60 Open Source and Free Mac Apps

David Appleyard on April 17th

We regularly feature commercial software on AppStorm, so decided it was time to bring a roundup of completely free (and often open source) apps to your attention. If you’re on a budget, you’ll be pleased to know that a variety of great OS X software is available free.

Applications are broken down into various categories, with each one containing a ‘featured’ app and several other free solutions. I hope you find something useful, and do let me know if your favorite freeware app isn’t on the list!

Web Browsers

Firefox

There’s a reason why Firefox has stormed ahead over the past few years to take such a large share of the browser market. It’s fast, completely free, and works on any platform available.

A variety of different extensions are available, taking the functionality of the browser far beyond the basics. Whilst lacking the scorching speed of the latest Safari beta, it offers a brilliant alternative if you’re looking for a free, open source browser.

Camino – A good looking Mac-styled browser, built on the Firefox engine.
Safari – The default browser included with OS X, with a bunch of new features in the latest release.
Opera – A powerful browser with a few new interesting features; speed dial, search shortcuts, and a tab trash can.
Omniweb – Taking a different approach, and assisting you with online research
Fluid – A site specific browser, allowing you create a separate app for various websites.

Email & Communication

Thunderbird

Developed by the same people behind Firefox, Thunderbird is a worthy alternative to Mail.app on the Mac. It has a lovely interface, with in-built junk filtering and anti-phishing support.

With additions in the new version, it’s easier to prioritize and find your important email with tags. Extensions also work well, allowing various extra features to be added.

Adium X – The ultimate instant messaging client
Skype – For free computer-to-computer calls, and great video conferencing
Eudora – A free email client. Great functionality, but a little dated.
Colloquy – IRC in Mac style.
Revolver – A free business/email package
WideMail – Extend mail with a completely different view

RSS

NetNewsWire

Previously a commercial application, NetNewsWire is now completely free. It offers a bunch of advanced features, and an easy way to keep feeds in sync across different devices.

The app interacts well with a variety of other desktop applications for extra functionality.

NewsFire – A stylish RSS reader
Vienna – Providing features comparable to commercial newsreaders for free.
Shrook – A next-generation news reader
RSSOwl – Filtering, labels and completely cross platform
Dashboard RSS Reader – Keep RSS information easily accessible via Dashboard

Twitter

Nambu

A relatively new entrant to the Twitter client market, Nambu offers a mail-like interface for Twitter messages. Easily managing several accounts, it has the makings of a solid client.

It’s completely free, and will soon support its own in-built URL shortening and picture hosting services.

TweetDeck – Multi paned browsing, and very popular
Twitteriffic – The classic Twitter client, with a great UI
Twhirl – Friendly, colorful, and great multiple account support
EventBox – For Twitter, and a bunch of other social media networks
Tweetr – Easy file sharing and webcam support

Music & Audio

Spotify

Quickly making a name for itself as a competitor to Last.fm, Spotify allows you to stream almost any song you can imagine via the internet. Access is free, though you’ll need to listen to a short advertisement every few songs.

I’m still fond of owning my own music, but Spotify compliments iTunes excellently.

Songbird – A non-proprietary, cross platform, extensible tool with a great interface
iTunes – The de-facto music player for OS X, Windows and iPod users
Audion 3 – Now discontinued, but worth checking out
Juice – A quality app for browsing and downloading podcasts
Audacity – For editing and converting audio files

Video

VLC

If you need the ability to play absolutely any video format, VLC is for you. It’s as versatile as a swiss army knife, and offers a brilliant alternative to QuickTime.

Miro – Aiming to provide easily accessible, fully intergrated internet video
Flip4Mac WMV – For enabling WMV videos in QuickTime
Handbrake – The ultimate tool for converting video between formats
Perian – An open source QuickTime component that adds native support for many popular video formats
DivX Player – A simple, free player for DivX files.

Photography

Picasa

Recently featured in our photo client roundup, Picasa is designed and owned by Google. It offers a bunch of great features, and is also capable of sharing photos online.

If you’re not a fan of iPhoto, Picasa has an equally impressive interface, a solid way to organize photos, and various editing tools.

iPhoto – The in-built photo app on OS X, with face recognition and geo-tagging support.
Gimp – A free, cross platform photo editor.
Seashore – Built on GIMP, with a slightly different user interface
Flickr Uploader – A simple and free solution for uploading Flickr photos
JetPhoto – Feature-rich and easy-to-use digital photo software

File Sharing & FTP

Transmission

Transmission is a fast, easy, and free multi-platform BitTorrent client. It’s fast, incredibly simple, and offers the easiest experience I’ve ever seen for dealing with torrent files.

Not enough? How about encryption, a web-based interface, peer exchange, and UPnP and NAT-PMP port forwarding?

Cyberduck – A free alternative to commercial FTP applications
Filezilla – Great for accessing FTP servers, and completely cross-platform
Acquisition – In-built torrent searching and integration with iTunes
Tomato Torrent – A slightly dated but perfectly functional torrent manager

Office & Text Editing

Open Office

OpenOffice

OpenOffice is a worthy alternative to Microsoft Office, and comes at a far more attractive price. It supports word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics and databases.

It works on all platforms, and stores files in an international open standard format.

TextWrangler – A great, free, code editor for OS X
Bean – A small, easy-to-use rich text processor
AbiWord – A full featured, open source alternative to Open Office
Smultron – Good looking, and great for web programming, script editing, making a to do list etc.
jEdit – Aimed at technical users, an editor specifically for programming

Utilities

QuickSilver

Quicksilver

A unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data. Quicksilver is a powerful shortcut tool, which allows you to manipulate files and work with applications – all without needing to open them.

Confused? I was at first! Read more about the app to find out exactly what it’s capable of.

Growl – A great system-wide notification system
Disk Inventory X – For viewing a graphical representation of what’s eating up your hard drive
AppCleaner – Allows you to remove any trace of an application
Smart Reporter – Be notified if your hard drive seems likely to fail
FuzzyClock – A fun and slightly less formal way to display the time in your menu bar

Please Share!

Whilst 60 applications may sound like a lot, we’ve only touched the surface of what’s available for OS X. If this post has missed a tool which you regularly use, please let me know via the comments. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy a new budget-conscious Mac experience!

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Responses

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MJ
April 17th
Reply

Well, it’s a good list, but not all of them are free. Eventbox, iPhoto (part of iLife) and Acquisition are not free (in the latter the functions are crippled if not payed).
- Lmnoppp
  April 17th
  Reply
  
  Aqcuisition is free. Acquisition Pro is not. :-P
- Lmnoppp
  April 17th
  Reply
  
  oo my bad ;) (I missed this bit)–> “(in the latter the functions are crippled if not payed)”
James Chan
April 17th
Reply

Would love to share my little gmail notification client: http://ashchan.com/projects/gmail-notifr, which makes getting gmail notification more productive.
harmlessgoat22
April 17th
Reply

I recommend mentioning Boxee some time.
- FoxearedBimbo
  April 19th
  Reply
  
  I agree. It may still be in alpha, but it’s very stable and very usable.
  
  I would also like to suggest a mac-specific verison of MPlayer I’ve been using which is far better than VLC (VLC has a hard time using layered SSA/ASS subtitles). http://mplayerosx.sttz.ch/
  - Dr_SG
    June 17th
    
    Movist is a great alternative to MPlayer, as well.
- Barrett
  July 7th
  Reply
  
  Especially lately, Plex is far more stable and seems to use less system resources.
Derek Herman
April 17th
Reply

FireFTP is a fantastic and free extension for Firefox that really should be on this list. I use it daily and from within my browser which is perfect.
- Anthony Bishop
  January 20th
  Reply
  
  Agree – FireFTP is great
Daniel Pape
April 17th
Reply

You missed the best *new* mail option. Postbox is free and it totally rocks! http://www.postbox-inc.com/ It’s definitely worth being in the email/communication list.
- Lmnoppp
  April 17th
  Reply
  
  nice looking app, Postbox.
  
  thanks
- Steve Morrissey
  April 17th
  Reply
  
  Postbox is definately the best mail client out there at the moment. Its thread view trumps that of Thunderbird, and overall it has a more Mac look to it. I was a faithful to Mail.app but Postbox took me over and still puts Thunderbird to shame on many levels.
  - Dayf
    April 21st
    
    I agree on that. Postbox rocks!
- Karen
  October 5th
  Reply
  
  Postbox, sadly, is no longer free.
Adrian
April 17th
Reply

Great list David. I use many of these. I’m kind of surprised you missed NeoOffice though. It’s just as full featured as OpenOffice, is native to OS X (and doesn’t need X11). http://www.neooffice.org/
- Adam
  April 17th
  Reply
  
  Agreed. I love NeoOffice.
- Toby
  April 18th
  Reply
  
  OpenOffice 3.0 is native, and doesn’t require X11.
- rs2
  April 19th
  Reply
  
  I dig NeoOffice as well. Great app, and it seems to be a little more polished than OO.org
  - Rich
    April 26th
    
    Also, NeoOffice 3.0 correctly handles Hebrew (right-to-left), whereas OpenOffice.org 3.0 does not, nor does the developer version of OO.org 3.1.
  - Rich
    April 24th
    
    Just a note: NeoOffice 3.1.1 has been solid again through several updates.
    
    And OpenOffice.org 3.2 finally gets the Hebrew direction correct for the Mac (Windows and Linux never had problems).
Thomas
April 17th
Reply

Nice list. Also some other basics:

Adobe (Acrobat) Reader (preview screws up PDFs too often)
Freemind for mindmapping
Chicken of the VNC for remote administration
Adium instant messsanger
muCommander as an improved file manager and emergency FTP client
Lmnoppp
April 17th
Reply

AppFresh http://metaquark.de/appfresh/
#1, that’s n u m b e r ONE at iusethis http://osx.iusethis.com/top

flickery http://www.eternalstorms.at/
Super clean alternative to Flickr Uploadr

MacTracker http://www.mactracker.ca/
Incredibly complete virtual coffee-table book about every Mac ever made

Secrets http://secrets.blacktree.com/
An already vast, growing database of hidden OSX features in a PrefPane, from the makers of QuickSilver.

Stainless http://www.stainlessapp.com/
Can’t wait for Google Chrome?

Max http://sbooth.org/Max/
Rip audio CD’s using a plethora of codecs and options, including FLAC, ogg, CDParanoia, & EAC.

GrandPerspective http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
That Apple doesn’t put something like this in the Utilities folder at least, is an insult.

Hardware Growler http://growl.info/documentation/hardwaregrowler.php
Power user 101. The most useful Growl companion, hands down. Tunes you in to real-time hardware activity.

iStat menus http://islayer.com/apps/istatmenus/
Power user 102 Monitor things such as the CPU temp and network activity in your menu bar.

Xbench http://www.xbench.com/
Flex your machine’s muscles with the rest of the world’s.

[BonusPirateBooty]
KisMAC http://kismac.macpirate.ch/
MacTheRipper http://osx.iusethis.com/app/mactheripper3
[/BPB]

*also:
Evernote http://www.evernote.com/about/download/
Scribd Desktop Uploader http://www.scribd.com/tools/uploader
- Leandro
  April 17th
  Reply
  
  Nice list, dude!
  - Adrian
    April 19th
    
    +1. Downloading a few right now.
WebKarnage
April 17th
Reply

BTW Nambu has for several versions supported it’s own url shortening service. Very good client, moving very quickly in development.

Another vote for Postbox as the best email option. Very Impressed.

OnyX for triggering all the maintenance scripts on your Mac, and so much more. Been around a good while too.

KompoZer for web design.
Sam
April 17th
Reply

Nice post!
Clemente aka kreativeKING
April 17th
Reply

Twitterific isn’t free.
- choise
  April 17th
  Reply
  
  with ads, it is
  - Deavy
    April 23rd
    
    With ads it is free only for iPhone/iPod touch.
    Desktop version will say you goodbye withour registration
Will
April 17th
Reply

A nice list. But for a better website that lists real opensource and free applications for Mac: http://www.opensourcemac.org/

Regarding Postbox, I think this is a Beta application currently and is soon to be a commercial application when it goes final.

For FTP software, Cyberduck is probably as good as it gets for free.
lapix
April 17th
Reply

Twitter client: DestroyTwitter
- Samantha Armacost
  April 18th
  Reply
  
  I was scrolling down to the bottom of comments just to mention it…
  
  https://destroytwitter.com/
joão
April 17th
Reply

damn, must give a try on Quicksilver oO
axel1982
April 17th
Reply

great list but acquisition isn’t freeware..
ansel
April 17th
Reply

iPhoto, Picasa, iTunes… since when are these open-source?
Markus Wallgren
April 17th
Reply

Plex is a greate mediacenter for mac.
http://www.plexapp.com/
Matt Chandler
April 17th
Reply

For the File Sharing/FTP category, I’d have to add Vuze:

http://www.vuze.com/app

It’s a bit more complex than Transmission, but it has the ability to encrypt transfers. For what reason, I don’t know. *ahem* *cough*
- Nikki Rose Ty
  May 19th
  Reply
  
  I like Vuze too!
Thomas Furlonger
April 17th
Reply

You missed out some of the best Twitter clients.

http://bluebirdapp.com/
http://loungeapp.com/mac/
http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac/

Good list, though..
- artmania
  July 23rd
  Reply
  
  yes tweetie +1 :)
Negative Nancy
April 18th
Reply

I don’t mean to be negative but +/- half of those apps are cross platform, not at all Mac specific. And a significant # of them are not even close to open source.
Insane Dreamer
April 18th
Reply

Some of my favorites (all are free, but not all OSS):

* Butler as a QS alternative. I find it faster than QS and it has a built-in multi-level clipboard. It’s also great for assigning global shortcuts. http://www.manytricks.com/butler/
* Shadow (multi-level clipboard in case you don’t use Butler). (http://www.theescapers.com/shadow/)
* GPGMail (PGP encryption for Mail.app)
* MainUnreadMenu (http://www.loganrockmore.com/MailUnreadMenu/). My favorite way to see if I have new mail and how many unread (with Mail.app).
* Sidenote for note-taking (http://www.chatelp.org/?p=50). (An alternative is Notational Velocity: http://notational.net/, or VoodooPad Lite http://flyingmeat.com/voodoopad/voodoopadlite.html)
* SpotInside (spotlight search but with additional features): http://www.oneriver.jp/SpotInside/index_e.html
* Micon (change your file icons. Not exactly CandyBar, but free :-) http://www.filewell.com/micon/)
* ImageWell for simple image processing, cropping, converting, touching up. (http://xtralean.com/IWOverview.html)
* Cocoalicious, for posting to and managing delicious account. (http://www.scifihifi.com/cocoalicious/)
* CoRD for remoting into Windows machines. (http://cord.sourceforge.net/)
* CronniX (easily manage your cron jobs).
* Chmox for reading CHM files. (http://chmox.sourceforge.net/)
* ClamXav for virus control. (http://www.clamxav.com/)
* SecureFiles for creating encrypted volumes. (Yes, I know you could just do this with DiskUtility, but this has a couple more options.) (http://mac-free.com/download/SecureFiles.html)
* CarbonCopyCloner. Great drive clone/backup system (though I personally prefer a simple rsync script) http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html.

Not mac-specific, but MacPorts (gives you tons of Unix OSS ported to mac, like GnuCash (http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/MacOSXInstallation), an excellent free money-manager. You can use Porticus (http://porticus.alittledrop.com/index.html), which is Mac-specific, to manage your ports.
n1k4r0
April 18th
Reply

Spotify is not (yet?) free in my country (Italy), there’s only the commercial version
Zoë
April 18th
Reply

One of my favorites for running multiple OS’s right from the OS X desktop is Virtual Box from Sun Microsystems. It’s an open source virtualization desktop program. I’ve run Windows XP and Ubuntu from it already. I like it better than Parallels.
Toby
April 18th
Reply

Vox is a nice little audio player (which is in active development, unlike ye olde Audion):

http://www.voxapp.net/

Handy for just taking a quick listen to something.
- Leandro
  May 10th
  Reply
  
  Very cool! I hope they release a library based version soon.
Lmnoppp
April 18th
Reply

Fluke http://blowintopieces.com/fluke/
Adds FLAC functionality to iTunes

Poisoned http://gottsilla.net/
OpenFT, Fasttrack, Gnutella, Ares all rolled into one. Donkey P2P coming in the works. WAY better than LimeWire.
dave
April 18th
Reply

http://ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters/

menu meters rocks too – really simple but great for troubleshooting!
Joshua Dorkin @ BiggerPockets.com
April 19th
Reply

Great list . . . thanks for sharing. I’m always looking for new, useful open source mac apps, and I found a few new ones thanks to the post.
Alan Lamb
April 19th
Reply

Found great software that has a fine minimal design at http://destroytoday.com. Destroyflicker, Destroytwitter as well as a cool calender screensaver are available for free.
Destroyflicker is an award winning App.
Grendel Khan
April 19th
Reply

Twitter client – Pwitter http://wiki.github.com/koroshiya1/pwitter
File Transfer – uTorrent http://www.utorrent.com/
iDrive – Data backup http://www.idrive.com/
Hotspot Shield – VPN for those of us who don’t have it http://www.hotspotshield.com/

http://hackthemac.blogspot.com/2009/01/must-have-items-for-any-macbook-owner.html for more of the same.
- Deavy
  April 23rd
  Reply
  
  uTorrent is a something awesome, I agree on that :)
Retromino
April 20th
Reply

What about a bit of Fun?, Boxer: http://boxerapp.com is a great DOS emulator for running old abandoned DOS games. There is also OpenTTD: http://www.openttd.org which is an open source version of Transport Tycoon Deluxe. Oh, and another free photo app is iLovePhotos: http://ilovephotos.com
Javier I.
April 22nd
Reply

Nice List! I recommend Movist (video player) http://code.google.com/p/movist/
Dave G.
April 23rd
Reply

You’re missing my favorite little app., called SmallDVD:

http://www.smallsoftware.co.uk/

It allows one to create a simple DVD with a static menu. SmallDVD will convert most any mpeg encoded video file to a layered mpeg-2 file. Just create your menu background, load it, load your video, position the buttons, and you’re good to go.
Deavy
April 23rd
Reply

Thanks for the nice list!
Franky
April 26th
Reply

This is good. Really good.
Daniel Brusilovsky
April 27th
Reply

Tweetie is missing from the Twitter section :) http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac
Dave Ellis
April 27th
Reply

Nice list – I’m a sucker for Mac apps!
Insignia
April 29th
Reply

For screenwriters and film producers: Celt X, a great tool!
http://www.celtx.com
Jorge S
April 30th
Reply

This is great. But Twitteriffic is not free.
Bruce
April 30th
Reply

More Mac freeware app reviews are at http://www.macfreewarereviews.com – there are some good apps there.
Rafael Perrone
May 5th
Reply

iPhoto isn’t free.
joris
May 11th
Reply

SABnzbd+ is a great Usenet reader.. Great tool for those involved in newsgroups.
Pablo Rodriguez
June 1st
Reply

Well, the 3D software for dummies is Sketchup from Google labs.
MoonRiver
June 1st
Reply

We can’t miss out Disk Utility ,which can help us backup dvd movies free and easily.
http://www.dvdcopymacosx.com/tutorial/how-to-copy-dvd-with-disk-utility-on-mac.html#129
John M
July 6th
Reply

No mention of LaTeX typesetting software like TeXShop?
matthew l
July 6th
Reply

I’m highly surprised to not see Tweetie there? Surely that should be the “best” Tweetie app on the list?
Avery
July 11th
Reply

great list but acquisition isn’t freeware..
Denny
July 15th
Reply

Great list! Will also be trying our evernote and some of the other from the comments.
samuel
July 20th
Reply

LBackup is great if you are a system administrator.
online backup
September 10th
Reply

It’s really great listing and useful.
Draco
October 30th
Reply

FluidTunes is a great app if you like to control iTunes without going into iTunes. It looks awesome too! You wave our hands over “buttons” on the screen to navigate through your music, and play and stop it as well.
Davidmoreen
April 16th
Reply

I am just not realizing that people make open sourced Mac desktop apps. Anytime I hear open sourced I get excited.
erikh
July 16th
Reply

How about Dropbox – free with 2GB online storage – synced across multiple computers and op. systems, inlcudes Public Folder and shareable folders.
Mark
July 26th
Reply

Ok i have a old IMac and i need a App the will clean all the old stuff off it