Are you tired of subscription fees draining your wallet? I have been there. While there is no shortage of excellent productivity apps on Mac, most of them run on a freemium model. However, I believe that productivity doesn’t have to come with a price tag. That’s why I have ditched paid apps and built a powerful, efficient workflow using entirely open source tools.

From managing my notes and emails to writing documents, coding, and securing my passwords, I've found free and fantastic alternatives that rival their commercial counterparts. In this post, I will share the open-source tools that form the backbone of my Mac productivity setup.

7 Joplin

An ideal Bear Notes alternative

You can choose Bear Notes, Craft Notes, or even Ulysses, which are all paid apps. Here is where Joplin stands out as a true open-source gem. It offers a robust and feature-rich platform that rivals many.

It offers a powerful Markdown editor to format your notes like a pro. It also supports tags to organize and find relevant notes. One of Joplin's most compelling features is its ability to synchronize your notes across multiple devices using any cloud service. You can choose to store and sync your notes via Dropbox, OneDrive, and even Nextcloud.

It also offers a web clipper to save webpages in your notebooks and end-to-end encryption to protect your private notes.

6 LibreOffice

Ditch Microsoft Office

Your productivity suite is simply incomplete with a Microsoft Office replacement. While you can go with WPS Office, Google Workspace, or iWork Suite, LibreOffice may be the go-to pick for obvious reasons. It’s an open-source solution and remains available on all platforms, including Windows and Linux.

LibreOffice offers all the essential tools to craft engaging documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. It doesn’t skimp on important features, and with a few tweaks, you can make it look like Microsoft Office as well. Aside from Writer, Calc, and Impress, there is a Draw tool to create diagrams, flowcharts, logos, and other vector-based graphics. It has excellent compatibility with all file formats, so you won’t have difficulty opening and editing your existing documents.

5 Firefox

Safari who?

Firefox is your open-source gateway to the web on Mac. In the world of web browsers, it stands as a champion of open source that offers a powerful, customizable, and privacy-focused web experience. You can switch between search engines on the go and boost productivity with a built-in screenshot tool, reader mode, spell check, and more.

Firefox also has a rich extension library, a backbone of any desktop browser. In terms of privacy, it blocks third-party cookies, fingerprint blocking, and crypto miners. In terms of customization, you can apply a background wallpaper, change themes, and even tweak the new tab layout. And with the recent update, Firefox has added vertical tabs, which is a huge productivity booster.

4 VSCodium

A robust VS Code rival

VSCodium is essentially a binary distribution of Microsoft's VS Code. It offers the same great features and performance as VS Code while respecting user privacy. The features list includes a powerful editor, integrated terminal, debugging capabilities, Git integration, and a rich extension ecosystem.

In my limited usage, I also found it to be lightweight and fast. It starts up quickly and handles large codebases efficiently. With a large collection of extensions, you can add support for different programming languages, improve code formatting, provide linting, and much more.

3 Bitwarden

An ideal 1Password and LastPass alternative

While there are several well-known password managers like 1Password, LastPass, and Dashlane on Mac, Bitwarden stands out due to its open-source approach. It offers a secure and convenient way to store, generate, and manage your passwords on your Mac. Besides, it’s completely free to download and use.

Bitwarden encrypts your passwords using AES-256 bit encryption and ensures that your sensitive information remains protected all the time. You can create strong passwords for websites and services, enjoy cross-platform sync with native apps, and support 2FA. There is also a browser extension to access your password entries from major browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.

2 Thunderbird

Manage your emails like a pro

Mozilla’s Thunderbird stands out as a robust, feature-rich, and entirely free open-source alternative to paid options. While the default Mail app works fine, it leaves a lot to be desired for power users. Thunderbird supports multiple email accounts, advanced filtering and sorting, a neat calendar integration, and more.

Overall, it’s designed to handle everything from basic email communication to managing events. Besides, it’s highly customizable. You can tweak your email experience with a vast library of add-ons. The good news is that Mozilla recently launched Thunderbird on Android, filling the major gap in the cross-platform ecosystem.

1 Appflowy

Ditch Notion, Obsidian, and other productivity tools

If you are tired of paying for tools like Notion, Roam Research, Capacities, and more, explore Appflowy. It’s an all-in-one productivity tool to handle tasks, projects, and complex workflows without breaking a sweat. Appflowy has a rich template library to get started.

You can use Kanban boards for project management, create a bug tracker, fundraising tracker, marketing page, and more. As always, there is a flexible canvas with a block editor that looks modern and feels intuitive to use. Appflowy has got you covered with AI integration as well. You can pick any AI model (GPT, Claude, etc.) to automate your pages. Unlike Notion, it works offline as well.

My open-source productivity toolkit on Mac

These are just my personal favorite tools. You can explore more and find other capable open-source tools as well. Overall, I wanted to show that building a productive Mac workflow doesn't require a hefty investment in paid software. By adopting open source, you gain cost savings and greater control and customization.

Aside from these tools, you can follow my dedicated post to learn the top Mac productivity hacks.