FOSS tools by discipline¶
This is a reference, not a complete list. For each tool listed, the source code is publicly available and the tool is actively maintained.
| Discipline | FOSS tool | Replaces | Used at |
|---|---|---|---|
| CS / IT | Ubuntu / Fedora | Windows | Kerala KITE, IIT Bombay |
| CS / IT | VSCodium, Vim, Emacs | Proprietary IDEs | Industry standard |
| CS / IT | Git | Proprietary VCS | Standard globally |
| CS / IT | PostgreSQL, MariaDB | Oracle, MS SQL | Thousands of universities |
| Electronics (ECE) | KiCad | Altium, Eagle | CERN, multiple universities |
| Electronics (ECE) | ngspice, QUCS-S | PSpice, LTspice | Research labs, IIT Madras |
| Electronics (ECE) | GNU Radio | NI LabVIEW RF | Research labs globally |
| Mechanical | FreeCAD | SolidWorks, AutoCAD | Growing academic adoption |
| Mechanical | OpenFOAM | ANSYS Fluent | TU Delft, Cambridge, IISc |
| Mechanical | Salome Platform | CATIA | European engineering universities |
| Civil | QGIS | ArcGIS | UN and hundreds of universities |
| Civil | OpenSees | SAP2000 | UC Berkeley (origin) |
| Civil | GRASS GIS | Esri suite | UMass Amherst |
| Design | Inkscape | Adobe Illustrator | Design schools globally |
| Design | Krita, GIMP | Photoshop | Animation and art schools |
| Design | Blender | Maya, 3ds Max | Blender Institute, SUNY Buffalo State Uni |
| All branches | LibreOffice | MS Office | Kerala KITE |
| All branches | Moodle | Proprietary LMS | Top Universities around the globe |
| Research | Zasper | MATLAB notebooks | FOSS United Recommendation |
| Research | R, GNU Octave | MATLAB, SPSS | Most research universities |
| Administration | ERPNext / Frappe | SAP, Oracle ERP | Educational institutions in India |
| Administration | Nextcloud | Proprietary cloud storage | Universities across Europe |
| Administration | Mattermost | Slack, Teams | Self-hosted by organisations globally, including FOSS United |