Find Cheaper Alternatives to Expensive SaaS
Pick the tool you pay for, answer three quick questions, and get ranked free, open-source, and cheaper paid alternatives with real yearly savings.
Step 2 — What is your priority?
Step 3 — Team size
Adobe CC
$720/yr
$0 (GIMP + Inkscape + Krita)
Slack (10 seats)
$870/yr
$0 (Mattermost self-hosted)
Salesforce (5 seats)
$1,500/yr
$0 (SuiteCRM self-hosted)
Illustrative savings per seat or team per year. Actual figures vary by plan and usage.
Try the free alternatives
Ready to switch? Download the most popular free alternatives directly from their official sites. All of the picks below are free for personal use or fully open source.
- → Try Obsidian free (Notion alternative)
- → Try Discord free (Slack alternative)
- → Try GIMP free (Adobe Photoshop alternative)
Looking for more? Use the finder above and pick “Small team” to see self-hostable open-source options for every paid tool.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best free alternative to Notion?
Obsidian, AppFlowy, Logseq and Anytype are the most popular free alternatives to Notion. AppFlowy and Logseq are fully open source and can be self-hosted, while Obsidian is free for personal use with local-first storage.
Are open-source SaaS alternatives really free?
Yes. Open-source alternatives like Bitwarden, Nextcloud, Metabase and Mattermost are free to self-host. The software itself costs nothing, though you pay for your own server hosting. Many also offer managed paid plans if you do not want to self-host.
How much can I save by switching SaaS tools?
It depends on the tool and team size. Switching from Adobe Creative Cloud ($59.99/mo) to GIMP, Inkscape and Krita saves around $720 per year per seat. Replacing Slack for a 10-person team with a self-hosted Mattermost instance can save over $870 per year.
Which SaaS alternatives are best for small teams?
For small teams we recommend self-hosted open-source tools that scale without per-seat fees: Mattermost for chat, OpenProject or Plane for project management, Chatwoot for support, and Nextcloud for files. Use the finder above and select Small team to rank results for your use case.
Is it hard to migrate away from expensive SaaS?
Migration difficulty varies. Some alternatives like Bitwarden and Nextcloud offer one-click import from LastPass and Dropbox. Others, such as moving from Salesforce to SuiteCRM, require more setup. Each alternative in our results shows an Easy, Medium or Hard migration rating.