hat

• VMware

• OpenAI

• Google

• IBM

• Oracle

• GitLab

• Docker

• MongoDB

Popular Open-source Tools

• GIMP: Free image editor rivaling Adobe Photoshop

• Python: Flexible programming language for web, data, AI, and more

• Mozilla Firefox: Privacy-focused customizable web browser

• PyTorch: Machine learning library for vision and language processing

• GNU: Collection of free software and tools from the GNU Project.

• VLC Media Player: Plays all multimedia files on multiple platforms.

• OpenCog: AI framework used by major companies.

• Inkscape: Free vector graphics editor akin to Adobe Illustrator.

• LibreOffice: Free office suite, an alternative to Microsoft Office.

• Blender: Comprehensive 3D creation suite for all aspects of 3D.

• Linux: Core of various free operating systems.

• Rocket.Chat: Platform for open-source team communication.

• Jitsi Meet: Free video conferencing tool.

• SuiteCRM: Open-source tool for managing customer relationships.

• Audacity: Software for editing audio files.

• OpenProject: Tool for managing projects openly.

• Shotcut: Video editing software available for free.

• Brave: Web browser emphasizing privacy and ad-blocking.

Open-source Launches on Product Hunt

• Feather Icons: Beautiful, simple open-source icons.

• Learn Anything: Platform for learning and sharing knowledge on any topic.

• unDraw: Customizable open-source illustration collection.

• DrawKit: Free, customizable project illustrations.

• Prettier: Code formatter supporting many languages, works with most editors.

• Docusaurus: Simplifies maintaining open-source documentation sites.

• Tiledesk: Builds AI chatbots and conversational apps.

• Astro: Scalable open-source web framework.

• Scoutflo: First commercial open-source marketplace.

• Medusa: Shopify alternative for e-commerce development.

• snoopForms: Typeform open-source alternative for easy forms.

• ToolJet: App builder for data-driven applications, like Retool.

• Jitsu: Data integration tool, similar to Segment/Fivetran.

• Screenity: Screen recording/sharing tool, like Loom.

• Chatwoot: Omnichannel communication platform, akin to Zendesk/Intercom.

• Athens Research: Knowledge graph for notes and research, like Roam Research.

• Porter: Kubernetes-powered PaaS in your cloud, similar to Heroku.

• Jam: Offers Clubhouse-like audio rooms as a service.

GitHub Repositories

In the last two years, several GitHub repositories have grown rapidly.

• RLHF + PaLM: Open-source ChatGPT alternative.

• Gogs: Open-source GitHub alternative.

• NocoDB: Open-source AirTable alternative.

• Mastodon: Open-source social networking platform.

• Pynecone: San Francisco-based startup.

• Sismo: France-based startup.

• Qdrant: Germany-based startup.

• Zitadel: Switzerland-based startup.

• Embedchain: San Francisco-based startup.

• LangGenius: New York-based startup.

• Manticore Search: UK-based startup.

• FlowiseAI: San Francisco-based startup.

Recent Investments in Open-source