Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to I built an open-source, local-first alternative to LangSmith

Hey HN. Built this because LangSmith needs a cloud account just to see my own traces. pip install opensmith — everything shows up at localhost:7823. SQLite. No accounts. No config. Fully offline. 800+ downloads in 2 days. Surprised me. Would love honest feedback from this community.

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.

1. 1
   My Single-File Python Script I Used to Replace Splunk in My Startup▲313

   My immediate reaction to today's news that Splunk was being acquired was to comment in the HN discussion for that story: "I hated Splunk so much that I spent a couple days a few months ago writing a single 1200 line python script that does absolutely everything I need in terms of automatic log collection, ingestion, and analysis from a fleet of cloud instances. It pulls in all the log lines, enriches them with useful metadata like the IP address of the instance, the machine name, the log source, the datetime, etc. and stores it all in SQlite, which it then exposes to a very convenient web…

   2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

2. 2
   Fog Creek - The Problems with Open Source ▲70

   And how to fix them with Justin Searls

   2015 · soundcloud.com · its alternatives →

3. 3
   FreeUpMyMac▲110

   Hey HN Ex YC/Google engineer turned indie maker here - excited to share something I just shipped. The System Data in my Mac was taking up 300GB and it took me months to figure out how to clear the old cache, logs, junk and more. And CleanMyMac is a subscription - I refuse to pay subscription fees for Mac apps that run locally. So I built FreeUpMyMac an offline, lifetime Mac cleaner that clear junk with 1 click. And helps you visualize your storage with TreeMap/Sunburst. Hope it’s helpful to you as it is for me. Would love your feedback Tunde

   Jan 2026 · freeupmymac.com · its alternatives →

4. 4
   I can't write Python. It works anyway▲9

   Read an article about analyzing Garmin data with AI. Sounded great — except I didn't want to send my health data to any cloud service. So I asked Claude to write me 2-3 scripts and a dashboard. This escalated a bit. 30 days and 20$ later I have this: A local-first Garmin archive with interactive HTML dashboards, Excel exports, weather and pollen context, AES-256 encrypted token storage, and a self-healing data pipeline with 515 automated tests. Windows desktop app, no terminal needed. Nothing leaves your machine. I never wrote a line of Python. I understood the problems and made the…

   Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

5. 5
   SQLiteDAV – A WebDAV Server for SQLite Databases▲7

   Hi, this has been a labor of love over the last few days =) Can't wait to hear you feedback and of course AMA!

   2023 · blog.airsequel.com · its alternatives →

6. 6IM
   I made a browser TUI with its own layout engine▲6

   Try it at: ssh krnl.duetbrowser.com No sign up, totally free - no download. Let me know what you think. Prior art exists (brow.sh) but I wasn't satisfied with their graphical take. I wanted the raw, old skool terminal days of the early internet - BBS, and old green phosphor library comptuers - but running the modern web, with all the bells and jingle jangle whistles (JavaScript, etc). No funding, no VC, just 100% raw terminal fun. Not sure how long the demo will last, but try it out.

   Jul 2026 · its alternatives →

7. 7
   I made an open-source Replit▲9

   I spent the past few weeks making an open source cloud code editing environment with an AI copilot and multiplayer collaboration! It's fully self-hostable in 5-10 minutes. There's a lot of minor improvements to be made, and some are already listed in the Github issues. Let me know what you think and feel free to try it out.

   2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

8. 8
   Introspect - Python OODB Web CMS built on UNIX▲5

   2020 · bitbucket.org · its alternatives →

9. 9
   Puteron, Systemd Competitor▲7

   I was debating when to post this, but I've been using it locally in a variety of situations for several months and I think it's pretty stable (and usable!). There are more features I'd like to add, but I wanted to see if there was much interest before spending much more time on it right now.

   2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

10. 10
    Misfits, a FITS table viewer for the terminal▲5

    Hey any astrophysicist reading hn there? Was sick in august (yeah isn't that nice) and made a small python fits table viewer for the terminal with textual. It would be great to have people try it so if you find any issue I can improve it. If you have no FITS file but would like to try regardless there are some test file in `/test`. Ciao!

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

11. 11IB
    I Built a UI to finetune LLMs x100 faster▲7

    After fine-tuning GPT for a personal project, I realized how tedious it is to write plain text in a massive JSON file. That's why I built this app for my own use, and I want to see if others could benefit from a tool like this as well ;)

    2024 · finetuna-ui.com · its alternatives →

12. 12UI
    USearch Images demo in 200 lines of Python▲9

    Hey everyone! I am excited to share updates on four of my & my teams' open-source projects that take large-scale search systems to the next level: USearch, UForm, UCall, and StringZilla. These projects are designed to work seamlessly together, end-to-end—covering everything from indexing and AI to storage and networking. And yeah, they're optimized for x86 AVX2/512 and Arm NEON/SVE hardware. USearch [1]: Think of it as Meta FAISS on steroids. It's now quicker, supports clustering of any granularity, and offers multi-index lookups. Plus, it's got more native bindings than probably…

    2023 · usearch-images.com · its alternatives →

13. 13
    OpenShears – I built an uninstaller because OpenClaw refuses to die▲7

    Hey HN, I've been using OpenClaw for a few months as my local LLM gateway. It was genuinely fun — the convenience of routing multiple models through a single endpoint is hard to beat. But along the way, I stumbled upon a few surprises that made me uncomfortable: - Config files scattered in unexpected places (~/.openclaw, ~/.clawdbot, and more) - Background processes that respawn after termination - Logs that quietly accumulate without rotation - Cached data persisting long after I thought I'd removed it None of this is necessarily malicious, but when I decided to move on, I wanted…

    Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

14. 14
    Tsellm: Interactive SQLite shell with LLM support▲8

    Hello HN, While browsing the Python docs yesterday, I discovered that the latest 3.12 version has added support for a `python3 -m sqlite3` interactive shell. I looked into the source code, and its implementation was simple, giving me an idea: Why not hook the beautiful llm library by simonw into such an interactive shell, and thus have direct LLM support in SQLite? Without writing a C extension, build a shared object and all that fuss. Well, now you can `pip install tsellm` and do just that. demo gif:…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

15. 15WW
    Write webapps in Go without framework [updated]▲7

    Over three months ago, I posted my book on HN and got tremendous +ve reponse. I am happy to inform that I have published the book to leanpub as per the comments I got on HN itself! It is pay as you go model, and the minimum is $0 because I wanted to contribute back to the FOSS Community

    2016 · its alternatives →

16. 16IB
    I built a local Elixir/Python pipeline to curate 14,000 RAW photos▲5

    I had 14,000 photos sitting on a drive and wanted an excuse to play with local vision models and Elixir/Phoenix. I originally tried to get LLaVA to tell me if a photo was 'good' or matched my style, but quickly learned that LLMs have terrible taste. I ended up demoting the LLM to just extract metadata, and built a custom CLIP/Ridge Regression pipeline to actually learn my preferences based on how I rate things. The stack is Phoenix/Oban on the orchestrator side, and Python/FastAPI/Instructor for the AI workers. Happy to answer any questions about the architecture,…

    Apr 2026 · qwelian.com · its alternatives →

17. 17IM
    I made an online free tool site▲5

    Hi HN! I've created [UFreeTools](https://www.ufreetools.com/), a collection of developer utilities (60+ tools and growing) that's completely free, ad-free, and runs entirely in the browser. No data leaves your device - everything is processed locally. ## Background As a developer, I found myself constantly searching for simple utilities like JSON formatters, UUID generators, and color pickers. Most existing options were cluttered with ads, required sign-ups, or sent data to servers. I wanted clean, fast tools that respected privacy. So I built UFreeTools as a modern SPA using…

    2025 · ufreetools.com · its alternatives →

18. 18
    Created 60 free useful tools in one place▲7

    Hey there, I'm a solo dev behind KewlTools. So I'm one of those people who like to build their own tools/utilities whenever they a) want to get something done, or b) want to learn something. c) don't want to spend ages finding a utilty and going through walls of ads. I gradually built 66 tools, all free, fast, ad-free, and zero login. I (and my family/friends) use these daily, so thought some of you will find it useful! Any suggestions, improving current tools or adding new ones, please let me know.

    2025 · kewltools.com · its alternatives →

19. 19
    I built a minimal open-source CMS (FREE)▲6

    I built a minimal opensource CMS, I use it myself for my blog and for other SaaS. l love blogging, and sometimes I post random thoughts on my blog. The only thing is, I always did it with .md files, which is fine too However, I was excited about the idea of using a CMS that was very minimal and avoiding the option of connecting something like WordPress or other big platforms. Open source (if you want to fork it or contribute) and free to use (unless I see you have a million views haha). Star the repo if you like it!

    Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

20. 20BL
    Build Local-First Apps(WASM+SQLite)▲7

    Hey, everyone! SkyAlt is a browser and SDK for Local-first applications at the top of SQLite files. One and half months ago, I started working on the idea of rebuilding some software as services I use into local-first apps. SkyAlt is a combination of SQLite(storage), WASM(app binary) and JSON(settings, communication). I decided to build my own 'browser', which has around ~10K LOC and has nothing to do with WebKit(HTML/CSS/JS) or Chromium. Apps use immediate mode GUI to draw and communicate with Skyalt. The layout is a flexible grid. Apps are written in the Go language. Right now…

    2023 · its alternatives →

21. 21LU
    lowercase updates (a simple way to take and share notes)▲6

    hello! After receiving some great traction here a few weeks back (65.03k unique visitors/ 539.22k total requests/ +11x user sign ups), Stephen and I rolled up our sleeves and made some improvements based on the feedback y'all had. → Migrated the entire infrastructure from Heroku to DigitalOcean w/ Docker → Added functionality for data exports to markdown (take your data anywhere) → Added in a sustainability model with Lemon Squeezy subscription payments → Migrated to a Vite-based build system → Migrated from vuex to pinia for Vue.js state management → Made improvements to the…

    2024 · its alternatives →

22. 22
    Write drum patterns, get randomized songs, then just share the URL▲6

    I know mentioning Michael Seibel is almost cheating, but this week he demonstrated the "leaky pipes" concept to me. Not that I know the guy, but in one of his videos he says something on the lines of "If you are unsure if you app is ready to be launched, just launch it. It's like a house with leaky pipes, just open the main, grab your tools, and start fixing wherever water is leaking". So we did it, we launched drummy earlier this week on /r/InternetIsBeautiful and we got very close to 10k users in just one day! Survived the hug of death, learned a ton, and made changes all around.…

    2022 · drummy.io · its alternatives →

23. 23
    Dbxlite – Query 100M+ rows in a browser tab, no install▲5

    What started as a Claude Code experiment turned into a browser-native SQL workbench I now use daily. Runs DuckDB WASM entirely in your browser. No backend, no installation, no signup. - Query local files (CSV, Parquet, Excel) – data never leaves your machine - Handles 100M+ rows, 50GB+ files in a browser tab - Full UI: Monaco editor, schema explorer, spreadsheet-style results grid - Share SQL via URL – anyone can run your query instantly - BigQuery connector built-in (Snowflake coming) v0.2 – actively developing. Feedback welcome. GitHub (MIT):…

    Dec 2025 · sql.dbxlite.com · its alternatives →

24. 24
    wsgrok▲7

    I built it for myself because ngrok didn't let me add one more domain unless I paid $12 more. I probably should've looked for alternatives before building my own, but my grudge got in the way . Once I started, I wanted to make it better than the other options. Silly, I know. No one probably cares. I plan to open source it sometime next year because I’ve got other projects to finish first. It's free until I deplete my cloud credits, then it will switch to a tier-based model with a free option.

    Jan 2026 · wsgrok.com · its alternatives →

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →