Top 10 Free Software Alternatives to Expensive Programs. Lately the pricing for just about everything has been going up and paid software is no exception with their monthly and annual fees that can add up. So if you’re looking to cut costs, I’ll show you the free alternatives to those paid programs for Windows, macOS and Linux. As requested by a subscriber to our channel, this video will be more of a quick round up of free software in various categories. And to save time we’ll be skipping the mini tutorials like we do in our other videos.
#freesoftware #software #freeapps
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“Free Software” Playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLunpbmfrhFAWJA4lSDmRYJdcsEpjAuRdz
How to Use GIMP (Beginners Guide)
https://youtu.be/Q8C0LJPpr64
GIMP Tips & Tricks (Beginners Guide)
https://youtu.be/bxrDIAtvQfc
How to Use VirtualBox (Beginners Guide)
https://youtu.be/sB_5fqiysi4
How to Use OBS Studio (Beginners Guide)
https://youtu.be/DTk99mHDX_I
0:00 Intro
0:32 Microsoft 365 Alternatives
1:43 Autodesk Maya Alternative
2:39 Autodesk AutoCAD Alternative
3:22 Norton Antivirus Alternative
4:10 TechSmith Snagit Alternative
4:52 Wondershare UniConverter Alternative
5:40 Adobe Premiere Pro Alternative
6:43 Adobe Lightroom Alternative
7:23 Adobe Photoshop Alternatives
8:03 Adobe Illustrator Alternative
LibreOffice
https://www.libreoffice.org/
OnlyOffice
https://www.onlyoffice.com/desktop.aspx
Blender
https://www.blender.org/
FreeCAD
https://www.freecad.org/
Windows Security
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/comprehensive-security
Bitdefender Antivirus Free
https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/consumer/free-antivirus
Malwarebytes Free
https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download
OBS Studio
https://obsproject.com/
HandBrake
https://handbrake.fr/
DaVinci Resolve
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/
Darktable
https://www.darktable.org/
GIMP
https://www.gimp.org/
Krita
https://krita.org/
Inkscape
https://inkscape.org/
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Here at Brett In Tech we make videos about technology, streaming video services, life hacks and anything else that people might find useful to know about. Having been on YouTube for several years this channel has evolved but the goal is still the same. We aim to educate and make people aware of resources that can be helpful to them in their daily life including letting people know about the best free software.
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43 Comments
@BrettInTech · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Thanks for watching! What free software are you using as an alternative to an expensive program?
@tomas-wi8dy · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
now we have affinity (free) and artcraft (opensourse free)
@timogus424 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Merci vraiment !! 😊👍✌️🙌
@robertolanza6386 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Utilizzo onlyoffice con infomaniak in sostituzione di OneDrive
@metehangokturk9696 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
The best virus protection for your PC is the Linux OS.
@ChristianClark · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
I am SILL have NO clue of what non-binary is. LOL I think Ms Blaire should make a video about what is non-binary.. because I don't get it at all.
@mickmathieson8266 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Brilliant!
@ChristianClark · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Photon Studio is the BEST !
@ЮрийЧижиков-ы5н · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Where Photon Studio?
@DeZmondCyborg · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
😮 oh yeah
@Rem1431 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Why not talking about Affinity Studio Free. The best Free Adobe Design Killer
@djembalang · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
How about acrobat pro? i really need to use edit pdf and ocr funtion?
@STB-jh7od · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Appreciate free anti-virus
@tmcrook · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
TY so much for this info.
@_ghafour_ · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Hey Brett! A roundup of open-source Windows apps that remove small everyday annoyances would fit your free-software videos really well.
LocalSend for moving files between devices, ShareX for screenshots and recordings, and biomes for bringing your apps back into a saved layout could make an interesting combination.
I’m Abdelghafour, the developer of biomes. I built it because I kept rearranging the same windows when switching between coding, designing, and studying. You save a workspace once, then activate it with a click or hotkey, including across multiple monitors.
It’s free and open source, and I’d love to see how it holds up in your own workflow. Your honest experience with it would be useful!
@welshtechie6832 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Malwarebytes is no longer free!!! Sickening 14 day free trial then paytime! How times have changed….
@db9406 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Like your videos which have a professional sound. You don't talk like an American school girl, or mumble the last few words of a sentence.
@tomxavier4328 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
I just installed PDFgear to get rid of Adobe Acrobat which kept activating background tasks, despite me turning them off.
@Tarsidous · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
I do a lot of VBA scripting in Excel. I’d love to bot have to.
@johnuhlemann8917 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Another Photoshop alternative has emerged: Compositor. It is designed to look and work like Photoshop, much like Photopea. It is currently available only on Mac, but forks for Windows and Linux are being developed.
@sapelesteve · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Another exceedingly useful video! Thanks Brett! 👍👍
@DrinkingStar · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Thanks for this video. I have been using Libre Office, OBS studio. I have Handbrake but only used it once. I prefer using Format Factory which is simpler and easier to use. I also have DaVince Resolve but I find it has a huge learning cut. Instead, I use CyberLink Power Director which I bought a long time ago. I also have Adobe Elements which I also bought before they went subscription based. Both Cyberlink and Elements are all I need. I also have Gimp which I only used a few times a long time ago. I know you have other software you could mention and I have some of those that you recommended in previous videos such as Audacity and VLC media player are 2 others that I use. DW Free Video Downloader is also free to download video. I use that if I have problems with YouTube Downloader which is also free. UPscayl is a free program that lets do some unique photo alternations with very little effort and which has a small learning curve.
@SynK-R · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
LibreOffice is great. it can do almost everything MSOffice can do and the best part, its free. You are not charged high prices to use there feats, and another thing? LibreOffice can be used offine without the hidden spyware Microslop does on MsOffice.
@kensmith5694 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
I will make a list of free stuff I use just so others have additional options for less common stuff
Stellarium is good if you want to know what those little dots of light in the night sky are called
LibreCAD is a goodish 2D CAD package that likes DXF format files and can often open DWG files
OpenSCAD is a program for designing stuff for 3D printing etc for folks who like doing it by writing "code"
Slic3r goes with OpenSCAD to turn your 3D STL file into GCODE
Gnumeric is a spreadsheet program that is very fast and does far better on making graphs and charts in many cases
Lazarus is a good way to quickly make portable software to do that weird thing only you and your company need to do
KiCad is a great program for designing and drawing circuits and then getting PCBs made.
Audacity is great for editing sound
Avidemux I think may still be a good option for very simple video edit jobs
kdenlive is a good editor for more complex video editing
Kaffeine is good for playing video files and also for interfacing to that USB TV stick thing
gqrx might work for you to work with your SDR
(gnu)Octave is a very good program for doing calculations with complex numbers and other things a spreadsheet won't do
AisleRiot is by far the most important program ever written for any computer anywhere.
@canyonmann1 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
I prefer Photopea as the best Photoshop alternative.
@LAinChgo_312 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
In order of daily use: Darktable (6yrs), LibreOffice (10yrs), Inkscape (3yrs), Gimp (7yrs), DaVnciResolve (still learning it), Krita (2yrs), Audacity and Affinity (>2mths). I forgot to include FreeFile Sync, it's work great for me when updating my backups!
@massimoR64 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
I suggest Open CAD Studio as an alternative to AutoCAD
@traceyoung5592 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Picpick screen capture software is a fantastic alternative screen capture program, and it doesn’t grab and share all of your data.
@terrasoar9548 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Free flowcharts and/or documents = Filamental
@mjbucar · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Concise and informative – thank you.
@franciscohorna5542 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
use norton 360 delux here and also free version of malwarebytes also use media player classic and mediaplayer classic be edition and vlc as well
@zakspop · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
The most important software to find an alternative is called Windows. I use Mint. There are others.
@bertfarry3793 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Canva Affinity can do Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign in one application and its free
@LucienSabre · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
3:22 Malwarebytes free version is just a trial, not a real freeware software – and it doesn’t work after you install it the first time (I know because I tried it multiple times).
4:52 I’ve been using HandBrake since I started dabbling in video-editing, and it’s absolutely great….but it’s useful even if you’re not into making/edting videos – personally it helped me “restore” some very old damaged videos and compress a couple of very large ones.
7:23 People need to stop considering GIMP an alternative to Photoshop. It’s not…it’s nowhere near.
@susanjones5592 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Thank you
@robertthrift5016 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
RapidRaw is now sufficiently developed to be a good alternative to CaermaRAW/Lightroom/Darktable, and has a shallower learning curve than Darktable.
@davinp · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Adobe software is expensive and requires a subscription. The average home user may not able to afford it, so it's good that are many cheaper or free alternatives to Adobe programs
@davinp · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Microsoft has retired Publisher, so you'll need to find an alternative desktop publishing program
@Eric_Maastricht · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
As most commercial video editing software is quite expensive, I would expect a nod to Kdenlive. for the next batch of free alternatives? If sometimes GIMP or Krita look like using a H-bomb on a mosquito, Irfanview is quite decent for working on bitmap files.
Also, as Adobe's professional pdf editor is not cheap, I use pdf24 for the basics like organizing pages, merging individual jpg files into a book-like pdf etc. etc.
Then, of course, there are the free alternatives that are mentioned in many Youtube-videos like VLC, Audacity and MS Windows enhancements/-improvements like Everything, Firefox, Thunderbird, Lively Wallpaper, TranslucentTB, Serviio, Notepad++,… the list goes on and on…
@mithesh · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
One mistake. Wondershare and Handbrake? Wrong comparison. No way you compared these both. I understand its overly priced. But handbrake is a specific tool/feature from a set of tools from uniconverter. Converter, basic video, audio editing, video downloader, Screen recorder.. No way these both can be compared. Handbrake doesn't do most of these. Its USP is transcoding and compression and excels in it and that's it. Wondershare does these in its basic yearly plan(Overpriced. Agreed). you could have used other exclusive video converters instead of an all in one tool.
@ThorTheGiant · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
I don't always use the software you mention but I do know that should that situation arise, I know Brett In Tech has my back.
@android0045 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
Last time I checked Malwarebytes and Bitdefender cannot be installed on a computer at the same time. Update: AI tells me that Bitdefender has to be installed first and then MB will install, but not the other way around. Bitdefender will force you to uninstall MB.
@victoriabrister1116 · October 13, 2026 at 4:46 pm
You're the best ! Thank you for all you do for this community.