40+ of the best open-source tools to build your startup

For startups, finding the right tools to build and deploy their applications can be a daunting task. With limited budgets and resources, it's crucial to make the right choices that will drive the business forward without breaking the bank.

The open source community offers a vast array of tools and projects that can help builders to launch their applications quickly and efficiently. Supporting open source projects is not only cost-effective but also encourages collaboration, innovation, and knowledge sharing among developers. Open source projects are often maintained by passionate volunteers committed to creating high-quality, reliable software that can be used by anyone. Additionally, open source software is transparent and can be audited by anyone, reducing the risk of security vulnerabilities.

By using open source tools, startups can reduce their costs, build better software, and contribute to the broader tech community.

In this post, we'll explore some of the best open source projects available that can help startups get up and running in no time. You can also find on Scaleway's Github what we are currently working on.

Open source CMS & web tools 🌏

• Strapi - Node.js Headless CMS to build customizable APIs. Check out this tutorial if you are looking to self-host Strapi on a Scaleway Instance.
• Builder - Drag and drop page builder and CMS.
• Plasmic - The headless page builder for singe-page frameworks.
• Directus - Open Data Platform for instantly turning any SQL database into an API and beautiful no-code app.
• Webiny - Enterprise serverless CMS.
• Hoppscotch - API development ecosystem to help create requests faster, saving precious time on development.
• Keycloak - User authentication and session management framework.
• Appwrite - Backend server with REST APIs to manage core backend needs.
• Supabase - The alternative to Firebase to create a backend in two minutes.
• Nextcloud - Self-hosted productivity platform solution.
• Medusa - The open source alternative to Shopify to build an ecommerce store in a few minutes.

Infrastructure, analytics & observability 📊

• Netbox - Infrastructure resource modeling application designed to empower network automation.
• Signoz - Open-source APM to monitor applications & troubleshoot problems.
• Grafana - Open source analytics & monitoring solution for every database.
• Sentry - Application monitoring and error tracking software.
• Plausible - Analytics tool you can use to check web traffic. It is a simple, lightweight and privacy-friendly Google Analytics alternative.
• Preset - Modern BI platform powered by Apache Superset.
• Matomo - Google Analytics alternative that protects your data and your customers' privacy.
• PostHog - Product analytics platform.
• Prometheus - Monitoring system with a dimensional data model, flexible query language, efficient time series database and modern alerting approach.
• Pulumi - Infrastructure as Code SDK to create and deploy cloud software that use containers, serverless functions, hosted services, and infrastructure, on any cloud.

Customer engagement and data platform 📈

• Odoo - Business apps that cover all your company needs: CRM, eCommerce, accounting, inventory, point of sale, project management, etc.
• Rudderstack - All your customer data pipelines in one platform.
• Chatwoot - Live chat widget.
• Jitsu - Fully-scriptable data ingestion engine for modern data teams.
• Rudderstack - Customer data platform for developers.

Cybersecurity 🛡

• CloudQuery - Assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your cloud assets.
• CrowdSec - Collaborative IPS able to analyze visitor behavior and to provide an adapted response to all kinds of attacks.
• Firezone - VPN Server & Firewall for teams.
• Gravitl - WireGuard virtual networking platform (VPN).
• Nikto - Web server scanner which performs comprehensive tests against web servers for multiple items.
• Wireshark - network protocol analyzer to see what's happening on your network at a microscopic level.

Design, product management & tooling 🛠

• Penpot - Design & prototyping platform, a great open source alternative to Figma.
  Learn how to self-host Penpot using the Docker InstantApp
• Budibase - Low-code platform for internal tools.
• Gimp - A powerful open source photo and image editing tool.
• Jitsi - Video conferences platform and SDK.
• BigBluebutton - Virtual classroom software that can be used for remote meeting or events.
• OpenProject - Project management software. Efficient classic, agile or hybrid project management in a secure environment.
• Focalboard - Alternative to Trello, Notion, and Asana - helps software development team stay aligned to complete tasks, reach milestones, and achieve goals.
• Mattermost - secure, open source platform for communication, collaboration, and workflow orchestration across tools and teams.
• Renovate - Get automated Pull Requests to update your dependencies.
• Libreoffice - Office and productivity suite.
• Gitlab - end-to-end software development platform with built-in version control, issue tracking, code review and CI/CD.
• Taiga.io - Easy and intuitive open source project management software for agile teams. Kanban or scrum.

Where to deploy?

If you are looking for the proper ally to deploy your project on, you might want to look into our range of Virtual Instances. We divided in four main categories to help you navigate among all the different specs.

Development

The Instances from the Development range are perfect for small workloads and simple applications. They are built to host small internal applications, staging environments, or low-traffic web servers.

General Purpose

The General Purpose range balances compute, memory, and networking resources. They can be used for a wide range of workloads - scaling a development and testing environment, but also Content Management Systems (CMS) or microservices. They're also a good default choice if you need help determining which instance type is best for your application. Choose how your Instances are provisioned, with shared or dedicated resources.

Compute Optimized

The Compute Optimized range includes the highest consistent performance per core to support real-time applications, like Enterprise Instances. In addition, their computing power makes them generally more robust for compute-intensive workloads.

Memory Optimized

The Memory Optimized provides a higher RAM to vCPU ratio than other virtual machines, making them ideal for analytics, databases, scientific workloads, and data platforms.

Register for ai-PULSE 2025

ai-PULSE, Europe’s premier Artificial Intelligence conference powered by Scaleway, is returning!

Gathering key players from across Europe, the event will be back once again at STATION F on December 4 for a unique blend of deep technical expertise and crucial business insights.

You’ll hear from:

• Micah Hill-Smith, Co-Founder & CEO of Artificial Analysis, on which metrics truly matter in the new AI stack
• Boris Gamazaychikov, Head of AI Sustainability at Salesforce, on how we can make “energy-efficient” AI measurable
• Pauline Pham, Strategy & Operations at Dust, on building and orchestrating agentic fleets

... and dozens more leaders and engineers shaping the technology’s future.

Whether you’re planning to attend in-person or online, make sure to register!