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Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to I made an open-source laptop from scratch

Hello! I'm Byran. I spent the past ~6 months engineering a laptop from scratch. It's fully open-source on GH at: https://github.com/Hello9999901/laptop

Byran engineered an open-source laptop from scratch over six months, with all design files and documentation available on GitHub. The laptop is designed for developers and makers who want access to complete hardware… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites, 1 of them free or with a free tier.

  1. 1

    🌐 The Internet Computer! Free, Open-Source, and Self-Hostable. - HeyPuter/puter

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    Finally got my hobby OS up and running on real hardware. I love the old IBM thinkpads, so thought it was the perfect machine to get it working on. Been working on it for quite some time now, but this has been a big milestone!

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3IM

    I've wanted to make my own OS since I started programming. Now, 5 years later, I did it (kind of). Sure, it is really basic, has very little functionality, but I made it and I'm proud of that. Oh, and I'm just 16 btw.

    2025 · jotalea.com.ar · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    A multitasking monolithic Kernel based x86 targeting Operating System written in C# from scratch aiming for high-level implementation of drivers in managed environment. - amaneureka/AtomOS

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    Open Notebook is a tool where you can upload your own sources - PDFs (textbooks, research papers), Github repos, documentation websites, and other URLs. Once uploaded, you can either chat with an AI about them or run “apps” on top of those sources. Apps can be anything. Right now, I’ve built the following: - turn articles into short video overviews - create a mind map of the source - create summaries or other reports about the source - generate quizzes or flashcards to help study the source You can also remix existing apps or create one from scratch. I built this because I wanted to make…

    2025 · noodleflow.ai · its alternatives →

  6. 6
    PINE64▲270

    A low cost Linux laptop that looks like a MacBook

    2016 · pine64.org · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    To try it out, simply build the project yourself from source, or use attached bootable ISO image of the system (in Releases on Github) and run it in QEMU. https://blog.vxn.dev/rou2exos-rusted-edition

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    I built this because I was always creating machines on GH actions to test builds on different OS, and I wanted a tight CLI that could do it. I always saw Actions as this great resources and ephemeral machines you could do dev work in just were a natural way for me to work, so this grew out of that workflow. I didn't expect it to blow up, so it wasn't 100% finished when I posted it. But it should stabilize pretty quickly. Happy to know what you think and talk about it.

    May 2026 · ghost.charity · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    "interesting" VM in C. Let's see how this goes. Contribute to tekknolagi/carp development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2014 · github.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10
    Build Y▲98

    Open-source playground for breakthrough inventions

    2025 · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    Programming language that compiles into a x86 ELF executable. - riicchhaarrd/ocean

    2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    This project contains no code from Linux, BSD, Minix, or any other OS. Everything up until this point is written entirely from scratch, including a pure microkernel (that only implements multiprocessor priority scheduling, memory management, and interprocess communication), a work-in-progress implementation of the standard C library, and a variety of servers that provide drivers and other essential OS functionality. At the time of writing this post, the servers provide drivers for the keyboard, NVMe SSDs (that works on real hardware), a Unix-like virtual file system (with a single root…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    Beautiful sites for Open Source projects

    2014 · beautifulopen.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    Hey HN! This is a fun/educational project I built to learn OS programming. I started working on it right after graduating high school last year and have been working on it on and off during my first year of university. It features a TCP/IP stack, an HTTP server, a RAM file system, a BIOS bootloader, paging and memory management, and concurrent tasks based on cooperative scheduling, along with a custom library. It's written in a C programming style focused on safety (based on a custom library of core abstractions) that's inspired by the writing of Chris Wellons (nullprogram.com).…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    I've made an ARM based single-board computer that runs Android and Linux, and has the same size as the Raspberry Pi 3! Why? I was bored during my 2-week high-school vacation and wanted to improve my skills, while adding a bit to the open-source community :P These were the specs I ended up with: - H3 SoC - Quad-Core Cortex-A7 ARM CPU @ 1.3GHz - Mali400 MP2 GPU @ 600MHz - 512MiB of DDR3 RAM (Can be upgraded to 1GiB) - WiFi, Bluetooth & Ethernet PHY - HDMI display port - 1080p resolution - 5x USB Slots: 2x USB-A, 1x USB-C Host, 1x USB-C Host & OTG, 1x USB-C PD for power (Negotiating up to 25W.…

    Dec 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16
    pi-top▲75

    A Raspberry Pi laptop you build yourself!

    2015 · pi-top.com · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    How to build your own CNC machine from scratch . Contribute to maxvfischer/DIY-CNC-machine development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    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 →

  19. 19

    I built this as a small side project to learn and experiment, and I ended up with this! I used a subdomain from my personal portfolio, and everything else runs on free tiers. The project uses Nuxt, SVG, Cloudflare Workers, D1 (SQL), KV, Terraform, and some agentic coding with OpenAI Codex and Claude Code. What started as a joke among friends turned into a fun excuse to build something end to end, from zero to production, and to explore a few things I’d never touched before. I’d really appreciate any feedback or suggestions.

    Jan 2026 · certificate.brendonmatos.com · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    build BIG tech 10x faster

    2017 · youtube.com · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    Hello Hacker News, I often hear people saying "all build-systems suck", an opinion I have been sharing for years, and this is the motivation for this project. I finally got the opportunity to make it open-source, and here it is. In a few words, it is like make, except it can be comfortably used even in big projects using HPC (with millions of jobs, thousands of them running in parallel). The major differences are that: - dependencies are automatically tracked (no need to call gcc -M and the like, no need to be tailored to any specific tool, it just works) by spying disk activity - it is…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22IJ
  23. 23OS

    I got tired of collecting open source projects in my chrome bookmarks so I decided to compile a curated list of: - Recently active projects on GitHub - Mostly dev tools (but also productivity, analytics) - Projects which are "Alternative to X software" My bookmarks are finally empty:D If you have a great open source tool you use, I'd be glad to hear your suggestions. Also, any feedback is greatly appreciated.

    2025 · alternativeoss.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    I've never posted on ShowHN before, but I wanted to share my Xmas 2025 project; to try a new approach to controlling our kids screen time. This also involved massively over-engineering a solution in order to play with a shiny new gadget (and avoid the in laws at Christmas, obviously) I've shared some learnings on AI coding with embedded devices, and how I approached the product design/hardware selection side of things. The Web App is at https://screenie.org - and I'm Open Sourcing the device and web app code later today (links to follow on that site)

    Jan 2026 · partridge.works · its alternatives →

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