Online directories of open-source projects
This is a community-maintained overview of databases, catalogues and curated lists of open-source software, so a ‘meta-list’, a list of lists. It has a global scope with a special focus on achieving strong European coverage. All links were verified in May 2026. The scope of the list is is strictly catalogues/lists/directories of OSS projects. This is a wiki post, so you can add to this post; please feel free to enrich/improve where you can!!
Tag legend
global worldwide scope · EU European focus or European-maintained · public-sec public-sector / government catalogue · alternatives framed as alternatives to proprietary SaaS · self-host self-hostable software focus · privacy strict privacy / libre criteria · metadata rich structured metadata / metrics · code-host code-hosting platform used for discovery · foundation foundation / umbrella organisation · package-reg language/OS package registry · funding funding-angle (grants, donations, commercial) · awesome GitHub ‘awesome’ list · meta-list list of lists / list of directories
1. Meta-lists of FOSS directories
Lists of lists — i.e. other documents that themselves catalogue FOSS directories. Start here.
- Fair Tech Forum: Catalogues/lists of open-source software — This list.
globalmeta-list· ~this document · Fair Tech Forum community - Wikipedia: List of FOSS project directories — Wikipedia’s meta-list of FOSS directories and platforms. Stable reference; useful sanity check against this document.
globalmeta-list· ~30 directories · Wikipedia contributors - Open Source Observatory (OSOR) — EU clearinghouse for public-sector OSS news, case studies and country-intelligence reports (Japan, India, Switzerland, Estonia published 2023–2025). Adjacent to the EU OSS Catalogue; valuable secondary discovery surface.
EUpublic-secmeta-list· ~ongoing · European Commission, DG DIGIT
2. General-purpose directories & SaaS alternatives
Broad, public-facing directories — most are alternatives-framed.
- Wikipedia: List of FOSS packages — Canonical, well-curated Wikipedia list. Strong as a stable reference even if not exhaustive.
globalalternatives· ~1,500+ · Wikipedia contributors - AlternativeTo (Open Source filter) — Crowdsourced alternatives database. The open-source filter is the practical entry point.
globalalternatives· ~10,000+ FOSS entries · AlternativeTo AB (Sweden) - European Alternatives — European-made alternatives to US/Chinese SaaS. Often FOSS but not exclusively. Sovereignty-focused; ad/sponsor-supported. ~1.3M visitors in Q1 2026.
EUalternatives· ~384 alternatives / 58 categories · Constantin Graf (Vienna) - Open Source Alternatives To — Clean, categorised directory of OSS alternatives. Reports ‘over 2 million users’.
globalalternatives· ~505 · Stefan Reimer - Open Source Builders — Categorised open-source alternatives. Lightweight, well-designed.
globalalternatives· ~300+ · Community - Awesome OSS Alternatives (Runa Capital) — VC-curated. Slants commercially-viable OSS. Runa Capital also publishes the quarterly ROSS Index of fastest-growing OSS startups.
globalalternativesawesome· ~400+ · Runa Capital (VC firm) - btw.so Open Source Alternatives — Open-source alternatives to SaaS tools, by SaaS category.
globalalternatives· ~150+ · btw.so - Open Source Everything — Personal mega-list aiming for breadth across all software categories.
globalawesome· ~unclear · Anonymous individual - osssoftware.org — ‘Updated daily.’ Quality varies; useful as a discovery feed rather than a vetted reference.
globalalternatives· ~300+ · John Rush - LibreProjects — Long-standing curated minimalist directory of ethical/libre projects. Stricter inclusion criteria.
globalprivacy· ~200+ · Independent community initiative - PRISM Break — Privacy-focused FOSS alternatives to surveillance-implicated software. Development continues on Codeberg.
globalprivacyalternatives· ~150+ · Volunteer community (Codeberg) - Switching.Software — Ethical alternatives framed for non-technical users. Privacy-first.
globalprivacyalternatives· ~80+ · Volunteer community - Open Source Software Directory — Broad directory for home/business use. Lower-profile; quality varies.
global· ~unclear · Unknown - FOSS.systems Catalog — Small community aggregator importing from YunoHost and other sources. Broad coverage, minimal curation.
global· ~10,000+ (aggregated) · FOSS.systems community (experimental)
3. Public-sector catalogues
Federated and national catalogues maintained by governments worldwide. Europe is the most developed region — the EU OSS Catalogue federates national feeders, and several countries publish formal SILL-style catalogues with legal-basis mandates. Outside Europe, most governments don’t maintain a dedicated catalogue site; they ‘code in the open’ via a GitHub or GitLab umbrella instead. Both are listed.
- EU Open Source Solutions Catalogue — Federated EU-wide catalogue launched March 2025 under FOSSEPS. Aggregates national/local feeds via publiccode.yml. The flagship European reference; expect more national catalogues (NL, SE, FI, ES) onboarded through 2026.
EUpublic-sec· ~800+ · European Commission (DG DIGIT) - code.europa.eu (EU institutions) — Code-hosting and discovery platform for the EU institutions. Used by Commission, Parliament, ECB, EDPS, EISMEA and HaDEA. Public read access; write access requires EU Login.
EUpublic-seccode-host· ~214 main projects / 737 repos (Dec 2024) · European Commission OSPO - SILL — Socle Interministériel de Logiciels Libres — French interministerial catalogue of recommended free software for public agencies. The broader catalogi.json API exposes 2,000+ records including Comptoir du Libre, CNLL, and Wikidata-linked items.
EUpublic-sec· ~530 tools (2025) · DINUM (France) - Developers Italia — Italian national catalogue, mandated by Article 69 CAD (Codice Amministrazione Digitale). Split into ‘Software Reuse’ (PA-published) and ‘Third-party open source’. Includes a ‘vitality’ metric (commit frequency, contributor count).
EUpublic-sec· ~900–1,000+ · Dipartimento per la Trasformazione Digitale + AgID - Open CoDE — German national platform. The curated index has 231 entries; gitlab.opencode.de hosts ~1,900 repositories — both numbers are correct depending on scope. Maintained by ZenDiS (Zentrum für Digitale Souveränität) since early 2024.
EUpublic-seccode-host· ~231 curated / ~1,900 GitLab repos · ZenDiS GmbH on behalf of BMI - Developer Overheid (NL) — Dutch government developer portal: separate API register, repository register and knowledge base.
EUpublic-sec· ~API + repository registers + 125-article KB · BZK / Logius (Netherlands) - Offentlig Kod (SE) — Swedish national catalogue. Tracks both OSS used by and OSS published by Swedish public bodies. Source open on GitLab.
EUpublic-sec· ~150–200 · NOSAD (Network Open Source and Data) - Avoinkoodi.fi — Finnish national catalogue — state government, municipalities, and education-sector OSS. Maintained by COSS ry; largely static.
EUpublic-sec· ~~80+ · COSS ry (Finland) - Comptoir du Libre (FR) — French catalogue for territorial authorities. Lists service providers per project. Funded by FEDER.
EUpublic-sec· ~769 software / 180 testimonials / 1,796 users · ADULLACT (France) - PublicCode.net (Standard for Public Code) — Maintains the Standard for Public Code and a curated list of compliant codebases. Note: the original Foundation for Public Code wound down operations in 2024; governance is in transition with community partners (notably the Swiss Federal Chancellery, which adopted the Standard).
EUpublic-sec· ~small (compliant codebases) · Standard for Public Code stewards (in transition) - Switzerland — Federal OSS Catalogue — Federal catalogue implementing Article 9 EMOTA (Swiss law mandating disclosure of federally developed source code, in force since Jan 2024). Launched on the Standard for Public Code; announced 1 Dec 2025 at the Digital Switzerland Advisory Board meeting.
EUpublic-sec· ~60 repos (Dec 2025) · Swiss Federal Chancellery - Switzerland — GitHub umbrella — GitHub umbrella for Swiss federal projects across multiple agencies, including Open Source Guidelines. Agency code-hosting umbrella, not curated catalogue.
EUpublic-seccode-host· ~agency umbrella · Swiss Federal Chancellery - Estonia — Koodivaramu — Estonia’s central public-sector GitLab instance. Mandated by 2021 amendments to the State Property Act requiring state-owned software to be published. Hosts the X-Road catalogue and many other state systems.
EUpublic-seccode-host· ~Estonian state systems · Estonian Information System Authority (RIA) - Spain — Centro de Transferencia de Tecnología (CTT) — Spain’s central directory for reusable public-administration solutions per Royal Decree 4/2010 and Law 40/2015 art. 158. Includes both restricted-redistribution and OSS solutions; GitHub mirror at Centro de Transferencia de Tecnología - Forja CTT · GitHub (Cl@ve, AutoFirma, OpenPDF-Afirma, Sensia).
EUpublic-sec· ~~50 repos (mirror) · Ministerio para la Transformación Digital - Norway — Digdir & NAV GitHub organisations — Norwegian public-sector OSS umbrellas. Digdir hosts the Designsystemet, Altinn 3 components, ID-porten clients. NAV (Nav IT · GitHub) is the largest Norwegian public-sector OSS publisher. No central curated catalogue yet — agency umbrellas only.
EUpublic-seccode-host· ~Digdir 35 / NAV 1,000+ repos · Digdir + NAV - alphagov (UK GDS) — UK government’s main GitHub organisation. ‘Coding in the open’ is GDS practice; agency code-hosting umbrella, not curated catalogue.
public-seccode-host· ~1,000+ repos · UK Government Digital Service - Code.ca.gov (California) — California state government discovery portal for state-agency code. Small set of featured solutions, no headline total. Better-maintained US example than the federal code.gov (which has been effectively decommissioned).
public-sec· ~small (featured) · California Department of Technology - github.com/canada-ca — Canadian government GitHub umbrella. (The earlier Open Resource Exchange pilot at Open Resource Exchange - Échange de ressources ouvert is now only a bilingual stub redirecting here.)
public-seccode-host· ~agency umbrella · Government of Canada - Open Government Products (Singapore) — Open Government Products is a team within GovTech Singapore. Lists OGP’s own products (FormSG, GoGovSG, etc.), many open-sourced at Open Government Products · GitHub (94 repositories). Own-products list, not a third-party OSS catalogue.
public-sec· ~40+ products · Open Government Products (GovTech Singapore) - Japan — Code for Japan + Digital Agency — Japan’s most active public-sector OSS publishers. The Digital Agency open-sourced GENAI (government generative-AI platform serving ~180,000 government employees) in April 2025; Code for Japan runs the Decidim-based citizen-participation platform used by Yokohama, Hyogo and others. See also github.com/digital-go-jp.
public-seccode-host· ~agency umbrellas · Code for Japan + Digital Agency - India — OpenForge — India’s government code-collaboration platform; supports major Digital India platforms (GeM, UMANG, DigiLocker). Promoted via MeitY’s #FOSS4GOV Innovation Challenge.
public-seccode-host· ~active since 2017 · NeGD / NIC, Ministry of Electronics & IT - Australia — DTA GitHub (govau) — Australian government code umbrella. Note: the Australian Government Design System (AuDS) was decommissioned September 2021; Turnbull-era pilot platforms wound down 2022–23. Code remains available but much is unmaintained.
public-seccode-host· ~266+ repos · Digital Transformation Agency - Brazil — Portal do Software Público Brasileiro — Brazil’s pioneer public-software portal (since 2007). Caveat: the gov.br catalogue page explicitly notes ‘softwares disponibilizados até o ano de 2019’ — not expanded since then. Some solutions still actively used (e.g. e-Cidade). Migration to Software Público Brasileiro · GitHub ongoing in 2025.
public-sec· ~~70 solutions (legacy) · Ministério da Gestão e Inovação em Serviços Públicos - Uruguay — AGESIC Software Público Uruguayo — Uruguay’s public software portal. SPU initiative since 2012; activity reduced post-2015. GitHub mirror at AGESIC- Software Público Uruguayo · GitHub.
public-sec· ~~49 repos · AGESIC (Uruguay)
4. Self-hosting & infrastructure
FOSS that can run on your own servers. Strong sovereignty/privacy overlap.
- awesome-selfhosted — The definitive list. ~280k stars on GitHub. Strict inclusion: free, self-hostable, FOSS network services.
globalself-hostawesome· ~1,200+ · Open community (GitHub) - awesome-selfhosted.net — Browsable web UI for the awesome-selfhosted list. Metadata, screenshots, license, dependency info.
globalself-hostmetadata· ~1,200+ · Open community - selfh.st Apps — Active directory + newsletter. Slightly looser inclusion than awesome-selfhosted. Frequent new-project highlights.
globalself-host· ~1,400+ · Ethan Sholly (selfh.st) - LibreHosters — Network of ethical hosting providers running FOSS. Provider-list rather than project-list, but a useful adjacent reference.
globalself-hostprivacy· ~~80 providers · Libre Hosters network - Fediverse.party — Directory of fediverse software (Mastodon, Lemmy, Pixelfed, PeerTube etc.).
globalself-host· ~80 platforms · Fediverse community
5. Code-hosting platforms (as discovery surfaces)
Not directories per se, but the platforms where the code lives — each has its own discovery surfaces.
- GitHub Explore & Topics — Largest hosting platform. Topics, Trending, Collections are the discovery surfaces. Not FOSS-exclusive.
globalcode-host· ~100M+ repos · GitHub (Microsoft) - GitLab Explore — FOSS code-host (platform itself is open-source). Useful for projects avoiding GitHub.
globalcode-host· ~30M+ projects · GitLab Inc. - Codeberg — Non-profit Europe-based Forgejo instance. Strong FOSS-purist community. Many projects mirror here.
EUcode-host· ~150k+ repos · Codeberg e.V. (Germany) - Sourcehut — Minimalist FOSS-only hosting platform. Strong privacy posture.
globalcode-host· ~~20k · SourceHut LLC - Software Heritage — Universal source-code archive. Preserves source from across all major platforms. Recognised UN Digital Public Good (2026). Provides SWHIDs (SoftWare Hash Identifiers) used for academic software citation.
globalcode-hostmetadata· ~421M projects archived · Inria / UNESCO (France-anchored)
6. Curated ‘Awesome’ lists (meta-level)
GitHub-hosted curated lists. Domain-specific awesome lists (awesome-ml, awesome-react, etc.) are deliberately out of scope.
- sindresorhus/awesome — Root of the ‘awesome’ ecosystem. List of lists across every category (not only FOSS, but most lists are FOSS-related).
globalawesome· ~3,000+ lists · Sindre Sorhus - awesome-oss — OSS projects with links to contribute or donate. Funding-angle.
globalawesomefunding· ~200+ · sereneblue - awesome-foss-alternatives — FOSS alternatives to common SaaS. Business-focused, European-leaning.
globalawesomealternatives· ~400+ · Stefane Fermigier (Abilian) - awesome-open-source-software — Notable OSS projects, broadly categorised.
globalawesome· ~300+ · AwesomeListsIO
7. Project metadata, metrics & ratings
Sites providing structured data about projects — useful for due diligence, comparison, and research.
- ecosyste.ms — The freshest cross-registry OSS metadata source today. Tracks packages, repos, dependencies, advisories across many ecosystems.
globalmetadata· ~tens of millions · Andrew Nesbitt (Open Collective funded) - OSS Insight — Real-time analytics and rankings of GitHub repositories. Trend-spotting; GitHub-focused.
globalmetadata· ~all of GitHub · PingCAP - Libraries.io — Monitors packages across 32 package managers. Andrew Nesbitt handed over to Tidelift in 2022; data freshness has reportedly declined since — for fresher data prefer ecosyste.ms.
globalmetadatapackage-reg· ~9.96M packages · Tidelift - Open Hub — Long-running OSS index — 23B+ lines of code analysed. Freshness has degraded; mostly a historical reference now. For fresh data prefer ecosyste.ms and OSS Insight.
globalmetadata· ~256,266 projects (legacy index) · Black Duck Software (post-Synopsys spin-out, Oct 2024) - OSS Directory (Open Source Observer) — Curated machine-readable directory feeding the OSO data warehouse. Public domain.
globalmetadata· ~6,000+ (growing) · Open Source Observer - CNCF Landscape — Interactive map of cloud-native FOSS. CNCF-hosted: ~30 Graduated, ~30+ Incubating, ~100+ Sandbox. Regenerated daily. The model has been copied by other foundations.
globalmetadatafoundation· ~1,000+ projects/products · Cloud Native Computing Foundation - endoflife.date — Life-cycle and end-of-support data. Useful for security/compliance planning.
globalmetadata· ~350 projects tracked · Marc Tamlyn & community
8. Scientific & research software registries
Dedicated registries for research-output software — directly relevant to Horizon Europe / Open Science / FAIR-data compliance, where software-as-research-output is now an explicit reporting requirement.
- Research Software Directory (RSD) — Open-source CMS tailored to research software, harvesting GitHub, Zenodo, DOI and ORCID metadata. Used by Utrecht, Leiden, Amsterdam UMC, Alan Turing Institute and Helmholtz centres. Adopted Software Heritage IDs (SWHIDs) in Nov 2025. Funded by Open Science NL.
EUmetadata· ~1,020 packages / 342 projects (Nov 2025) · Netherlands eScience Center + Helmholtz - bio.tools (ELIXIR Tools & Data Services Registry) — Comprehensive registry of bioinformatics tools, databases and services across the life sciences. Curated by 1,100+ contributors from 420+ domains.
EUmetadata· ~~12,000 resources / 250,000+ annotations · ELIXIR (European life-sciences research infrastructure) - Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL) — Free online registry of source codes used in astronomy and astrophysics research. The canonical citation registry for the field.
globalmetadata· ~3,000+ · ASCL editors - SciCrunch — Registry of research resources including software, datasets and organisms. Powers the RRIDs cited in journal papers.
globalmetadata· ~varied · UCSD (Maryann Martone et al.) - HAL Science (Software section) — French national open archive with a dedicated software-deposit pathway. Integrated with Software Heritage via SWHID identifiers. The most established institutional route for crediting research software in French/European academia.
EUmetadata· ~ongoing deposits · CCSD / CNRS (France) - Zenodo (Software community) — General-purpose research-output archive; software is deposited with DOIs. The GitHub integration is a major route for academic software citation.
EUmetadata· ~hundreds of thousands of depositions · CERN
9. Healthcare OSS
Open-source healthcare platforms with their own module/extension catalogues. Healthcare is the largest vertical for DPGs and a major Horizon Europe theme (EU4Health, European Health Data Space).
- OpenMRS Modules (Add-ons Index) — Open-source EMR platform; module registry catalogues community-contributed extensions. Deployments in 80+ countries.
globalfoundation· ~hundreds of modules · OpenMRS Inc. - OHIE (Open Health Information Exchange) — Reference architecture and catalogue of interoperable OSS health-information components (OpenHIM, OpenCR, OpenIMIS, GOFR).
globalfoundationpublic-sec· ~reference architecture + components · OHIE community (hosted by Digital Square / PATH) - GNU Health Ecosystem — Free-software hospital and health-information system; part of the GNU Project. Recognised DPG.
globalfoundation· ~~200 reference deployments · GNU Solidario - OpenEMR — One of the most widely deployed OSS EMRs globally.
globalfoundation· ~widely deployed · OpenEMR Foundation
10. DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure) building blocks
Individually significant DPG / Digital-Public-Infrastructure projects that deserve standalone entries rather than being buried inside the DPG Registry.
- X-Road — Open-source data-exchange layer. Founded jointly by Estonia and Finland in 2017. Deployed nationally in Estonia (X-tee), Finland (Suomi.fi), Iceland and many others. The canonical European DPI building block.
EUfoundationpublic-sec· ~national deployments in 20+ countries · NIIS (Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions) - MOSIP (Modular Open Source Identity Platform) — Open-source modular identity platform. Deployments in Morocco, Philippines, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, etc.
globalfoundationpublic-sec· ~deployments in 10+ countries · IIIT Bangalore + partners - Mojaloop — Open-source platform for interoperable digital payments. Used in national instant payment systems.
globalfoundationpublic-sec· ~national deployments · Mojaloop Foundation (Gates Foundation support)
11. Foundations & umbrella organisations
Each foundation’s project portfolio is itself a curated, vetted catalogue.
- Apache Software Foundation — All under Apache 2.0. Searchable by category and language. Strong governance model.
globalfoundation· ~350+ top-level + incubation · Apache Software Foundation - Linux Foundation Projects — Umbrella for hundreds of projects across Linux, blockchain, cloud, networking, etc.
globalfoundation· ~1,000+ projects · Linux Foundation - Eclipse Foundation — European-anchored foundation (Brussels HQ since 2021). Strong industrial backing.
EUfoundation· ~400+ projects · Eclipse Foundation AISBL (Belgium) - FSF Free Software Directory — FSF-curated directory of strictly free (libre) software. Stricter criteria than ‘open source’. MediaWiki-based; weekly Friday volunteer IRC meetings.
globalfoundation· ~17,000+ · Free Software Foundation - NLnet Projects — Dutch NGO funding privacy/sovereignty FOSS via NGI programmes. NGI Zero Commons Fund alone has supported 314 projects across 8 rounds (March 2026); NGI Zero Core supported 250 projects. Every funded project is a discovery target.
EUfoundationfunding· ~1,000+ funded projects · NLnet Foundation (NL)
12. Hardware (open-source hardware)
Catalogues of open-source hardware designs and certified hardware.
- OSHWA Certification Directory — The only formal certification directory for open-source hardware, with UID-based marks.
globalfoundation· ~certified hardware from 27+ countries · Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA) - LibreCores — Open-source IP cores / silicon designs (RISC-V, OpenRISC). Lower-volume but the canonical catalogue for FOSS chip design.
globalfoundation· ~varied · LibreCores community
13. Package registries (as discovery surfaces)
Programming-language and OS package registries — de facto directories of (mostly) open-source projects.
- npm — JavaScript — largest registry by package count. Mostly FOSS.
globalpackage-reg· ~3M+ packages · npm Inc. (GitHub/Microsoft) - PyPI — Python — canonical Python package index.
globalpackage-reg· ~600k+ packages · Python Software Foundation - crates.io — Rust — official Rust package registry.
globalpackage-reg· ~165k+ crates · Rust Foundation - Packagist — PHP — Composer package repository.
globalpackage-reg· ~400k+ packages · Composer/Private Packagist - Maven Central — Java/JVM — canonical Maven repository.
globalpackage-reg· ~600k+ artifacts · Sonatype - RubyGems — Ruby package registry.
globalpackage-reg· ~190k+ gems · Ruby Central - F-Droid — FOSS-only Android app catalogue. Strict inclusion criteria.
globalpackage-regprivacy· ~4,500+ apps · F-Droid Limited (community) - Flathub — Linux desktop app distribution. Mostly FOSS, some proprietary.
globalpackage-reg· ~2,800+ apps · GNOME Foundation / community
14. Funding & sustainability registries
Funding platforms and grant-funded portfolios. Every funded project is a discovery surface — especially relevant for Horizon Europe / NGI context.
- Open Collective — Transparent project funding. Every collective is a project listing with budget data.
globalfunding· ~7,000+ collectives · Open Source Collective / OFI Tech - COSSI — Commercial Open-Source Software Company Index — Public Google Sheet tracking commercial open-source companies with ≥$100M revenue. The cossindex.com domain is intermittent; canonical entry point is oss.cash. List of companies, not projects — but a useful cross-reference.
globalfunding· ~companies ≥$100M revenue · Joseph Jacks (OSS Capital) - Sovereign Tech Agency portfolio — German government agency funding critical OSS infrastructure. Constituted as SPRIND subsidiary in 2024; 2025 budget €17M. Recent investments include KDE (€1.4M, May 2026), Mastodon (€614k, April 2026), FreeBSD, OpenSSH, GNOME.
EUfunding· ~60+ funded projects / €23.5M invested · Sovereign Tech Agency (Germany) - NGI (Next Generation Internet) — EU-funded programme spanning NGI Zero (Commons, Core), NGI Search, NGI Sargasso, etc. Every cascade-funded project is a discovery target. NLnet runs several NGI streams.
EUfunding· ~1,500+ cascade-funded · European Commission (NGI programme) - Digital Public Goods Registry — UN-endorsed registry. Curated OSS aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goals. Filterable by SDG, type, origin country. 2025 changes include AI-related updates to the Standard, component-level review scope, and Wikipedia/Wikidata verification as DPGs.
globalpublic-sec· ~~222 verified DPGs (Oct 2025) · Digital Public Goods Alliance (UN-endorsed)
15. Games (libre games)
Open-source games where both code and assets are under free licences.
- Libregamewiki — Encyclopedia of free/libre games where both code and assets are under free licences. The canonical curated catalogue for libre games.
globalawesome· ~community wiki · Volunteer community