THE SOFTWARE ARCHIVE.
Tools we install, break, and keep on the machine — scored after real use, not a press deck. Platform, license model, and price as we found them.
since launch
all time
picks on file
9.1★ Editor's pickBitwarden
Open source, audited, free for unlimited devices — and after January's Premium bump to $19.80/year, still cheaper than almost every closed-source rival. We migrated 847 vault items and lived on it for three weeks.
9.0★ Editor's pickDaVinci Resolve
Edit, color, Fusion, and Fairlight in one app for $0. Studio is a $295 perpetual license. We cut three projects on free Resolve and one on Studio to see where the free tier actually stops.
8.5Zed
Rust, GPU UI, collaborative editing, and a 1.x release train that ships weekly. We used Zed 1.17.2 as the primary editor for TypeScript, Python, and Markdown across macOS and Linux.
9.2★ Editor's pickTailscale
Personal plan is free for up to 6 users with unlimited devices. We put a NAS, a VPS, two laptops, and phones on one tailnet — then threw away the old VPN playbook.
8.9★ Editor's pickRaycast
Launcher, clipboard history, window management, snippets, and a Store full of extensions. Free covers the core; Pro is $8/mo billed annually. We lived in it for three weeks without opening Spotlight once.
7.4Docker Desktop
Still the smoothest on-ramp to containers on Mac and Windows. Personal remains free for individuals and small businesses; Pro starts around $9/user/mo annually. We compared it to Colima/OrbStack-class alternatives on the same projects.
8.7★ Editor's pickKrita
Free, GPLv3, and serious about brushes, color management, and animation. We painted concept art and comic pages on 5.3.2 with a Wacom tablet — no subscription, no watermark, no guilt.
9.3★ Editor's pickk9s
Pods, logs, shells, and RBAC-aware navigation without assembling kubectl one-liners. We ran k9s 0.51.0 against a homelab cluster and a managed cloud cluster for three weeks of real incidents.
8.3Terraform
HashiCorp BSL changed the politics; the provider ecosystem still decides the defaults. We planned, applied, and refactored real cloud + homelab modules — and kept OpenTofu in the conversation.
8.4Portainer
Containers, stacks, volumes, and RBAC without memorizing every docker flag. CE is free; Business Edition adds SSO and governance. We ran CE against a Compose-heavy homelab for three weeks.
8.8Grafana
Prometheus, Loki, OpenTelemetry — Grafana remains the visualization front door. OSS is free; Cloud is the paid path. We rebuilt our homelab overview on Grafana 12 and lived in the alerts for three weeks.
9.0★ Editor's pickObsidian
"Notes that will outlive the app — the closest thing to future-proof your thoughts can get." Three weeks, four machines, 1,312 migrated notes later, that one-liner still holds. Here's the full receipt.
| Score | Tool | Category | Platform | License | Published | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9.1 | Bitwarden | Security | WIN / MAC / LINUX / iOS / ANDROID / EXT | Open source | 17 DAYS AGO | → |
| 9.0 | DaVinci Resolve | Creative | WIN / MAC / LINUX | Freemium | 17 DAYS AGO | → |
| 8.5 | Zed | Dev Tools | MAC / LINUX / WIN | Open source | 17 DAYS AGO | → |
| 9.2 | Tailscale | Security | ALL PLATFORMS | Freemium | 17 DAYS AGO | → |
| 8.9 | Raycast | Productivity | MAC · WINDOWS BETA | Freemium | 17 DAYS AGO | → |
| 7.4 | Docker Desktop | Dev Tools | WIN / MAC · LINUX APP | Freemium | 17 DAYS AGO | → |
| 8.7 | Krita | Creative | WIN / MAC / LINUX / ANDROID | Open source | 17 DAYS AGO | → |
| 9.3 | k9s | Infra | WIN / MAC / LINUX | Open source | 18 DAYS AGO | → |
| 8.3 | Terraform | Infra | WIN / MAC / LINUX | Freemium | 18 DAYS AGO | → |
| 8.4 | Portainer | Infra | ALL PLATFORMS (AGENT/DOCKER) | Open source | 18 DAYS AGO | → |
| 8.8 | Grafana | Infra | WIN / MAC / LINUX / CLOUD | Open source | 18 DAYS AGO | → |
| 9.0 | Obsidian | Productivity | WIN / MAC / LINUX | Freemium | 19 DAYS AGO | → |
Widen the shelf chips, clear the score band, or try a shorter query.