Modern free and open-source (FOSS) apps are incredibly capable—in fact, I’d argue some are even more powerful than their paid counterparts. The problem is that, because they’re free, most FOSS projects don’t have the budget for major marketing campaigns. That means word of mouth is often the best—and sometimes the only—way to discover them. This week, I’ve rounded up three trending FOSS apps that are picking up serious momentum and are good enough to become your new defaults.

Zen browser

The Arc browser successor nobody thought they needed

Zen is the FOSS alternative to the Arc browser, which matters even more now that Arc is in maintenance mode and no longer getting major new features. Now, beyond active development, the biggest difference here is that Arc was built on Chromium, while Zen is built on Firefox. It launched in July 2024 and has built a serious following since, with plenty of users preferring it over stock Firefox—and I can see why.

The browser just feels like the future—in fact, using it makes the web feel more modern. Like Arc, it gives you vertical tabs instead of horizontal ones, along with Workspaces, a feature that lets you separate tab groups by project or context. The address bar also lives in the sidebar, which frees up more vertical screen space for websites. It’s not just cleaner—it’s a smarter use of space, especially since modern monitors give you far more horizontal room than vertical.

That said, the feature I keep coming back to, though, is Zen’s native split view. You can open multiple web pages side by side inside a single browser window. It’s completely replaced the way I used to work—opening two separate browser windows and snapping them side by side. Zen makes multipage browsing much cleaner and more productive. Better yet, you’re not limited to just two pages; you can split three or four at once. And since it’s Firefox-based, you also get access to Firefox’s full extension library, along with Firefox Sync if you sign in with a Mozilla account.

Zen is available on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Zed editor

Speed you have to feel to believe

Zed is a modern, minimal, and absurdly fast code editor. It’s developed by Zed Industries, and the team behind it includes Nathan Sobo—one of the creators of the Atom text editor, if you remember that one. Zed has just reached version 1.0, which launched on April 29, 2026, and it’s already gained serious traction, sitting at over 85,000 stars on GitHub.

What makes Zed stand out is that it’s an original project built from scratch in Rust. You’re not getting another VS Code clone. Its interface is GPU-accelerated, which makes everything feel fast and responsive, whether you’re looking at startup times or opening massive codebases. The speed is hard to explain until you try it yourself.

But Zed isn’t just fast—it’s fully featured. You get built-in Git integration, an integrated terminal, and Language Server Protocol (LSP) support for autocomplete, diagnostics, and refactoring. It also has native real-time collaboration, so multiple developers can work in the same project at once and see each other’s cursors and edits live.

There’s a plugin ecosystem too, although it’s nowhere near as extensive as VS Code’s yet. That will likely change as Zed matures and adoption grows. And from what I’ve seen, that’s already happening—all the programming communities I’m a part of are already embracing it.

Zed is available on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

LocalSend

Cross-platform AirDrop anyone?

LocalSend has been blowing up lately as a FOSS app for securely sending files between your devices over Wi-Fi. It’s actually the oldest app on this list—it launched in 2023—and since then has has racked up more than 80,000 stars on GitHub.

At its core, LocalSend is a simple app that lets your devices talk directly to each other over your local network using encrypted connections—using a REST API over HTTPS. As long as both devices are on the same Wi-Fi network, you can transfer files between them.

That direct device-to-device approach is what makes it so useful. There’s no middleman, no third-party server, and no account to sign up for. If you’ve been relying on Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive just to move files between your own devices, LocalSend cuts all of that out and keeps your data fully in your hands.

Transfer speeds depend on your Wi-Fi setup and how close your devices are to the router. In my case, with a Wi-Fi 6 router right behind the wall and my Google Pixel and Windows PC sitting next to each other, a 50MB file took only a few seconds to send. It also handles bulk transfers surprisingly well, which is more than I can say for a lot of similar apps—even some proprietary ones. The easiest way to think of it is as Apple AirDrop, except it works across nearly every platform—including Apple devices. You get the same convenience without being locked into a walled garden.

Brand

TP-Link

Wi-Fi Bands

Tri-Band

If you want a great Wi-Fi 6e router but don’t want to spend a whole lot of money, check out this one from TP-Link.

LocalSend is available on Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, and Android, and there’s even a web app if you’d rather not install anything.

Time to get more FOSS into your lives

There’s something quietly satisfying about ditching a default app that big tech handed you and replacing it with something built in the open. None of these take more than a few minutes to install and set up, so spending part of your weekend trying them out feels like an easy win. And who knows—you might find a new default and move one step closer to a faster, cleaner, and more open setup.