No Stupid Questions

I'm really sorry but Joplin is not and will not ever be "objectively" better than Obsidian. SilverBullet is subjectively better than Obsidian though. Note taking is such a heavily opinionated matter that there's no scope for objectivity there.

The OpenStreetMap ecosystem (e.g. Organic Maps as an Android Client) is better than Google Maps.

Tusky is better than any proprietary Twitter client.

F-Droid and Flathub are both better than Google Play.

Thunderbird is better than GMail

Real open Podcasting (e.g. Antennapod) is better than Spotify.

OpenDesk is better than M365.

Signal and Matrix are both better than the chat tools from Meta, Apple, Google.

(It's about ecosystems/platforms, because most software doesn't work in isolation)

Linux. For desktops I like it as well, but I can understand some arguments against it. However, for all other cases there is hardly any match. The internet basically runs on it.

Krita is a fantastic image editor with a customizable UI that’s very powerful but easy to use.

Pixelmator is a waste of $70 when you get more (you can resize the toolbar buttons!) for free with Krita.

Keepass. ill skip the obvious and just mention the really neat features that other server/cloud based password managers dont or cant have.

• on desktop, you dont need any browser extension to fill in passwords since the "autotype" feature in keepassXC handles that. this means your browser has no to access your database at all. any password manager thats connected to your browser in any way is a huge security risk imo.
  (i would recommend this extension that changes the window title though)

• you can have 2 databases open at the same time (in keepassXC and keepassDX at least), which means you can have important logins in one and everything else in the other one. if you ever get annoyed having to unlock your vault using a really long master password just so you can autofill some crappy forum password then you might get why 2 databases is a good idea!

• you can fill in login details for desktop programs. (maybe others do this now but they didnt when i switched to keepass years ago)

Aegis authenticator. its been years since ive used google's authenticator app so maybe its improved now, but it used to be very spartan. it showed you your OTP codes and thats about it.

Aegis lets you add an icon to each entry and the different sized text makes things a lot easier to read. the visual timer is much clearer as well and the text turns red when its close to running out.

you can also backup your codes so if you lose your phone its no big deal. you can unlock the app with your fingerprint. you can tap on a code and then have it add that to the clipboard and then go back to the previous app

Im not sure i can say its objectively better, but i like godot much more than unity

REALLY simple, but "Open Sodoku". It's just a Sodoku app without ads. I'm very bad but it's pretty fun

NMAP still has a semi-open-source license. Not sure if anyone else considers in FOSS, but it's a critical tool in network security.

Also, I've never used any commercial video editing software but kdenlive is awesome.

The Linux ecosystem of distros vs other OSs.

emacs

Microsoft Terminal vs the default Command Prompt haha. VS Code vs Visual Studio.

In general software is one of the rare thing where ordinary people can "mass produce" things that compete with commercial offerings.

emacs

i am using Darktable to edit raw photos. i don't know if it's better than Lightroom or Capture One overall, but it is for my use case.

OpenDroneMap. It's a suite that provides photogrammetry, stitching, volumetric analysis, geographic correlation, and 3D model conversion from aerial and non-aerial photos. And that's only the features that I use myself. It defaults to CPU-only rendering, so you don't need a big bad GPU to GSD.

Even ignoring the lack of subscription cost, ODM performs at least as well as other applications I tried such as Pix4D. Professionally, I use it for year-over-year kelp bed monitoring, photosynthetic mass analysis, and home construction analysis, specifically volumetric infill needs. Personally, I use it to generate 3D models of my boat interior, which I convert to STL files for arranging infrastructure in limited spaces.

Markor: one of the few Android text editors/notepads that saves text to text files (crazy idea, right?) and works rally well with Syncthing.

Conversations.im for Android is an incredibly well made XMPP/Jabber messenger, and their message polling and real-time message delivery is unmatched AFAIK.

ratbag (and the frontend, piper) is a tool for remapping buttons on mice with a sensible interface. Beats installing proprietary Logitech software.

Molly for signal if that counts

Pdftk

I really like Flameshot for screenshots.

AntennaPod is a pretty great podcast player, far better than the one Google did (and abandonned)

Newsblur is the only RSS reader that I've found that can apply filters to feeds

I've switched from Discord to Element with some friends for daily text chat and vocal chat (video games) and it's less cluttered than Discord, and the voice even sounds better

SpamBlocker is a better phone/SMS spam filter than the proprietary ones I've tried

Firefox (and forks) has been my browser for more than 20 years, I can't go back to proprietary ones

https://www.visidata.org/

Way, way better than excel for working with tabular data. Excel is child's play in comparison.

Zotero

I agree with most of the programs that others have posted. I'll just mention two that I absolutely love but no one has mentioned yet, rsync and mpv.

OBS, Portmaster, Trilium, FlightGear

+all the minimalist Adwaita apps on the Flathub. Love 'em.

Honestly, almost all Microsoft products are objectively worse than FOSS alternatives, they are just so big that people are unwilling to escape the Microsoft ecosystem.

LibreWolf and other Firefox forks.

Lets not forget about games!

Hedgewars is better than most "Worms" games.

Warzone 2100 is more fun than many proprietary RTS games.

I'd say Logseq is better than any note-taking alternative that works in the same way. It's a bit different to regular note-taking apps as it acts more as a knowledge database based on tags, than with a regular file-folder structure. Also I prefer Actual Budget to YNAB, as it's starting to have even more features than YNAB and actually supports things like bank syncing for major parts of Europe that even YNAB doesn't. And it's free to host yourself or really cheap to host through PikaPods. But it's hard to say "objectively" because in the end, a lot of it is subjective. If people are used to running one program, it'll be hard to switch to another, even if it's "objectively" better.

The largest issue with FOSS applications is that many contributors don't have any UX/UI knowledge, which is a huge factor in why people choose one program over another. I'd argue GIMP is a mess compared to Photoshop, even if GIMP is able to do many, many things that Photoshop is able to.

As a proffessional, krita shits on photoshop (f tier) and clip (a tier) when it comes to painting.