I used Plex for my home media for almost a year, then it stopped playing nice for reasons I gave up on diagnosing. While looking at alternatives, I found Jellyfin which is much more responsive, IMO, and the UI is much nicer as well.

It gets relegated to playing Fraggle Rock and Bluey on repeat for my kiddo these days, but I am absolutely in love with the software.

What are some other FOSS gems that are a better experience UX/UI-wise than their proprietary counterparts?

EDIT: Autocorrect turned something into "smaller" instead of what I meant it to be when I wrote this post, and I can't remember what I meant for it to say so it got axed instead.

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[–] atlasraven31@lemm.ee 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

VLC absolutely wrecked Windows Media Player. Firefox was the same with IE.

[–] olafurp@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Did you know that MS now charges for you to play some codecs with windows media player?

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Unless something has changed recently, that's not exactly true. They charge 99c for the distribution of it through the windows store (or whatever it's called) but you can install them the traditional way no problem

I think it's still dumb but it's a distinction worth making. I think the description even links the website where you can download it

[–] Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Bitwarden password manager. I've used several proprietary PW managers, Bitwarden is by far the most stable, intuitive, and functional IMO.

[–] portside@monyet.cc 1 points 2 years ago

Also KeePass, I've switched from bitwarden to KeePassDX on mobile and set up syncing to nextcloud and google drive. Aegis for time based OTP's.

[–] directive0@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Blender. I feel pretty confident in saying that there is simply nothing like it in the commercial world. Its feature set is unreal; its like the swiss army knife of 3D modelling programs. I can't say enough good things about Blender. It has replaced so many secondary programs in my workflow and is slowly dominating to become my entire workflow.

It used to suck to use in the late 2010s and then work was done to overhaul its space-shuttle cockpit interface, and now it actually feels concise and usable. I freaking love blender now. Big time blender fanboy right here.

[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

As someone who gave up on Blender back in the 2010’s, I may need to revisit it.

[–] fubo@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

My Pop!_OS system has never shown me ads for Candy Crush.

[–] elouboub@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

And KDE looks so much better than windows' DE. It's also more versatile.

Gnome just copied Apple, which I guess somebody had to do in order to have them switch to something that looks familiar.

[–] nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 years ago

Actually, Apple copied GNOME.

[–] panicnow@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

I just installed Ubuntu server on my little home server which has faithfully run Windows 10 Pro since it came out. I didn’t want to deal with the ads on Windows 11. I ssh into the Ubuntu install and there is an ad in the terminal!

[–] flameguy21@lemm.ee 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

OBS is so good that I don't know why anyone would ever use X-split.

[–] cujo@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I adore OBS. I've been teaching my friends the basics on how to use it, as they've all been using some proprietary crap that makes their lives marginally easier in one or two areas but adds a huge headache in others.

[–] erogenouswarzone@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Do you have any videos? Can you record tracks and musical production type stuff?

[–] cujo@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

I am by no means a master at OBS, and I wouldn't know where to point you to learn. Everything I know I've learned by either poking around in the software or googling specific questions, i.e. "how to overlay twitch chat in OBS". As you can probably guess, I used to use it to stream to twitch. Not very suddenly, mind, but I did it. Lol!

OBS is designed for streaming out and recording video, not really for music production. I'm sure there are some FOSS music production softwares worth checking out, though!

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago

Signal. Who else is making a post quantum secure e2ee algorithm and making sure the code is open source and not duplicating the keys everywhere? Thank goodness for the kind devs on this project and for other FOSS projects everywhere!

[–] anthonylavado@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 years ago

Thanks for the praise! We're not on Lemmy too much, but someone in the Core Team caught site of this and shared it with me. If you're wondering who I am: github

[–] massive_bereavement@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

Calibre vs... em something that's not calibre.

I'm honest not sure what I would use instead, but it would be hard to replace.

[–] okamiueru@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Here is my opinion on some FOSS software. PS, I'm too old to give a shit about team mentality, I just want stuff to work. Also, my motivation for liking FOSS is not so much "free", but rather "unencumbered and unrestricted shared human technology and knowledge".

GNOME, for the hate it gets, it comes close to getting everything right. I'd give it a 95/100 score. Windows a 30/100, and MacOS a 35/100. No verdict/comment on KDE as I haven't used it. I have good reasons for disliking W10/W11 and separate ones for MacOS. As desktop environments, they are both shit for each their own reasons.
Blender. 3D/Scultping/Drawing/Video Editing. Aside from Linux kernel, the most impressive and well managed FOSS project there is. I grew up with pirated 3dsmax, and what a dream it would be to grow up today with Blender as it is.
Linux as a OS kernel. One can argue about the desktop market share, but people don't know better. They think the software that runs on it defines it. But, there is a reason why 100% of top 500 supercomputers in this world run on Linux. I'd also mention the Arch/AUR community. Doesn't matter if you use Arch or not, arch/aur wiki is a goldmine.
Godot: 2D game engine. As a 3d game engine, it's not nearly as good as the non-FOSS competition.
Firefox: If it wasn't for Firefox, I don't know what I would do. I don't trust chrome one single bit.
Alacrity terminal: I'm sure there are plenty great FOSS terminal emulators, but the built in ones for MacOS and Windows are garbage.
Prusa Slicer: I think this one is as good as the commercial counterparts for FDM G-code generation.
VLC. Mixed feelings about this one, as I think it's UI is lacking, but since it plays almost everything the UX ends up being great.
LibreOffice Writer. Perhaps debatable. But the fact that you can trust LibreOffice to respect and adhere to the OpenDocumentFormat, and equally trust Microsoft Word to deliberately not do so in subtle ways, LibreOffice Writer is ultimately the better software IMHO.

Projects I wish had an edge over commercial proprietary software:

Gimp. It just isn't as good, even if you get used to it. Some things, of course, it can do much better (e.g the G'Mic QT filter pack). The lack of non-destructive work flows is the key part that is missing.
FreeCAD. It's good, and you can do wonders with it, but oh so rough compared to onshape/Fusion/etc.
Darktable. Not as good as commercial counterparts like Lightroom.
Kdenlive. Not as good as Davinci Resolve, or the adobe counterparts.
LMMS: Not as good as most commercial DAWs.
Krita: This one is actually not too far away from being best in class. I still suspect photoshop and has an edge
InkScape: A "best for some vector things but not all"-kinda thing. It's FOSS nature makes it the defacto vector editing software for certain kind of makers. But as a graphical vector editing suite, adobe's stuff is just much more solid.

Mobile stuff that I think is better than the counterpart, or at least so good that I don't care if there is a counterpart

Tuner: https://f-droid.org/packages/de.moekadu.tuner/ It just does what it is supposed to. There are hundreds of these on the play store, with ads or paid. There is no need for it.
Aegis Authenticator: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.beemdevelopment.aegis/ For handling 2FA keys.
Gallery: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.simplemobiletools.gallery.pro/
Telegram: Sort of FOSS. Aside from security concerns whereby Signal would win out, it's still the best UX. Compared to Messenger and Whats'App, not even a contest.

[–] dantheclamman@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Desktop: Zotero, RStudio, Thunderbird, Sumatra PDF, Notepad++, NoMacs (image viewer), Espanso (text expander), qBittorrent, Inkscape

Android: FairEmail or K9 Mail, Authenticator Pro, Feeder, F-Droid, Pocket Casts, SD Maid

Multi-platform: Home Assistant, Wireguard, Syncthing, Jellyfin, Kodi, Samba, Firefox

Honorable mentions that don't have the best UX but are still hugely appreciated for existing: Joplin, QGIS

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[–] bleistift2@feddit.de 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I’ll take LibreOffice Writer over MS Word anytime. All that ‘I know better than you,’ ‘You wanted to copy the space, too, right? Even though you stopped marking before it,’ can kiss my ass.

[–] cujo@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

I recently switch to OnlyOffice for their UI/UX, and it's been brilliant. LibreOffice is a delight, though.

[–] moreeni@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

VSCodium is better than most text editors. BTW, if you didn't know, you can still install some (turns out not all of them will work so you might still need the proprietary build from MS) extensions from Microsoft's store manually.

ShareX is the best software I have ever found for taking screenshots and/or quick gifs/videos. It's a real shame it doesn't have a GNU/Linux version, it's the only app I miss badly from my Windows days. Any other screenshot software is just nothing in comparison with it.

Joplin is my fav note-taking app. I have tried a lot of them but this one just works, has quite a big feature set, can synchronise using different mediums, from Dropbox to using Syncthing and synchronising files locally, doesn't look poorly, is cross-platform, has e2ee, doesn't cockblock you with paywalls. For me it's the perfect note-taking app.

Aegis is the best 2FA app for Android there is atm. IIRC, it got created because Google Auth had some problems with privacy so the whole idea of Aegis is to be the better option.

Lichess — a chess server with no BS and there are 0 paywalls. chess.com would force you to pay for stupid things like puzzles, with Lichess I am able to procrastinate with chess. For free.

NewPipe is the best YouTube client there is. For me, it's because of fast-forward on silence and the ability to unhook pitch and video speed. That means you don't have to either waste your time on literal nothing or struggle to understand what a person is saying anymore. NewPipe also gives you everything YouTube Premium does.

[–] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 years ago

Firefox/LibreWolf

[–] Boomkop3@reddthat.com 1 points 7 months ago

I personally run an older build of emby, the open source software jellyfin was forked from. It's very similar, but I found emby's video transcoding (or explicit not transcoding) to be more reliable

[–] Norgur@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Audiobookshelf. Way WAY better than Audible

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[–] JoeBidet@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Inkscape?

[–] Theharpyeagle@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I use InkStitch for designing embroidery patterns on Inkscape and love it, especially because commercial embroidery design programs are so expensive. I won't lie, it's pretty clunky at the moment, but I hope to be able to contribute to it and really polish it up.

[–] Norodix@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

First time I hear about inkstitch. Looks great!

[–] orphiebaby@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

How does it compare to Affinity?

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[–] eestileib@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Emacs and vim are both vastly superior to all other text editors.

Which one you like better is a matter of taste.

Vim is a girlfriend with rock hard abs who wants to take you rock climbing and of whom you're secretly a little scared.

Emacs is a big bouncy happy girl who wants to take care of you in every conceivable way, then split a bucket of RAM while binging pirated movies.

[–] themz@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Ah, sexism is alive and well in tech.

[–] eestileib@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago

In my case, lesbianism.

[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 0 points 2 years ago

LibreOffice, I'm not sure it's better than M$Office per se, but it does everything most people need it to.

Chocolatey GUI > Microsoft store

Inkscape, I'm not even sure what the proprietary version is?

[–] jikel@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

VLC >> everything else

[–] Gerbler@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

One thing that I hate about VLC (hasn't made me drop it in 15 years but alas) is that you can hit E to go forward one frame but there's no key (nor capacity to set your own) to go back one frame.

Is it a niche use case? Sure probably. But not having the option to set one myself kills me whenever I frameskip one too far and have to shift-left and mash E again.

[–] 2ncs@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

From what I recall it has to do with encoding and how the data stored references the following frame but not previous. Still seems like some engineering could be done to solve, so it it's not as simple as "current Frame--"

[–] _number8_@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

i don't think it's a niche feature, and totally agree, very annoying. there's some long technical explanation about like stream buffering but i don't care, many other players have it. you can rewind but not rewind 1 frame?

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[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I could be biased but 2009scape. While originally a Runescape clone of 2009, they've preserved the integrity of the game much better than the official versions

[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

2009Scape definitely a different vibe than the official game, but I still thoroughly enjoy modern RuneScape. There are the typical “RuneScape 3 is just EZScape” complaints that are valid… But as an adult with very little free time, the old school grind just isn’t appealing anymore.

I love being able to idle grind most skills, because it means I can just have it running on my second monitor while I go about my day. It doesn’t take up all of my attention like it used to, and that’s not a bad thing. Lots of people idolize the old school grind because it’s nostalgic. But as someone who only gets a few hours a week (if I’m lucky) to play, it just doesn’t work for me anymore.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

XBMC forked off into Plex. Plex introduced a far better UI.
XBMC became Kodi. Kodi learned from Plex.
Jellyfin came along and learned from both of them.

So I don't think you can really criticise Plex too much here. They were perhaps getting complacent and they've definitely been shown up, but they were an important step to where we are now.

[–] cujo@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I disagree, I think it's still perfectly reasonable to criticize Plex. Specifically for that complacency. Just because they were an important step to getting where we are does not mean they are above reproach.

Besides, I wasn't really criticizing Plex? All I said was that I prefer the UI/UX in Jellyfin, and that Jellyfin is still "Just Working" where Plex failed for reasons unknown. Plex isn't bad, I enjoyed using it while I did. I just found something FOSS to take it's place. 🙂

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

You definitely can criticise them, but yeah maybe that word is too strong for what we're describing here. I just meant that it isn't all that unusual that Plex have fallen behind, there's an ebb and flow to development - but it's very nice that the FOSS offering is in the lead.

[–] Ironfacebuster@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I was setting up a Plex server, but when I noticed I had to pay to be able to play my own content on my phone I immediately switched to jellyfin. Haven't been able to test it yet, but as long as I don't need to pay them to be able to watch my own content on my own devices on my own network, I'll be happy!

[–] anthonylavado@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 years ago

No, you don't have to pay us a dime.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

All the Linux file managers I've tried are nicer to use and more stable than the Windows File Explorer.

[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Yes, but I'm still waiting for mac style column browse mode in nautilus 😒

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