Windows 11 comes with a lot of tools and apps that can perform all kinds of tasks and help you in your daily life. It's great to have these tools available out of the box, but many times, these solutions can be bloated, slow, or missing features compared to the many alternatives that can be found on the internet.

As such, if you wanted to replace many of these Windows features with alternatives, we wouldn't blame you. And in fact, I found a few apps that are both small and open-source, providing a level of transparency you don't get with Microsoft's offerings, while also offering a better experience a lot of the time. Of course, "tiny" is subjective, but I aimed to include the smallest apps I could find that still offer a great experience. I'll mention app sizes as appropriate.

ShareX (Snipping Tool)

A much more advanced screenshot tool

I wouldn't typically consider Snipping Tool bloatware in Windows 11, as it offers a lot of useful functionality right out of the box. However, it is prone to some issues every now and then, and I've had it fail to capture screenshots that included Windows context menus multiple times.

When that happens, my go-to tool is ShareX, and aside from the fact that it works in many situations where Snipping Tool won't, it also has a few interesting features that make it even better than Snipping Tool. ShareX is far more configurable, with the ability to set different keybindings for different tasks, plus some advanced options for screen recording, including the encoding format and quality. You can even record your screen directly into a GIF format if you're using a platform where this is still required.

ShareX also has a built-in editor with options to add things like arrows, number counters, and more that can help with step-by-step guidance or simply with pointing out specific things in an image. On top of all that, it can also automatically upload your screenshots for easy sharing over the internet. All of this is optional, though, and you're always in control of the experience, which is one of the many things that makes this app great.

The latest version of ShareX at writing time (17.1.0) is only a little over 50MB in size to download, and once installed, Windows reports it uses 181MB. Not the smallest app around, but certainly a very small one for modern standards.

Notepad++ (Notepad)

Next-level text editing

Notepad has always been a solid, if basic, tool for plain text editing. If you need to write up a script or some kind of basic code, Notepad will do the job just fine, and its lightweight nature and speed always made it easy to jump into it in a pinch if you need to take a quick note.

However, the limitations of Notepad have always been apparent to more proficient users, and what's more, Microsoft has been bloating up the app in recent years and months. It now has things like Copilot offering to rewrite or explain things, which also prompts you to use a Microsoft account, and the company is even adding the ability to format text. Not everyone wants this, which is why an alternative like Notepad++ is more tempting than ever.

Built to be a more capable alternative to Notepad, Notepad++ is a free and open-source project that also supports plain text editing, complete with tab support so you can manage multiple projects at once. One big benefit of Notepad++ over Microsoft's offering is that it supports syntax highlights, meaning you can choose the programming language you're using, and Notepad++ will highlight different parts of the text so you can more easily identify important elements. It also easily supports Markdown editing, it has a lot of customization options (including theming), and overall, it's just a very fast and lightweight solution. Notepad++ is a mere 6.84MB download, and Windows reports that it takes up just over 17MB after being installed. For how much is on offer here, that's remarkable.

Flow Launcher (Windows Search)

A true game changer

Windows Search is a notoriously slow and poor experience for finding anything. Using the search bar in the Start menu is often frustrating, as results can take a second to properly update, and you might end up opening the wrong thing because you pressed Enter just as the top suggestion changed.

Flow Launcher is an app that's far faster for finding and launching your apps, performing web searches, and more. It's instantly responsive once you press the respective keyboard shortcut, and it makes it incredibly easy to launch the things you care about the most in a split-second. In addition to launching your apps, Flow Launcher can be enhanced with various plug-ins that perform even more tasks, such as searching OneNote notebooks, converting measuring units, doing calculations, or even looking up and downloading YouTube videos. Flow Launcher can also search your files either by integrating with the Windows search engine or using Everything, which is far faster and more lightweight (though Everything isn't open-source).

Flow Launcher is a fairly small app, with a 81.1MB download for the latest version. Windows reports about the same size in the Settings app, but looking at the app's folder, the actual size appears to be around 200MB after installation. Adding more plug-ins can increase that size over time, but likely not by a lot.

KDE Connect (Phone Link)

Connect to your phone without a Microsoft account

Phone Link is a feature in Windows 11 that does exactly what's advertised. It allows you to link up a phone, whether it's Android or iOS, and see information from that phone on your computer. You can manage notifications, send SMS messages, and even make calls from your PC, though many features only work properly if you have an Android phone. You can even manage photos from your phone and edit them on your PC, or use your phone apps in Windows, if you have specific Samsung models.

All of this requires you to use a Microsoft account, though, and if you want a less corporate solution, then KDE Connect may be for you. KDE Connect was originally designed for Linux, but it's also on Windows, and it allows you to connect your phone to your PC to sync notifications and enable other experiences. Not every Phone Link feature is available here, but there are also some unique ones. You can share clipboard content between your phone and PC easily, and quickly send files from one to the other as well. You can even use your phone as a mouse and keyboard for your PC, or make it a presentation remote when you have to talk in front of people.

KDE Connect is available as a roughly 81MB installer for Windows, meaning it's a fairly small option all things considered. If you prefer the transparency of open-source software, this is undoubtedly a great choice.

LocalSend (Nearby Sharing)

It actually works with your devices

Sending files between your devices on a local network is one of the features I love to see the most as someone who doesn't like depending on cloud storage services that cost extra and are dependent on internet speeds. Windows offers a nearby sharing feature that works between Windows devices, but sadly, that's about it.

While many other solutions exist, LocalSend is an extremely easy choice for sending files across devices for a few reasons. It's a small app, it looks and feels modern, and it works on just about every platform that matters, including Windows, macOS, Linux (in various formats), Android, and iOS. Whatever device you have, LocalSend makes it easy to send files between them at high speeds without using up bandwidth or relying on an internet connection that can be unstable depending on where you are.

There isn't much else to this one — it just works. On Windows, LocalSend is a less-than-15MB download, and once installed, Windows reports its size at under 50MB.

VLC (Media Player)

You knew this one was coming

Of course, we can't talk about free and open-source software without bringing up one of the most popular pieces of software for Windows users, VLC. While the Media Player in Windows is fairly capable these days and can handle most file types, it can't handle all of them, and it's bound to let you down every now and then.

VLC needs no introduction, but it's pretty much the holy grail of media players. It supports just about every file format and codec you'd ever find yourself using, it supports subtitles, multiple audio tracks, and so on. It can even stream video directly from the internet, and it has some incredibly useful features like finding subtitles for a specific video file, for when you want to watch content that you definitely own legitimately.

I can't say much more about VLC other than that it will open pretty much any video file you have that isn't broken. You can't ask for much more than that. Plus, it's a 43MB download, and after installing it, it takes about 170MB of space, so it won't take much of a toll on your storage.

Make Windows 11 even better

If you're looking to replace some of the features in Windows 11 so you don't have to rely as much on Microsoft's solutions, the apps above are great replacements for a lot of what's included in the operating system. Some options like VLC may be obvious, but I'm sure at least one of these apps is something you probably didn't know about before. And if there's an app I missed, I'd love to know about it, as I'm always looking for ways to make Windows 11 better.