Inside this Article
- Green (Yes): Free software is sufficient for professional work.
- Yellow (Maybe): Free software has limitations but can work with adjustments.
- Red (No): Free tools are insufficient, and paid software is necessary.
Freelance Professions
Below, we provide free software options for 15 of the most common freelance professions. For each profession, we list up to three free tools and analyze whether they are a suitable replacement for their paid counterparts. The professions we analyzed are: Graphic DesignerSocial Media Manager
Video Editor
Content Writer
Web Developer
Data Scientist
Streamer
Digital Marketer
Digital Designer
Recruiter
Technical Writer
Product Designer
Actuary
Psychologist
Auditor
1. Graphic Designer (Yes)
Graphic designers create visual concepts to communicate ideas for different projects, such as websites, advertisements, and marketing campaigns.
Popular paid design software that allows graphic designers to bring their ideas to life include Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Sketch, and Figma. However, we found a few free tools below that offer plenty of their functionality at no cost.
Canva (Free Version)
Canva is a great tool for creating visual content, including social media posts, presentations, posters, and more. This software operates under a freemium model, which means its basic features are free, but you have to subscribe for premium functionality. Still, the free version is ideal for casual users or those who are new to graphic design.| Canva Free | Canva Pro | |
| Professionally designed templates | 1M | Unlimited |
| Stock photos and graphics | 3M | 100M |
| Brand kits | 1 | 1,000 |
| Design resizing | No | Yes |
| Background removal | No | Yes |
GIMP
GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is a graphics editing tool widely regarded as the free, open-source alternative to Photoshop. It offers multiple filters and effects, a decent variety of fonts, as well as several drawing and painting tools, such as Paintbrush, Pencil, Airbrush, Ink, and MyPaint brushes. It also has up to 38 layer modes, including layer groups, duplicating, merging, and masking. GIMP lacks some advanced features, such as CMYK color range support and the ability to work with both RAW and PSD files. That said, if you need a basic image editor with all of Photoshop’s core functionality for free, GIMP is an excellent option.Inkscape
Inkscape is an open-source software that helps you create or edit vector graphics, such as diagrams, illustrations, charts, logos, and line art. It’s an excellent free alternative to Adobe Illustrator, giving you access to up to 16 blend modes, 90 templates, and multiple filters. Unlike Illustrator, Inkscape also works on Linux devices. However, it lacks CMYK color mode, so it’s not a good option when creating a vector graphic for print. Other notable Illustrator features you won’t get with Inkscape are advanced Warp transformations and the ability to create 3D graphics.
A Social Media Manager maintains a brand’s online presence for marketing and communication purposes. Some popular tools in this field include Buffer, Hootsuite, SocialPilot, and Loomly. Although we found no completely free alternatives to these tools, Buffer and Plannable have generous free plans that are excellent options if you’re just getting started with social media marketing.
Buffer (Free Version)
Buffer is a social media management tool that allows users to schedule, publish, and analyze posts across multiple social media platforms. Its free plan lets you connect to 3 channels and schedule 10 posts for each one. It also includes a landing page builder, a useful AI assistant, and several planning and publishing tools. With the paid plan, you’d get unlimited channels and post-scheduling, as well as engagement tools and analytic reports.Plannable (Free Version)
Plannable is a social media collaboration tool that helps marketers create and schedule social media content. With the free plan, you get 50 posts and the app’s full set of features. The only drawbacks are that you can’t post on X (formerly Twitter) and that there’s no analytics tool.
3. Video Editor (Yes)
Video editors are responsible for arranging, trimming, and enhancing raw footage to create a high-quality final product for various media platforms. Popular paid software options include Adobe Premiere Pro, CyberLink PowerDirector 365, and Final Cut Pro, but here are a few alternatives that offer some of their functionality for free.
Kdenlive
Kdenlive is a powerful open-source video editor built on Qt and the KDE Frameworks libraries. Compared to Adobe Premiere Pro, Kdenlive lacks support for certain formats (like MKV, MOV, and AVI) and has no GPU acceleration. However, it’s still one of the best tools for high-quality video editing, offering all the essentials such as:- Multi-track video editing
- Audio adjustments
- Timeline preview
- Customizable shortcut keys
- 2D video creation
- Color correction
- Proxy editing
DaVinci Resolve (Free Version)
DaVinci Resolve is a proprietary video editing and color grading software that offers both a free and paid tier. Its free plan is packed with advanced features and effects that allow for professional video editing, including audio syncing, stabilization, green-screen chroma key-ing, slow motion, and color grading. Plus, it can output up to 4K UHD at up to 60fps. One advantage of the paid version is that it uses multiple GPUs, which can significantly speed up editing and overall performance. Still, this shouldn’t be a deal-breaker for most professional video editors who opt for the free version.iMovie
iMovie is a free video editing application that comes preinstalled on many Apple devices. It offers drag-and-drop editing, pre-made templates, transitions, audio-editing tools, support for 4K video, and an intuitive user interface, making it ideal for basic video editing projects on Mac and iOS devices. Compared to Final Cut Pro (Apple’s fully-featured video editing software), iMovie lacks media tagging and multicam support as well as motion tracking capabilities.
4. Content Writer (Yes)
These professionals specialize in creating written content for digital platforms, such as blogs, social media, and websites. Ensuring the content is optimized for search engines to drive more traffic to the website is often part of the job requirement.
Popular software options for content writers include Grammarly, Hemingway Editor, Scrivener, Ahrefs, and SEMrush. Many of these tools operate under a freemium model, with their free plans offering excellent functionality for professionals in the content writing field.
Grammarly is an AI-powered writing assistant that helps users check their texts’ grammar, spelling, punctuation, style, tone, and clarity. Its free plan comes with all the essentials, such as readability assessment, tone detection, error correction, and punctuation suggestions.
More advanced features, such as vocabulary enhancement tips, citation suggestions, and plagiarism checks are only available on the paid plan.
Hemingway Editor (Free Version)
Hemingway Editor is a writing tool that aims to improve clarity and readability by mimicking Ernest Hemingway’s writing style. It offers a free browser version that highlights complex sentences and fixes common errors. This version counts the number of adverbs and adjectives in the text, making it easy to see if you’re overusing them. It also gives you a readability score based on factors such as sentence length and complex words. The paid desktop app has formatting and direct publishing features. Unlike the browser version, the paid app also works offline.ProWritingAid (Free Version)
ProWritingAid is a comprehensive writing and editing tool that offers grammar checking, style improvements, and plagiarism detection. It has over 20 reports that can help you improve every area of your writing, and they’re all available for free. The free plan only allows you to edit 500 words at a time, though, so you’ll need to update if you’re writing longer-form content.
5. Web Developer (Yes)
A web developer specializes in the design, development, and maintenance of websites and web applications. The free tools below are alternatives to Sublime Text. They allow freelance web developers to create functional, user-friendly, and responsive websites at no cost.
Visual Studio Code
Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code is a powerful code editor and integrated development environment (IDE) that can be used for programming in any coding language. It comes with an interactive debugger, a good selection of extensions, and built-in Git support. Plus, it offers IntelliSense with unlocks for numerous code editing features, such as code completion, code hinting, and parameter info. On the downside, VS Code lacks Goto functionality, so navigating through your code may be trickier. Also, a paid solution like Sublime Text is more lightweight and has a much faster startup time, especially on larger projects.Vim
Vim is an open-source code editor known for letting users perform complex text-related tasks with just a few commands. It offers a range of plugins that allow users to customize their workspace based on their unique needs. However, due to its command-centric design, Vim has a steeper learning curve, so it may be more suited to experienced developers. Plus, a paid tool like Sublime Text has an intuitive graphical interface that is much easier for beginners to navigate.Notepad++
Notepad++ is a Widnows-only code editor written in C++. It uses pure Win32 API and STL, which means it’s very lightweight and can be used on lower-end devices. It supports syntax highlighting for almost all programming languages. It also includes auto-completion for keywords, functions, and variables and a range of plugins that greatly extend its functionality. However, paid software like Sublime Text has a more customizable interface and is much faster, especially when handling larger files. Unlike Notepad++, Sublime Text offers auto-save and version control functionality, as well as Linux and macOS support.
6. Data Scientist (Yes)
A data scientist is an analytical professional who collects, analyzes, and interprets large volumes of data to turn it into valuable insights. Freelance data scientists can benefit from free tools like Apache Spark and Jupyter Notebook.
Apache Spark
Apache Spark is an open-source analytics engine designed for large-scale data processing and analytics. Due to its in-memory computation capabilities, Spark accelerates data processing and enables faster exploration and model training. It can handle several petabytes of data, be it structured, semi-structured, or unstructured. Spark also supports a range of workloads, from batch- to real-time stream processing. For comparison, a paid solution like Microsoft Azure offers additional features such as automated scaling, built-in security, data storage integration, and tools for easy deployment, along with ongoing updates and technical support.Jupyter Notebook
Jupyter Notebook is an open-source, web-based interactive computing environment. Freelance data scientists can use Jupyter Notebooks to explore datasets, clean data, and quickly visualize the results, making it a powerful tool for the initial stages of data analysis. On the other hand, a paid cloud-based platform like Kaggle provides pre-configured environments, free access to GPUs, easy dataset access, and built-in collaboration tools, making it more streamlined for data science projects.
7. Streamer (Yes)
Streamers broadcast themselves live while engaging in activities like gaming and reviewing products, often using platforms like Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok. Many streaming tools (such as Restream, Streamlabs, and XSplit) offer freemium plans, but we also found some free options that can help create quality broadcasts at no cost.
OBS Studio
OBS Studio is a free and open-source screen recording and live-streaming app. It allows you to create custom scenes with multiple sources like webcam, game capture, and media files. You can also create transitions between different scenes for a more professional look and add filters to recordings, using features such as chroma key and masking tools. OBS integrates with popular streaming platforms like Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook, making it easy to broadcast directly from the software.Streamlabs (Free Version)
Streamlabs is a popular live streaming software built on top of OBS Studio. Its free plan offers a solid range of features for beginner streamers, including access to overlays, themes, alerts, and widgets. It also has an integrated donation system and allows you to add one guest. Some advanced features, like multistreaming, priority support, and premium alerts are locked behind the paid plan, though.NVIDIA ShadowPlay
NVIDIA ShadowPlay is a screen-recording app that lets gamers with GeForce graphics cards record and stream live gameplay on platforms like Twitch and YouTube. It automatically records key highlights, like boss fights, as well as the last 20 minutes of gameplay. It can also capture in-game voice chat and external audio while recording or streaming, ensuring that your commentary is part of the broadcast.
8. Digital Marketer (Maybe)
A digital marketer utilizes a variety of digital channels to build brand awareness, generate leads, and engage customers. Most of the tools digital marketers use are related to data collection and analysis, but they may also rely on email marketing and SEO tools, such as MailerLite, MailChimp, or Semrush.
While these tools’ core functionality may be available at no cost, the free plans’ caps may turn into a significant hindrance for professional work.
MailChimp
MailChimp is an email marketing service that helps you manage customer communication and build digital marketing campaigns. Its free plan allows up to 500 contacts and 1,000 emails per month, helps with customer relationship management, and lets you create custom signup forms and landing pages. This could be enough for some digital marketers, especially those just starting out. However, professional digital marketers may need more advanced features, such as email scheduling, priority customer support, more monthly email sends, and advanced reporting tools.Google Analytics
Google Analytics allows you to track and monitor website traffic. The free version provides:- Real-time data on your website’s performance
- Advanced segmentation
- Mobile device tracking
- App tracking
- Conversion reporting
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools
Ahrefs allows digital marketers to improve search engine rankings and analyze their websites. Ahrefs offers free SEO tools (aka Webmaster Tools), which include features such as keyword research, link building, and SERP & Ranking. While the free plan may be a great starting point for digital marketers, they’ll miss out on many of the in-depth tools available in Ahrefs’ full subscription plans, such as more detailed keyword research, competitor analysis, content research, and advanced rank tracking.
9. Digital Designer (Maybe)
Digital designers are creative professionals who craft visual content using digital tools and technology. This profession covers many areas — including web design, digital product design, animation, UI/UX design, and more — which means software requirements are extensive.
Free software options, like Krita and Photopea, can be highly effective for a variety of design tasks — especially for freelancers who are just starting out. However, we also identified several limitations in regards to compatibility and functionality compared to paid tools like those in the Adobe Creative Cloud.
Krita
Krita is a powerful software for creating illustrations. Some of its standout features include over 100 professionally created standard brushes, full color control functionality, HDR painting, and PSD format support. However, a paid solution like Affinity Designer offers many more benefits for freelancers who want to pursue digital design professionally. For instance, it offers more advanced tools for vector design, an unrestricted number of artboards, and more advanced typography tools.Photopea (Free Version)
Photopea is a web-based image editing tool that closely resembles Photoshop. The free plan includes many core features but is limited by ads on the interface, slower performance, and potential restrictions on file saving, exporting, and cloud storage. The paid plan removes all these limitations, making it more suitable for digital designers working on larger or more complex projects.
10. Recruiter (Maybe)
A recruiter is a professional who finds suitable candidates for job openings, aiming to meet the needs of both the employer and the employee during the hiring process.
Although most tools available require payment (such as Manatal, LinkedIn Premium, and Recruiterflow), there are some freemium tools with generous free plans, particularly for recruiters who focus on one job opening at a time.
Recruit CRM (Free Version)
Recruit CRM is an AI-based recruitment software with a free forever plan. It comes with an advanced search function that you can use to perform Boolean and filter searches. Plus, you get all the basics, like a deal pipeline, invoicing, GPT integration, and access to Zapier. What you won’t get with the free plan is:- Call recording
- Texting
- Résumé formatting
- More than one hiring pipeline
Fetcher (Free Version)
Fetcher is a recruitment software that combines AI with human input to find suitable candidates, which are then sent to you in batches for review. Other than its search database, its free plan includes a LinkedIn sourcing plugin, email integration, and basic analytics. With premium plans, you get many more candidate profiles, ATS and Slack integrations, a US-based success team, and unlimited bulk enrichments.Zoho Recruit (Free Version)
Zoho Recruit is another recruitment software with a generous free plan. It supports one active job, email and candidate management tools, interview scheduling, and 8/5 customer support. However, the premium plans offer a lot more functionality, with features like premium job boards, social recruiting, a talent pipeline, and candidate portals.
11. Technical Writer (Maybe)
Technical writers specialize in producing complex and technical material, such as instruction manuals, how-to guides, and journal articles. When creating content, technical writers mostly rely on word processors, screen capture tools, and image editing programs.
While free tools offer excellent functionality, they miss several advanced features of paid solutions like Snagit or Microsoft 365.
Google Docs
Google Docs is a cloud-based word processor that offers many benefits, including real-time collaboration and version history, which helps you track and revert changes. Plus, there’s a library of third-party add-ons that can greatly extend its functionality. Although it’s a great alternative to a paid word processor like Microsoft Word, technical writers may need some of Word’s more advanced features, like macros, custom templates, and more advanced formatting tools, which can be highly beneficial for writers specializing in user manuals, white papers, or reports.LibreOffice – Writer
LibreOffice – Writer is an open-source word processor that’s highly customizable and more secure than other free tools like Docs. It offers all the essentials (autocorrect, spell checking, a thesaurus) plus a few extras, such as text redaction, accessibility check, macros, extensions, and a style navigator. Unfortunately, LibreOffice – Writer is not fully compatible with MS Office, so sharing files with Windows users may be tricky.Snipping Tool
The Snipping Tool comes pre-installed on Windows devices. It allows you to quickly capture screenshots of software interfaces, error messages, or steps in a process. It includes various handy features, like the pen tool, which lets you highlight text. However, a paid tool like Snagit lets you capture scrolling windows, making it ideal for documenting long web pages or software interfaces. It also offers organized library and cloud integration options that allow writers to efficiently manage and store visual content.
12. Product Designer (Maybe)
A product designer is someone who oversees the creation and optimization of digital and physical products. Popular tools for product designers include Sketch for wireframing, Figma for UI design, and Adobe XD for prototyping. While most of these tools are paid, we found two solutions that could be of great use to some freelance product designers.
Figma (Free Version)
Figma is a cloud-based design tool used for creating, prototyping, and collaborating on user interfaces for websites and apps. Its generous free plan offers individuals:- Access to Figma Editor
- 3 collaborative design files
- Unlimited personal drafts
- Basic file inspection
Blender
Blender is an open-source suite used for modeling, rendering, and simulating 3D objects. It offers an incredible set of features for a free tool, including extensive modeling and editing functionality, animation tools, a rendering engine, and the possibility to manage assets. Having said that, Blender lacks some advanced tools that paid software like Maya offers for professional use. Maya also has better support for large teams and more seamless integration with other industry-standard tools.
13. Actuary (No)
An actuary uses mathematics, statistics, and financial theory to assess and manage risk and uncertainty in various industries, particularly insurance. Actuaries require specialized software that helps statistical modeling, data analysis, and financial forecasting.
During our analysis, we found a few free tools that actuaries may find some use in, but, ultimately, we deem paid software (such as RemitRix, Montoux, or Slope) essential for this freelance profession.
R (Programming Language)
R is a powerful open-source statistical programming language used for data analysis, statistical modeling, and graphical representation. It offers a range of actuarial packages, such as ChainLadder for reserving and Actuar for risk analysis.Microsoft Excel (with Actuarial Add-ins)
Free actuarial add-ins for Excel provide functions for actuarial work, including mortality tables, premium calculations, and claim reserves calculations. However, this option lacks the automation, scalability, and advanced actuarial-specific algorithms that paid software, like Milliman ProVal, offers, so it’s not suitable for large datasets and complex actuarial tasks.ChatGPT
Actuaries can use ChatGPT to get quick answers to actuarial concepts or help generate code for statistical analysis. It’s also useful for exploring new actuarial methodologies or creating reports. However, it lacks direct integration with actuarial modeling, databases, or advanced statistical functions that are critical for in-depth calculations. It is also limited in terms of precise actuarial data analysis.
14. Psychologist (No)
Psychologists use therapy and counseling techniques to help individuals cope with mental health issues. These professionals typically use software like therapy note apps and appointment schedulers, like TherapyNotes, SimplePractice, and TheraNest.
Most of the needs are shared by other healthcare freelance professionals, such as Doctors or Dentists. Unfortunately, none of the free software we found is a suitable replacement.
Thunderbird Appointment
Thunderbird Appointment is a free tool for scheduling and managing appointments, designed to integrate with the Mozilla Thunderbird email client. It allows psychologists to set up appointments, send reminders, and manage client schedules easily. While useful for basic scheduling, Thunderbird Appointment lacks features such as client management, therapy progress tracking, and secure, HIPAA-compliant data storage, which are essential for professional freelance psychologists.Carepatron (Free Version)
Carepatron is a cloud-based practice management software designed for mental health professionals. Its free plan includes 1 GB of storage, a Client Portal, and telehealth options. However, compared to its paid plans and other paid software like TheraNest, it lacks features such as detailed client tracking and customizable reports, which are crucial for managing a growing practice.
14. Auditor (No)
An auditor is a professional who examines financial records and processes to ensure accuracy, compliance with regulations, and the integrity of financial statements.
Freelance auditors typically require software for accounting, tax preparation, and document management, such as AudioBoard, TeamMate+, and DataSnipper — all of which are paid software. During our research, we came across one free auditing tool, but it’s hardly a replacement for the paid tools mentioned.
eAuditor Audits & Inspections
eAuditor Audits & Inspections helps users create and manage audit and inspection reports on mobile devices, offering features like customizable checklists, professional reports, and real-time analytics for free. However, it isn’t a suitable replacement for paid tools. It lacks advanced features such as in-depth financial analysis and real-time collaboration. Also, it can’t integrate with accounting systems, which are essential for freelance auditing work.
Free & Freemium Tools for Freelancers
In the table below, you’ll find a recap of the free/freemium tools you could use as a freelancer plus some extra alternatives.| Software | Pricing | License | Category | Description |
| Bforartists | Free | Open Source | 3D Modeler | Bforartists is a complete 3D suite to create 3D content. It offers you the full 3D art pipeline to create game graphics, prerendered movies and stills. |
| Blender | Free | Open Source | 3D Modeler | A comprehensive open-source 3D software suite for modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging, and animating. It supports renderings, simulations including fluid and cloth dynamics, complex compositing, video editing, and Python scripting, running across all major operating systems. |
| Perplexity | Freemium | Proprietary | AI Chatbot | Perplexity is an AI-powered answer engine that delivers accurate answers to complex questions using large language models. |
| Microsoft Copilot | Freemium | Proprietary | AI Chatbot | Microsoft Copilot (previously know as Bing Chat) is a new Chatbot feature for Microsoft Bing which aim to revolutionize the search engine experience through AI-powered technology. |
| ChatGPT | Freemium | Proprietary | AI Chatbot | AI language model perfect for generating interactive human-like text in various styles. Built on architecture allowing real-time natural language generation, ideal for applications demanding fluent, relevant output over diverse topics broadened by extensive training data. |
| Microsoft Designer | Freemium | Proprietary | AI Image Generator | Graphic design app in Microsoft 365 that helps you create social media posts, invitations, digital postcards, graphics, and more, all in a flash. |
| Cal.com | Free (Personal) | Open Source | Appointment Scheduler | The open source Calendly alternative. Self-hosted or hosted by us. White-label by design. API-driven and ready to be deployed on your own domain. You are in control of your events and data. |
| Calendly | Freemium | Proprietary | Appointment Scheduler | Calendly can connect with up to six of your calendars to automatically check availability and help you connect with your best contacts, prospects and clients. |
| Thunderbird Appointment | Free | Open Source | Appointment Scheduler | Thunderbird Appointment makes it easy to find a time to meet. So you can ditch the admin and streamline your day. |
| eAuditor Auditss & Inspection | Free | Proprietary | Audit Management Software | eAuditor is an inspection, issue capture and corrective action platform for teams. |
| Cashew | Freemium | Open Source | Budget Manager | Track your finances with Cashew and understand your money flow. Set budgets to monitor your financial progress and foster responsible spending. Cashew is more than an app, it’s your personal guide. |
| GnuCash | Free | Open Source | Budget Manager | GnuCash is personal and small-business financial-accounting software, freely licensed under the GNU GPL and available for GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. |
| HomeBank | Free | Open Source | Budget Manager | HomeBank is a free software. Use it to manage your personal accounts. It is designed to easy to use. Analyse your finances in detail using powerful filtering tools and graphs. |
| Money Manager Ex | Free | Open Source | Budget Manager | Money Manager Ex is a free, open-source, cross-platform, easy-to-use personal finance software. It primarily helps organize one’s finances and keeps track of where, when and how the money goes. It is also a great tool to get a bird’s eye view of your financial worth. |
| Apache Spark | Free | Open Source | Cloud Computing | Apache Spark is a multi-language engine for executing data engineering, data science, and machine learning on single-node machines or clusters. |
| OpenStack | Free | Open Source | Cloud Computing | OpenStack is a global collaboration of developers and cloud computing technologists producing the ubiquitous open source cloud computing platform for public and private clouds. The project aims to deliver solutions for all types of clouds by being simple to implement, massively scalable, and feature rich. |
| Vim | Free | Open Source | Code Editor | Vim (“Vi IMproved”) is an advanced text editor that allows syntax highlighting, word completion and has a huge amount of contributed content. It also has a GUI version called GVim. |
| Visual Studio Code | Free | Proprietary | Code Editor | Visual Studio Code is a free and extensible code editor for building web, desktop, and mobile applications, using any programming language and framework. |
| Coolors | Freemium | Proprietary | Color Generator | The super fast color palettes generator. |
| Krita | Free | Open Source | Digital Painting Tool | Krita is a professional Free and open source (FOSS) painting program. It is made by artists that want to see affordable art tools for everyone within concept art, texture and matte painters, illustrations and comics. |
| Audienceful | Freemium | Proprietary | Email Marketing Service | Audienceful is email marketing re-invented for the 2020s. Lightweight, collaborative, and setup with modern best practices by default. |
| Hotjar | Freemium | Proprietary | Email Marketing Service | The fast & visual way to understand your users. Everything your team needs to uncover insights and make the right changes. |
| MailerLite | Freemium | Proprietary | Email Marketing Service | Grow your business with MailerLite’s fast and scalable email marketing platform. |
| MailChimp | Freemium | Proprietary | Email Marketing Service | MailChimp’s all-in-one Marketing Platform helps small businesses market smarter so you can grow faster. As the backbone for your customer relationships, they provide AI-powered, user-friendly tools anyone can use to be successful. |
| DocuSeal | Freemium | Open Source | eSignature Tool | DocuSeal allows you to create, fill, and sign digital documents. Use for free in the Cloud or on-premises. #1 Open source alternative to DocuSign, Pandadoc etc. Developer-friendly and can be integrated into apps. |
| DottedSign | Freemium | Proprietary | eSignature Tool | DottedSign is the most comprehensive and easy-to-adopt e-signature solution, offering businesses enterprise-level security standards, equipping them for mobile-first hybrid work environment. |
| PandaDoc | Freemium | Proprietary | eSignature Tool | PandaDoc is an all-in-one document automation platform. Instead of using several different tools to create, send, track, and eSign documents, PandaDoc allows you to do all of this in a single intuitive interface. |
| ProWriting Aid | Freemium | Proprietary | Grammar Checker | ProWritingAid is a tool for writers of all skill levels to refine their writing beyond just grammar correction. It offers stylistic suggestions and comparative analysis with top-tier writers. The tool identifies issues like repetitiveness, vague wording, sentence length variation, overuse of adverbs, passive voice, and complex sentence structures. |
| Grammarly | Freemium | Proprietary | Grammar Checker | Delivers real-time spelling, grammar, and style check, generative AI for instant drafts, comprehensive writing feedback, and enhanced sentence clarity and word choice for effective communication on multiple platforms, including desktops and web browsers. |
| Canva | Freemium | Proprietary | Graphic Design Tool | A comprehensive design application combining innovative photo and video editing with advanced AI capabilities to streamline creating designs. Users can produce unique graphics, engaging social media content using customizable templates and thousands of images, videos, and fonts accessible through its vast library. |
| GIMP | Free | Open Source | Image Editor | GIMP delivers powerful functionalities for photo retouching, image composition, and format conversion. As a versatile tool, it serves as both a simple paint program and a high-end retouching suite, and offers batch processing for mass image tasks in an accessible open-source platform. |
| Photopea | Freemium | Proprietary | Image Editor | Online photo editor, which can work with PSD, XCF and Sketch files (Photoshop, Gimp and Sketch App). Convert between PSD, XCF, JPG, PNG and many other formats. |
| Midday | Free | Open Source | Invoicing Software | Midday provides you with greater insight into your business and automates the boring tasks, allowing you to focus on what you love to do instead. |
| CaseFox | Free | Proprietary | Invoicing Software | CaseFox is a cloud-based legal billing and case management software for attorneys, CPAs, consultants, investigators, and other legal professionals which helps law firms with the most vital features such as case, client and document management, timekeeping and expense tracking, billing and payments, client intake form and many more. |
| ERPNext | Freemium | Open Source | Invoicing Software | ERPNext is a free and open-source integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software developed by Frappé Technologies Pvt. Ltd. and is built on MariaDB database system using a Python based server-side framework. |
| Jupyter Notebook | Free | Open Source | Jupyter Notebook | The Jupyter Notebook is a web application that allows you to create and share documents that contain live code, equations, visualizations and explanatory text. Uses include: data cleaning and transformation, numerical simulation, statistical modeling, machine learning and much more. |
| Restream | Freemium | Proprietary | Live Streaming Tool | Restream lets you simultaneously broadcast live video across 30+ platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch and many more. |
| XSplit Broadcaster | Freemium | Proprietary | Live Streaming Tool | XSplit Broadcaster is a live streaming and recording studio used for various content creation purposes like gaming events and esports. It has a Layout Wizard for constructing professional scenes and a user interface that allows easy modification of media sources. |
| Streamlabs | Freemium | Open Source | Live Streaming Tool | Streamlabs Desktop is all you need for streaming! Our developers have combined a streamer’s essentials like video preview, dashboard, and chat windows in one app with better video quality and lower CPU usage. |
| digiKam | Free | Open Source | Photo Manager | digiKam is an advanced digital photo management application which makes importing and organizing digital photos a “snap”. The photos are organized in albums which can be sorted chronologically, by folder layout or by custom collections. |
| R | Free | Open Source | Programming Language | R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. It is a GNU project which is similar to the S language and environment which was developed at Bell Laboratories (formerly AT&T, now Lucent Technologies) by John Chambers |
| Webcamoid | Free | Open Source | Screen Recorder | Webcamoid is a full featured and multiplatform webcam suite. |
| OBS Studio | Free | Open Source | Screen Recorder | A robust cross-platform application offering seamless screen recording and live-streaming capabilities across Mac, Windows, and Linux. It supports advanced features like H264 encoding, multiple scenes, customizable themes, and direct streaming to platforms like Twitch and YouTube. |
| ContentSwift | Free | Open Source | SEO Tool | Using this tool, you’ll get relevant information regarding specific keyword searches and hints on what other top-ranking results did with their article/page. |
| SiteOne Crawler | Free | Open Source | SEO Tool | A free in-depth website analyzer providing audits of security, performance, SEO, accessibility and other technical aspects. Available as a desktop application for Windows/macOS/Linux and as a CLI tool for advanced users and CI/CD processes. It also includes an offline web page exporter. |
| Answer the Public | Free | Proprietary | SEO Tool | Find out what what questions people are asking Google and more. Drop our beautiful visualisations into your presentations. |
| Ahrefs | Freemium | Proprietary | SEO Tool | Ahrefs is a complete SEO toolset offering functionalities such as keyword research, link building, and website analysis. It provides free tools to improve SEO performance for both beginners and experts. |
| SocialPilot | Freemium | Proprietary | Social Media Management Tool | SocialPilot lets you create schedules for postings on your social media profiles, pages and groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter & VK.com to increase engagement and make your presence felt. |
| Buffer | Freemium | Proprietary | Social Media Management Tool | With Buffer all you do is put a few tweets in your Buffer and the app schedules them for you throughout the day. |
| Intuit TurboTax | Freemium | Proprietary | Tax Software | TurboTax is the #1-rated, best-selling tax software. Free Edition includes free IRS efile. Easily prepare your tax return and file income taxes online. |
| Open tax solver | Free | Open Source | Tax Software | OpenTaxSolver (OTS) is a free program for calculating Tax Form entries and tax-owed or refund-due, such as Federal or State personal income taxes. |
| TaxACT | Freemium | Proprietary | Tax Software | TaxACT prepares, prints and e-files your income taxes for FREE. Free Federal Edition handles simple & complex returns, includes free-efiling. |
| Notepad++ | Free | Open Source | Text Editor | Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. |
| Harvest | Freemium | Proprietary | Time-tracking Software | Simple time tracking, fast online invoicing, and powerful reporting software. Simplify employee timesheets and billing. |
| Graphite | Free | Open Source | Vector Graphic Software | Graphite is an in-development raster and vector graphics package that’s free and open source. It is powered by a node graph compositing engine that fuses layers with nodes, bringing a procedural approach to your design workflow. |
| Figma | Freemium | Proprietary | Vector Graphic Software | Figma is a web-based platform offering a robust set of tools for vector graphics editing and prototyping, along with offline desktop apps for seamless workflows. Designed specifically for UI and UX design, it emphasizes real-time collaboration, visual versioning, and vector networks to streamline the designer’s work. |
| Inkscape | Free | Open Source | Vector Graphic Software | Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. |
| DaVinci Resolve | Freemium | Proprietary | Video Editor | Combines advanced video editing and color correction with integrated visual effects, motion graphics, and audio post-production in a user-friendly interface used by professionals, supporting 4K content, node-based control, plugins, and non-destructive editing, all within one app. |
| iMovie | Free | Proprietary | Video Editor | With iMovie for iOS and macOS, you can enjoy your videos like never before. It’s easy to browse your clips and create Hollywood-style trailers and stunning 4K-resolution movies. You can even start editing on iPhone or iPad, then finish on your Mac. |
| Kdenlive | Free | Open Source | Video Editor | Kdenlive is a non linear video editor. It is based on the MLT framework and accepts many audio and video formats, allows you to add effects, transitions and render into the format of your choice. |
| Matomo | Freemium | Open Source | Web Analytics Service | Matomo, previously Piwik and before that PHPMyVisites, is a downloadable, open-source (GPL-licensed) web analytics software program. It provides you with detailed reports on your website visitors : the search engines and keywords they used, the language they speak, your popular pages… and so much more. |
| GoatCounter | Freemium | Open Source | Web Analytics Service | GoatCounter is an open source web analytics platform available as a hosted service (free for non-commercial use) or self-hosted app. It aims to offer easy to use and meaningful privacy-friendly web analytics as an alternative to Google Analytics or Matomo. |
| Google Analytics | Free | Proprietary | Web Analytics Service | Gain rich insights into your website traffic with Advanced Segmentation, Custom Reporting, Motion Charts, and more. Learn more about where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site. You’ll get the information you need to write better ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives, and create higher-converting websites. |
| Mural | Freemium | Proprietary | Whiteboard | MURAL is a visual collaboration workspace for modern teams. Based in the cloud, MURAL serves shared, digital whiteboards where teams visually explore complex challenges, facilitate design thinking methods and organize Agile processes across any device. |
| OpenBoard Whiteboard | Free | Open Source | Whiteboard | OpenBoard is a cross-platform (Linux / Windows / macOS) interactive whiteboard application. It is currently maintained by the Education Department (DIP) of the Canton of Geneva in Switzerland. |
| LibreOffice – Writer | Free | Open Source | Word Processor | Writer has all the features you need from a modern, full-featured word processing or desktop publishing tool. |
| Google Docs | Free | Proprietary | Word Processor | Google Docs is an online word processor, part of Google Drive, that lets you create and format text documents and collaborate with other people in real time. |
Useful Tools for All Freelancers
Many tools can be considered multi-purpose, as they can be used for any profession at a given time. Here are some free programs that may come in handy as a freelancer:- Time-tracking software: Clockify, Harvest (free versions), Midday
- Antivirus software: Bitdefender, Malwarebytes, Avast, Avira, Spybot, Comodo Internet Security (free versions), Windows Security, Loki Free IOC Scanner
- Note-taking apps: Nuclino, Evernote, Joplin, Microsoft OneNote, Standard Note (free versions), OpenBoard, SimpleNote, Obsidian, Notion
- To-do list managers: Trello, Monday.com, Asana, Restyaboard, Zenkit, Quire, Todoist (free versions), Wekan, Focalboard
- Team collaboration tools: Microsoft 365, WPS Office, Taiga.io, Zenkit, Wrike, ClickUp (free versions), CryptPad, Google Workspace, Nextcloud Hub, Kanboard, Google Drawings, Notion
As a freelancer, keeping track of multiple tasks and assignments is essential — project management software can help you with that. Here you can find our review of the best ones on the market.
Privacy and Security Considerations
Free software may not cost anything upfront, but there are often hidden costs. Many free tools collect your data to sell to advertisers or improve their services. This means your personal information may be shared or used without your full awareness. Another common downside is the presence of ads. While you’re not paying with money, you’re paying with your time and attention. Lastly, security can be a concern. Free software may not always receive regular updates, leaving you vulnerable to bugs, malware, or cyberattacks. Without proper maintenance, these tools can put your devices and data at risk. Here are some things you can do to minimize the risks if you decide to go with the Free route:- Opt for Open-Source Tools: They are more transparent and often reviewed by a community, making them less likely to have hidden tracking or security issues.
- Use a Reputable Antivirus: Keep your antivirus software up-to-date to detect and protect against potential malware or security threats.
- Read Privacy Policies: Before using any free software, check its privacy policy to understand what data it collects and how it’s used.
- Limit Permissions: Only grant necessary permissions to apps. Avoid allowing access to data or features that aren’t essential for the tool’s function.
- Update Regularly: Ensure that both your software and devices are regularly updated to patch any security vulnerabilities.
