5 Free Open Source Tools You Should Know Before Starting Your Business

Do not start a new business without knowing those 5 free open-source software:

#1 Invoice Ninja

If you're looking for a comprehensive invoicing solution, this is the tool for you. Invoice Ninja allows you to create professional invoices, track payments, and manage your expenses.

It's perfect for freelancers and small businesses who need a reliable and easy-to-use invoicing system.

With its bank integration, it can automatically sync payment transactions from invoice to expenses paid, removing the hassle of doing it manually.

For recurring customers, it automatically creates a client portal where they can view their invoices, payment history, and documents—simplifying the process.

#2 NextCloud

A free open-source alternative to Google Workspace with a suite containing 4 main products, perfectly replacing Google Drive, Meet, Calendar, and Docs.

NextCloud hub includes:

Files, for storing and syncing your files on the cloud.

Talk, to create high-quality audio and video conferences with your team, prospects, and clients.

Groupware, including Calendar, Contacts, mail, and other productivity features to help your team get their work done faster and easier.

And Office, a powerful online office suite with collaborative editing including documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.

NextCloud gives you control over your data, allowing you to collaborate with your team and clients securely.

#3 Mattermost

Let’s continue with another free alternative to a widely adopted product: Slack.

Communication is key in any business, and Mattermost is here to help. This open-source messaging platform provides a secure and customizable way to stay connected with your team. With Mattermost, you can create channels, direct messages, and integrate with other tools to streamline your workflow.

In addition, come unique features such as Playbooks, to create checklist-based process playbooks with workflow orchestration. But also Integrated AI, and advanced security settings.

#4 Vaultwarden

When running a business, you will probably have many subscriptions to facilitate your operations. Unfortunately, not all software provides a reliable way to invite team members and handle permissions. In those situations, you might need to share passwords with your team.

Instead of doing it the ugly way by sharing it by message and compromising the security of your accounts, Vaultwarden is the solution to make it securely.

With features such as Groups, Access controls, and two-step login, you can make it easily with peace of mind. The group feature will contribute to a smooth onboarding for any new team member.

Besides the unique collaboration features, it’s a great product that you can also use privately as your go-to password manager.

#5 Paperless-ngx

Unfortunately, even if you decide to operate your business entirely digitally and paperless, you cannot control what administrations, banks, and other companies will do. You will surely continue to receive letters and documents that you will rarely need. But, when you need them you will spend way too much time finding them.

That’s where Paperless-ngx comes to the rescue. The perfect tool to transform the scanned version of your physical documents into a searchable online archive before disposing of the paper in the recyclable bin.

It will also automatically perform OCR on your documents, adding searchable, and selectable text from images. By adding some rules, with the easy-to-use interface, you will have all your documents sorted within tag-organized folders.