Awesome Software Patreons

A curated list of awesome programmers and software projects you can support!

Help individual programmers or open source projects funding the development of your favorite software sponsoring them via Github, subscribing to their Patreon accounts or using other forms of sponsorship.

A tangible way to give back to the open source community!

Contents

• Open Source Projects
  • Libraries
  • Operating Systems
  • Games
  • Open Source Art
  • Hardware related
• People Doing Open Source Work
• Other Kinds of Content
  • Articles and Tutorials
  • Videos
  • Podcasts

Open Source Projects

Projects released with an open source license.

• Akira, #2 - Linux application for UI and UX design.
• Albert launcher - Keyboard launcher written in C++/Qt.
• AngouriMath - Computer/symbolic algebra library for .NET.
• Armory - 3D game engine for Blender.
• bcachefs - Linux filesystem.
• Blender - 3D creation suite.
• BookWyrm, #2 - Social reading and reviewing, decentralized with ActivityPub.
• Calibre - E-books manager.
• Compiler Explorer - Online decompiler and compiler explorer.
• Dekko Project - Ubuntu email client.
• Deluge - BitTorrent client.
• DIGImend - Improving Linux support for (non-Wacom) graphics tablets.
• DokuWiki - Wiki application.
• Duplicati - Backup client.
• F-Droid, #2 - An installable catalogue of FOSS applications for the Android platform.
• Firezone - Self-hosted VPN server using WireGuard.
• Flarum - Forum platform.
• FreeCAD - Parametric 3D modeler made primarily to design real-life objects of any size.
• Funkwhale - A free, federated and social music server.
• GIMP - GNU Image Manipulation Program.
• Godot Engine - Complete 3D engine.
• HaxeFlixel - Cross-platform 2D game engine.
• Homebrew - Package manager for macOS.
• Improved Initiative - D&D tabletop role-playing game combat tracker.
• Invidious - An alternative web front-end to YouTube.
• iTerm2 - macOS terminal replacement.
• JabRef - Software for bibliography management
• JHipster - Open Source application platform for creating Spring Boot + Angular/React/Vue projects in seconds.
• Kismet, #2 - Kismet wireless tool.
• Laigter - Automatic normal/specular/occlussion/parallax map generator for 2D game sprites.
• Latte Dock - Replacement dock for Plasma desktops.
• LibrePCB - Software to develop printed circuit boards.
• LogSeq - Knowledge management
• Lollipop Cloud - Cheap, easy, self-hosted clouds for everyone.
• Mastodon, #2 - Federated social network server.
• Matrix, #2 - An open network for secure, decentralized communication.
• Memcode - Platform for flashcards
• MissKey - Federated microblogging platform.
• MuseScore - Music notation software.
• MyPaint - Painting and drawing program that works nicely with pressure-sensitive tablets, and its dynamic brush engine library.
• NativeScript-Vue - Native mobile applications with NativeScript and Vue.
• Neovim - Vim-fork focused on extensibility and usability.
• OctoPrint - Web interface for 3D printers.
• Olive - High quality video editing and compositing software.
• Oni - Modal code editor.
• Open Broadcaster Software, #2 - Video recording and live streaming software.
• Open Chemistry - Umbrella of multiple open source chemistry projects including Avogadro, cclib, DeepChem, MSDK, Open Babel, RDKit, and 3DMol.js.
• Open Source BIM Collective - Tools for building information modeling.
• openage - Real time strategy game engine.
• OpenFAAS - Serverless platform.
• OpenRGB - RGB lighting control application.
• OpenShot - Video editor.
• Paperwork - Personal document manager.
• Perkeep - Personal storage system.
• PHPStan - PHP static analyzer.
• PHPUnit - PHPUnit and related projects.
• PixelFed, #2, #3, #4 - Federated image sharing powered by the ActivityPub protocol.
• Pixelorama - A free & open-source 2D sprite editor, made with the Godot Engine.
• PlantUML - UML diagram creation software.
• postActiv - Microblogging platform.
• Project Lombok - Java editor plugin.
• Reddit Enhancement Suite - Reddit browser extension.
• Remmina - Remote desktop client.
• Secure Scuttlebutt - A distributed and secure peer-to-peer protocol and social network.
• ShareX Team - Screen capture and screen sharing tool.
• Synfig - 2D animation software.
• SysV init - System V init implementation.
• Termux - Android terminal emulator.
• The Lounge - Modern web IRC client.
• Thirty Bees - Ecommerce software.
• Tiled - A 2D game level editor.
• Transmission - BitTorrent client.
• V Programming Language, #2 - Statically typed compiled programming language similar to Go, influenced by Oberon, Rust, Swift.
• VideoLAN - Maker of the VLC video player.
• Vim-Go - Go plugin for VIM.
• Weblate - Localization tool with tight version control integration.
• Webpack - JavaScript module bundler.
• Wiki.js, #2, #3 - Wiki platform built with Node.js.
• WireGuard - Next generation secure network tunnel.
• Xfce #2 - Desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems.
• Zig #2 - System programming language which prioritizes robustness, optimality, and clarity.
• Zrythm - A highly automated and intuitive digital audio workstation.
• Kitbashery - 3D kitbashing solution & CC0 model library.

Libraries

Libraries and frameworks.

• ApexCharts, #2 - JavaScript charts library.
• Asset-Importer-Lib - Loads 40+ 3D file formats into one unified and clean data structure for game-developers.
• Babel - JavaScript compiler.
• Dear ImGui - Immediate Mode Graphical User interface for C++.
• Hapi.js - Node.js framework.
• HaxeUI - User interface toolkit.
• Laravel - PHP framework.
• LibGDX - Game development framework.
• MicroG, #2 - A free-as-in-freedom re-implementation of Google's proprietary Android user space apps and libraries.
• Moleculer - Progressive microservices framework for Node.js.
• Musl libc - The Musl libc project.
• OpenFL - Cross-platform application framework.
• Phalcon - Web framework delivered as a C extension for PHP.
• stdlib - Standard library for JavaScript and Node.js with an emphasis on scientific computing.
• Tabulator - JavaScript library for building interactive tables.
• Vapor, #2 - Server-side Swift framework.
• Vue.js - Vue.js.
• Yii framework - PHP framework.
• Zappa - A server-less Python framework.

Operating Systems

Operating Systems and Linux distributions.

• /e/ - Privacy-focused mobile OS.
• Elementary OS - Ubuntu variant.
• FreeDOS - MS-DOS compatible operating system.
• GhostBSD - Desktop-focused BSD OS.
• GrapheneOS - A privacy and security focused mobile OS with Android app compatibility.
• LineageOS, #2 - Fork of CyanogenMod.
• Linux Lite - Linux distribution.
• Mobian - Debian for mobile.
• Parrot - Security-related Debian distribution.
• Qubes OS - A reasonably secure operating system.
• ReactOS - A free Windows-compatible Operating System
• Redox OS - OS written in Rust.
• Serenity OS #2 - A graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics.
• Slackware Linux - Linux distribution.
• Solus - Linux distibution.
• Ubuntu Mate - Ubuntu variant.
• Ubuntu Studio, #2 - Ubuntu variant for creating audio, video, graphics etc.
• Ubuntu Touch, #2 - Touch-friendly mobile version of Ubuntu.

Games

Games and game-related projects.

• Battle for Wesnoth - Turn-based strategy game.
• Cemu - Nintendo Wii U emulator.
• Citra - Nintendo 3DS emulator.
• Citybound - City building game.
• Cxbx-reloaded - Xbox emulator for Windows.
• Eigengrau's Generator - TTRPG/Dungeons and Dragons Town and NPC Generator.
• Libretro Team - Libretro, RetroArch and Lakka.
• Lutris - Game launcher & platform.
• Play! - PS2 emulator.
• Rpcs3 - PS3 emulator.
• Ryujinx - Nintendo Switch emulator.
• Xemu - Xbox emulator.
• Xenia - Xbox 360 emulator.
• yuzu - Nintendo Switch emulator.

Open Source Art

Developers creating art projects and contributing to art-related open source tools and libraries.

• Alexandre Prokoudine, #2 - GIMP contributor, editor of Libre Graphics World online magazine.
• Andrea Ferrero - Developer of PhotoFlow image editor, maintains various Appimage packages.
• Duduf - Tools for animations and motion pictures production.
• Inochi2D - Opensource editor and libraries for realtime 2D puppet animation and rendering, e.g. VTubers.
• Marc Jeanmougin - Inkscape contributor.
• Morevna Project - Various contributions to open source animation tools and animated shorts sources released under CC.
• Øyvind Kolås, #2 - Lead developer of babl & GEGL libraries used in the graphics editor GIMP.
• Tavmjong Bah - Working on Inkscape vector graphics editor.
• ZeMarmot, #2, #3 - 2D animation film project to be released under CC. GIMP contributions from Jehan Pagès, art and direction by Aryeom Han.

Hardware related

Hardware-related projects and makers.

• Alyssa Rosenzweig - FOSS graphics driver work (Panfrost, Asahi) and contributions to several other projects.
• Damien Maguire - Electric vehicle projects.
• Espruino - JavaScript interpreter for microcontrollers.
• Frank Buss - FPGA and other hardware projects.
• GitClear - Improved Linux support for touchpads.
• Geoffrey D. Bennett - Linux Focusrite Scarlett software.
• Hector Martin "marcan", #2 - Asahi, Linux support for Apple Silicon Macs.
• Micah Elizabeth Scott - Videos and hardware.
• Nefarius Software Solutions - Windows drivers for the Sony DualShock controller and others.
• Pinout.xyz - Pinout diagrams for various microcontrollers.
• Professor Abrasive - Retro gaming.
• Pablo Dobarro - Sculpting improvements for Blender.

People Doing Open Source Work

Developers contributing to multiple projects that ask to support their work.

• Adam King - RLTrader, Tensortrade and other trading related projects.
• Andreas Heinisch - LibreOffice developer.
• Andreas Kainz - LibreOffice designer.
• Andreas Pardeike - Programming tutorials, games and mods.
• Andrius Štikonas - KDE contributor, mainly KDE Partition Manager.
• Attogram Project - Shared Media Tagger, Open Translation Engine, and many more projects.
• Bailey Burnsed - FOSS Nerd developing open source games in Godot and Rust
• Daniel Gultsch - Conversations Jabber client.
• Daniël Klabbers - Contributor to Flarum and other PHP projects.
• Dave Täht - Working on improving the Internet.
• David Hewitt - ElementaryOS contributor, Torrential, Clipped.
• Dimitri Fontaine - Various contributions to the PostgreSQL ecosystem (pgloader, pg_auto_failover), Emacs libraries (el-get), author.
• Dominik Honnef, #2 - Working on tooling for the Go programming language.
• Dragan Djuric - Creator of Uncomplicate, a family of Clojure libraries for AI, ML, and GPU high performance computing.
• Drew DeVault, #2, #3 - sway, wlroots, sr.ht, scdoc, aerc, and more.
• Eevee - Games, applications and articles.
• Egoist - Various JavaScript libraries and tools.
• Eric S. Raymond - Nethack, GPSd, author of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar".
• Ethan Lee - Contributions to FNA, SDL2 C# and other projects.
• Fabio Zadrozny - Working on PyDev and related projects.
• Felipe Lima - Various projects and libraries like OkReplay, AirMapView, AsymmetricGridView, GifImageView, Wombat.
• Feross Aboukhadijeh - WebTorrent, StandardJS, and other JavaScript projects.
• Flammie, #2 - Apertium, linguistic tools for minority languages.
• Franck Nijhof - Creates Home Assistant add-ons and helps out on the main project.
• Gabriel Gonzalez - Dhall language, Nix and Haskell educational projects and Haskell libraries and tool.
• Gilbert Pellegrom - Raneto, Vue.js libraries and more.
• Jacky Alcine - Projects in the IndieWeb sphere, Koype and contributions to other open source projects.
• James 'Purpleidea' - mgmt config, articles and more.
• JeanHeyd Meneide - Creates C++ libraries and standards proposals.
• Joey Hess - git-annex, keysafe, other Linux software.
• Johann-S - Bootstrap JavaScript developer and various plugins and projects.
• Jorge Bucaran - Hyperapp and many other JavaScript projects.
• Jonathan Müller - Various C++ libraries, tools, articles.
• Kevin Cozens - Contributor to projects such as GIMP, OpenSimulator, KiCad and TinyScheme.
• Kévin Dunglas - API Platform, Vulcain, Mercure and Symfony contributions.
• Khoa Pham - A multitude of libraries, applications and articles about iOS/Cocoa,
• Kozec - Syncthing-GTK and SC-Controller.
• Kurt Kremitzki, #2 - FreeCAD contributor and Debian packager.
• Lars Moelleken - Various PHP libraries and OSS contributions.
• Luke Dashjr - Author of bfgminer and other substantial contributions to Bitcoin.
• Matt Lewis - Angular-calendar and other angular components.
• Matthieu Napoli - Bref, PHP-DI and other PHP libraries.
• Max Bridgland - Various pentesting frameworks and tools.
• Max Howell - Creator of Homebrew, maintainer of PromiseKit and a multitude of other project for Apple platforms.
• Michal Čihař - Contributor to Weblate and phpMyAdmin.
• Nate Graham - KDE contributor.
• Nick Sweeting - ArchiveBox and OSS contributions but also articles and documentation.
• Nicolas Hafner - Various Common Lisp libraries.
• Nils Maier - Download Them All! Firefox and Chrome extension.
• Oleh Krehel - GNU Emacs plugins, maintainer of Ivy/Swiper/Counsel, Hydra, Avy, Lispy, and more.
• Ondřej Surý - Debian packager.
• Patrick Wardle - Owner of Objective-See, various macOS security tools and articles.
• Pedro Piñera - Tuist and XcodeProj libraries, articles.
• Pedro Carrasco - Various iOS libraries and projects.
• Povilas Kanapickas - X server, Buildbot CI, Barrier and many others.
• Raph Levien - druid and other Rust projects.
• Reini Urban - Maintaining and developing software such as cperl, parrot, a lot of perl5 modules, safeclib and libredwg.
• René Rebe - T2 System Development Environment.
• Rekka Bellum & Devine Lu Linvega - Open source tools and games.
• Rob Landley - Working on Toybox, mkroot and various other projects.
• Ryan C. Gordon, #2 - Linux ports of games, game-related utilities.
• Sanjay Madan, #2 - Mowglii apps, author of Itsycal and Snk.
• Scarlett Moore - KDE contributor.
• Scott Lahteine - Contributor to Marlin Firmware for 3D printers.
• Sindre Sorhus - Countless open source projects.
• skypjack - C++ libraries such as uvw and EnTT.
• Stéphane Peter - AudioKit contributor, Makeself and other libraries and projects.
• Steve Purcell - MELPA lisp package archive and other software tooling.
• Steven Troughton-Smith - Various iOS/macOS software.
• Thomas M. Edwards - Gaming related projects.
• Tim Oliver - Multitude of iOS libraries and various contribution to the iOS ecosystem.
• Timothée Giet - GCompris contributor.
• Tobias Koppers - Founder and maintainer of Webpack.
• Yorik van Havre, #2 - FreeCAD contributor.

Other kinds of content

Articles, videos, podcasts, etc…

Articles and Tutorials

• Alecaddd - Various programming tutorials.
• Chris Bradfield - Programming tutorials for kids.
• DistroWatch - Reviews and tutorials for Linux/BSD.
• Fluent C++ - C++ articles.
• Kyle Simpson - Author of the "You Don't Know JS" book series. Doing articles, podcasts and OSS contributions.
• Meeting C++ - C++ articles.
• Modernes C++ - C++ articles.

Videos

• CS Dojo - Programming videos.
• Corey Schafer - Python tutorials.
• Fun Fun Function - JavaScript and general programming videos.
• Joel Yliluoma, #2, #3 - Programming videos.
• LiveOverflow - IT security videos.
• The Coding Train - Programming tutorials.
• ThreatWire - Hak5 security show.

Podcasts

• CPP Cast - Podcast for C++ developers.
• Destination Linux - Linux discussion and news related podcast.
• Late Night Linux - Linux and news.
• More Than Just Code - Podcast for iOS developers.
• The Debug Log - Game development.
• This Week in Linux - Linux News Podcast, 2-3 times more topics per episode than other podcasts.

Contributing

Please take a quick look at the contribution guidelines first. Thanks to all contributors; you rock!

License

This list adopts a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license.