The Alt Stack

The open-source directory of alternatives to every popular SaaS tool.

🌐 Website · 📖 Docs · ➕ Submit a Tool

What is The Alt Stack?

The Alt Stack is a curated, community-driven directory that helps developers and teams discover open-source and self-hosted alternatives to popular SaaS products — across 28 categories including Project Management, Analytics, CRM, AI, DevOps, Communication, and more.

This repository is the heart of the project. It contains:

🗂️ The Dataset — 459+ tools with metadata, pricing, pros/cons, deployment info, and links.
📖 66+ Deployment Guides — Step-by-step self-hosting guides for tools like Plausible, Gitea, Rocket.Chat, and more.
📚 Concepts & Docs — Guides on topics like server setup, monitoring, backups, and secrets management.

📁 Repository Structure

altstack-data/
├── data/
│   ├── tools.json              # The core dataset (459+ tools)
│   ├── tools-min.json          # Minified version
│   ├── category_editorial.json # Category descriptions & metadata
│   ├── stacks.ts               # Curated stack combinations
│   ├── seo.ts                  # SEO metadata
│   └── schema/
│       └── types.ts            # TypeScript schema for the data
│
├── docs/                       # Full documentation site (Nextra)
│   └── app/
│       ├── deploy/             # 66+ deployment guides
│       ├── concepts/           # Self-hosting concepts
│       ├── quick-start/        # Getting started guides
│       └── stacks/             # Curated stack guides
│
├── assets/
│   └── logos/                  # Tool logos
│
└── .github/
    ├── ISSUE_TEMPLATE/         # Templates for submissions
    └── workflows/              # CI: JSON validation, docs build

🚀 Using the Data

The dataset is just JSON. Use it however you want.

Fetch it directly:

curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/altstackHQ/altstack-data/main/data/tools.json | jq '.[0]'

Use it in JavaScript/TypeScript:

import tools from './data/tools.json';
import type { Tool } from './data/schema/types';

const analytics = tools.filter(t => t.category === 'Analytics');
console.log(`Found ${analytics.length} analytics tools`);

Use it in Python:

import json

with open('data/tools.json') as f:
    tools = json.load(f)

open_source = [t for t in tools if t.get('is_open_source')]
print(f"{len(open_source)} open source tools available")

🤝 Contributing

We love contributions! Whether it's adding a tool you discovered, fixing a broken link, or writing a deployment guide — every contribution makes the ecosystem better.

Quick links:

Read the full Contributing Guidelines before submitting a PR.

📊 Categories

Category	Category	Category	Category
💬 Communication	📊 Analytics	📋 Project Management	🤖 AI Interfaces
🧠 AI Models	💻 AI Coding	🎨 Creative	📝 CMS
📧 Email	☁️ Cloud Hosting	🗄️ Databases	🔐 Security
📁 File Storage	💰 CRM	🛒 E-commerce	🎫 Support
⚖️ Legal	🏗️ ERP	🔄 DevOps	📺 Media

…and more. Explore the full list at thealtstack.com.

📄 License

What	License
Code & Scripts	Apache License 2.0
Data (`/data`)	CC BY 4.0
Documentation (`/docs`)	CC BY 4.0

All tool logos in assets/logos/ are the property of their respective trademark holders and are used for identification purposes only.

_{Built with ❤️ by the Alt Stack team}

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