5 Free Alternatives To Popular Paid Windows Apps

If you have noticed, recently it seems like every software that used to be available for a one-time fee is now only accessible through monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, or annual subscriptions. This has led to “subscription fatigue,” as these subscription bills quietly drain our wallets. From getting a simple tool for writing or one for editing a photo, it has become a new normal to pay for the tools that you don’t actually own. If you add up the costs of getting essential tools for your Windows PC, like an office suite, a creative cloud program, a PDF editor, a password manager, and more, you would find that you are paying hundreds of dollars just to keep your PC functional.

But there’s a legitimate, ethical trick that most PC users don’t utilize much. It helps you get professional-grade software without paying a dime: getting your applications from open-source or freeware communities. While apps from such sources might lack the shiny features of popular paid apps (such as an integrated AI assistant), they mostly get the job done without requiring you to pay a hefty license fee or the periodic “rent.”

We will discuss the five best free alternatives to your expensive, subscription-based apps. Sure, most paid apps that these free ones replace are pretty advanced, feature-rich, and more polished (there’s a reason they are so expensive), but these alternatives won’t compromise much on functionality or features, especially if you are a casual user or hobbyist.

For decades, Microsoft Office (or now Microsoft 365) has been the first-choice productivity suite for professionals, students, and even casual users globally. It is so widespread and embedded in our digital lives that “Word,” “PPT,” and “Excel” have effectively become verbs. However, paying $180 for a one-time, version-locked suite or $10/month for a monthly subscription to type a resume, create a school presentation, or create a household budget might feel excessive for many home users. That’s where LibreOffice comes to the rescue and proves that you don’t need a Microsoft account to be productive.

LibreOffice is an entirely free, open-source, fully featured suite that includes Writer (word processor), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), and more that makes it one of the best alternatives to Microsoft Word, Excel, and other Office tools. The best part about it is its extensive compatibility. It supports launching and editing Microsoft formats such as .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, and more, without any issues. This lets you continue collaborating with colleagues or friends who use Microsoft 365 while you use LibreOffice.

If you are a long-time MS Office user, you might find the UI of the current version of LibreOffice to be outdated, somewhat similar to what Office 2007/03 used to have, but there is no lack of modern features and tools. In fact, despite being free, LibreOffice is surprisingly powerful. Like MS Excel, Calc supports complex pivot tables and data macros, while Writer efficiently handles long-form documents with professional formatting tools. And since LibreOffice is open-source, you don’t have to worry about telemetry tracking your keystrokes or any “premium” feature locked behind a paywall. Once you install it, you’ll also get regular updates, and it will always be truly yours.

Let’s be honest here, Adobe Photoshop is the undisputed king of image editing and has been the go-to choice for many professionals and hobbyists. But in recent years, the professional version of the software has been available only through Creative Cloud subscriptions, which isn’t feasible for everyone, especially hobbyists who don’t even need the advanced features it offers. For these users, GIMP is the ultimate free alternative to Photoshop for meeting their photo-editing needs.

GIMP is a free, open-source program that offers a complete toolkit for basic to advanced image editing, including layers, masks, curves, levels, and more. It offers extensive compatibility and can also open and edit Photoshop (.PSD) files (with slight limitations), enabling collaboration with users and teams using the Adobe ecosystem. It also supports third-party plugins for even more advanced and granular editing. If you are used to the interface of Photoshop, you will love the highly customizable UI of GIMP. It lets you easily dock and undock panels to create a workspace that mimics the Adobe PS layout. This reduces the steep learning curve, allowing you to start your tasks immediately.

Speaking of the learning curve, to be very honest, GIMP has a steep one. You will notice that some common tasks require more steps than they would in Photoshop. However, to counter that, there are tons of free community-based tutorials and discussion platforms. It’s just a matter of a few days or weeks, and once you master it, you will realize how powerful this free tool is and how well it replaces expensive apps.

If you use Google Password Manager to store your login details and passwords on your web browser, you should stop it and instead use a dedicated password manager. However, when you search on the internet for an extensive dedicated password vault, you’ll find plenty of expensive options like Dashlane or 1Password. While most of these services offer a free version, a modern interface, and additional features, the most essential features are often locked behind a paywall. Bitwarden disrupts this pattern by offering a “freemium” model in which the free trial is sufficiently good enough for 99% of users.

Like the other software we discussed, Bitwarden is also an open-source program that encrypts your data with a “zero-knowledge” encryption architecture. That means neither the developers behind Bitwarden nor anyone else can access your saved credentials; only you hold the key. Unlike other password managers, the free version of Bitwarden lets you store an unlimited number of passwords at no additional hidden costs. Moreover, you can sync your passwords across unlimited devices with the same or different operating systems. It supports all major OSs, so you can download it on your iPhone, Android tablet, Windows PC, Linux laptop, and more devices.

Additionally, Bitwarden offers browser extensions for all major browsers, allowing you to easily save and autofill credentials without relying on the browser’s password vaults. It also has a built-in password generator that helps you create strong passwords or replace the weak ones. There is a paid version of the app that adds features like encrypted file storage and hardware key support, but these aren’t something that are a must in a password manager. Basically, all the core functionalities that you need in a password vault to keep your digital life secure are completely free.

The PDF (Portable Document Format) was designed to be the digital equivalent of paper: easy to read but difficult to change. For years, Adobe has taken advantage of this by charging a premium for Acrobat Pro. This could be because it seemed to be the only good tool that was capable of actually editing PDF files. For everyone else, trying to edit a PDF usually meant dealing with sketchy websites that watermark your documents or limit you to three pages. However, PDFgear has changed the game completely.

PDFgear is a rarity in the software world: a completely free, offline desktop application that offers full PDF editing capabilities with zero watermarks and no page limits. You can edit text directly in the document (matching the original font), rearrange pages, merge multiple files into one, and even convert PDFs to fully editable Word or Excel documents. It handles these tasks locally on your machine, ensuring your sensitive contracts or tax forms aren’t uploaded to a random cloud server.

What’s most impressive is the inclusion of advanced features usually reserved for enterprise software. You can sign documents electronically, fill out interactive forms, and use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to turn scanned images into selectable text. Recently, PDFgear integrated an AI chatbot that lets you “talk” to your PDF, asking it to summarize long documents or find specific clauses. It feels like a $200 piece of software, but it costs nothing, making it an essential install for any Windows PC.

If you are a writer or a content creator, you need a good screenshot taking tool on your Windows PC with all basic to advanced features. TechSmith’s Snagit is the gold standard, offering powerful capture and annotation tools, but it comes with a hefty price tag. ShareX is the open-source answer to Snagit, and quite frankly, “alternative” might be an understatement. The tool is actually overkill in the best possible ways.

ShareX is a lightweight, open-source productivity tool that handles screen capture, file sharing, and productivity tasks. It can capture full screens, specific windows, or scrolling webpages with ease, but the real magic happens after the click. ShareX automatically opens an image editor that lets you add arrows, blur sensitive text, outline steps, and add stickers before automatically uploading the file to your destination of choice (like Imgur, Google Drive, or even your own private server).

It doesn’t stop at static images, however, as ShareX is also a capable screen recorder. The productivity tool allows you to capture video or create GIFs of your workflow to share with colleagues. It even includes a massive toolbox of “extras” like a color picker, a screen ruler, a QR code generator, and a DNS changer. We admit it’s a power user’s tool, and at first glance, you might be intimidated by the settings menu. However, once you get your hands on it and configure your workflow, you will wonder how you ever lived without it. It is the Swiss Army Knife of Windows utilities and is completely free.