10 SaaS subscriptions you can replace with one-click self-hosted apps
Every one of these is a real, actively maintained open-source project — not a feature promise, a template you can launch today and judge for yourself. The category match is honest, not a drop-in guarantee: some of these projects cover 80% of what the SaaS does, some cover more, and the right call is to actually try the app, not take a blog post’s word for it.
Immich — in the category of Google Photos. Self-hosted photo and video backup with mobile apps, facial recognition and timeline search, on storage you control instead of a Google One subscription.
Twenty CRM — in the category of Salesforce or HubSpot. A modern, open-source CRM with the pipeline/contact/company model those tools are built around, without the per-seat pricing that scales with headcount instead of actual usage.
Cal.com — in the category of Calendly. Scheduling pages, availability rules, calendar sync — the project several paid scheduling tools are themselves built on top of.
Documenso — in the category of DocuSign. Legally-binding e-signature workflows, open-sourced specifically because a core piece of business infrastructure like signing documents shouldn’t depend on one vendor staying in business.
Directus — in the category of Contentful. A headless CMS that wraps your own database in a real API and admin UI, instead of migrating your content into a third party’s proprietary store.
Authentik — in the category of Okta or Auth0. SSO, OAuth2/OIDC and SAML as a real identity provider, at the cost of a server instead of a per-user-per-month identity bill.
Baserow — in the category of Airtable. A spreadsheet-database hybrid with a real Postgres underneath, so your data isn’t trapped in a format only one company’s export tool understands.
Chatwoot — in the category of Intercom or Zendesk. Shared inbox, live chat widget, and omnichannel support — the project a number of “AI customer support” startups quietly build their own product on top of.
Appwrite — in the category of Firebase. Auth, database, storage and functions as one backend-as-a-service, self-hosted instead of tied to one cloud vendor’s pricing and roadmap.
Plausible — in the category of Google Analytics. Privacy-respecting, cookie-banner-free analytics, without sending every visitor’s behavior to the company that also runs the ad network.
Already covered in more depth
A few categories got their own full post, since there was more worth saying than one paragraph: n8n (Zapier/Make), LibreChat (ChatGPT Plus/Team), Mastodon (Twitter/X), and a self-hosted status page (Statuspage.io).
The actual pitch isn’t any single app
It’s that none of these cost more the more they’re used. A CRM, a scheduling tool, an identity provider and a support inbox priced per-seat all grow their bill with your team’s growth — the exact moment you need the tool working, not the moment you need another invoice. Self-hosting isn’t free (it’s a server, which has its own real cost), but the cost stops being a function of your own success.
Browse the full catalog: Templates.