Welcome Friend!

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Hello Friend and welcome to The Friendly Manual. You know, as in RTFM – ‘Read The Friendly Manual.’ (That’s right, the ‘F’ stands for ‘Friendly.’ Trust me on this, I would never lie to you about something so important.)

This project aims to showcase and promote Free/Libre and Open Source Software. It began life as a forum thread on South Africa’s number one IT website, mybroadband.co.za with community members contributing hundreds of their favourite Free or Open Source applications to a ‘Useful List of Free/Libre/Open Source Software Projects.’

The list has been hosted as a Github Gist but now we have upgraded to a website so we can make the list even more useful and publish richer content such as tutorials and blog articles.

Please check out our Friendly Free Software Directory for a list of Free software that we hope you will find interesting and useful. You can find the original forum thread HERE and the original list HERE.

Thanks for stopping by. Please check back soon for more Free and Open Source software related content.

Twenty

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Twenty

Website

Source Code

License: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPLv3) with Twenty Application Exception; some components MIT

Description:

Twenty is an open-source CRM platform designed for AI, offering building blocks for objects, views, workflows, and AI agents that you can customize and self-host. It enables teams to model data with code, deploy apps, and tailor workflows, with a strong TypeScript/Nx/NestJS stack.

Phantomdrive

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Phantomdrive

Website

Source Code

License: MIT

Description:

Open-source encrypted USB drive with a hidden second partition. Decrypt by placing a file like password:yourpass to derive AES-XTS keys; the drive unmounts/remounts and encrypts/decrypts in place. Built around CH569W SoC, programmable via wch-ch56x-isp.

nk-missile-tests

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nk-missile-tests

Website

Source Code

License: Apache-2.0

Description:

An interactive web visualization of North Korea missile flight tests from 1984 to 2026, with satellite orbit data, rendered on a globe. It sources data from the CNS North Korea Missile Test Database and uses orb.js for positions.

map3d

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map3d

Website

Source Code

License: MIT License

Description:

A real-world 3D city map generator/viewer built with React-Three-Fiber, using OpenStreetMap data. Exports GLB, supports 3D buildings and roads for digital twin, drone surveying, and GPS markers. Free to use; inspired by city-scale mapping.

Lufin

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Lufin

Website

Source Code

License: MIT

Description:

Lufin is a modern self-hosted file-sharing service with client-side encryption, password protection, and optional end-to-end encryption. It supports S3-compatible storage, client-side archiving and previews, Docker Compose deployment, and multiple databases, offering a privacy-conscious, lightweight alternative to hosted file-sharing platforms.

tapflow

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tapflow

Website

Source Code

License: MIT

Description:

tapflow is a self-hosted platform to run iOS and Android simulators in a browser, enabling QA across devices without cloud services. It includes a relay server, macOS agents, and a browser dashboard, plus an MCP server for AI agents. MIT licensed.