Tooling — A Builder & Operator Reference
Free, OSS, and self-host first. Tools, stacks, and workflows for shipping software, making things, running infrastructure, living well, and giving back.
A curated reference of tools — free / OSS / self-host first — across five areas. Updated through May 2026.
Areas
- Build — Web, mobile, design, AI engineering, ecommerce, dev tooling, and curated stacks. The shipping-software side.
- Make — 3D printing, CAD, CNC, laser, microcontrollers, Pi, smart home, SDR, lab equipment, photo, audio, video, astronomy, writing.
- Self-Host — Self-Hosted AI (Ollama, Llama 4, agentic coding), the self-host catalog, ops, networking, security, and deployment approaches.
- Live — Productivity, PKM, learning (education / language / reading), cooking, fitness, household, travel, spiritual, genealogy, estate, and self-host personal finance.
- Contribute — OSS funding, licensing, foundations, contributor agreements, and civic tech (Decidim, KoboToolbox, USWDS, MuckRock, OSM Humanitarian).
Cross-cutting
- Self-Hosted Picks Index — the strongest free / OSS / self-host pick from every category, in one page.
House rules
- Free / OSS / self-host first. Paid SaaS appears where it earns the slot, never as the default when a credible OSS option exists.
- Each category page closes with a "Pick this if…" — the honest, opinionated take.
- ★ ★ marks a dominant pick; ★ marks a strong runner-up worth knowing.