$49/user/moannual lock-inyour data, their cloudcontact sales
SaaS is dead.
Long live self-hosting.
Most business software is rented: so much per person, per month, forever. What fewer people know is that for a lot of it there's a free, open-source version doing the same job. The catch used to be the setup. These days you paste a short text into Claude and it installs the thing for you. This site lists the good ones, with the texts ready to copy.
how it works
Three steps. No coding. Seriously.
- 1
Pick a tool
Find the one that does what you need. There's CRM, video hosting, HR, live streaming — the usual suspects.
- 2
Copy the instructions
Every tool page has a short text with the full setup recipe. You don't need to read it. You don't even need to understand it. Just copy it.
- 3
Paste it into Claude
Open Claude (or Claude Code), paste the text, answer a few questions. It installs everything on your machine while you watch.
the directory
The tools
ERPNext
CRM / ERPOne free system to run the whole company — customers, invoices, stock, projects
alternative toSalesforce, HubSpot
Frappe HR
HRVacation requests, payslips and employee records — without the per-employee bill
alternative toFactorial
Owncast
Live StreamingYour own live streaming channel, under your rules
alternative toTwitch, StreamYard
PeerTube
Video HostingYour own video site. Upload, share, stream. No monthly fee.
alternative toVimeo, Wistia
Restreamer
Live StreamingOne stream, every platform at once — without the monthly fee
alternative toRestream.io
Twenty
CRMA CRM that doesn't feel like homework
alternative toSalesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive
Prices mentioned for commercial products are indicative. Vendors change them often — check their websites for current numbers.
questions, answered
"Wait, is this for real?"
Is this legal?
Yes. Every tool here is open source: the people who wrote it published the code under a license (MIT, AGPL, GPL — it varies) that explicitly allows anyone to run it, free of charge, for personal or business use. Using it this way is exactly what the license permits.
Two things we're careful about. Product names and logos are trademarks of their owners, so we mention commercial products only to compare, never to suggest they endorse us — and we don't use their logos. And saasdead is an independent community project, affiliated with nobody, open-source or commercial.
Do I need to know how to code?
No. That's the point of the site. Each tool comes with a text you paste into Claude. Claude does the typing, you answer its questions. If you can copy and paste, you're qualified.
What does "hosting on my own machine" mean?
Instead of running on some company's servers, the software runs on a computer you control: your own machine, or a small server you rent for a few dollars a month. Same software, different landlord. Your data stays with you.
What if something breaks?
Ask Claude first — paste the error message and it usually sorts it out. If that fails, these projects have documentation, forums and issue trackers full of people who hit the same wall before you did. They're mature software, used in production by thousands of organizations.
Why would anyone give this away?
Depends on the project. Some are built by volunteers who think software should be a commons. Some are made by companies that sell hosting or support around the free version. Either way, the license is the license: you can use it, forever, at no cost.