We have prepared a small overview of free alternatives to SaaS platforms popular in Russia. With a little effort, you can often achieve almost the same functional return, but with less financial costs.
OnlyOffice instead of Office 365
When we talk about a free alternative to MS Office, the first thing that comes to mind is the OpenOffice / LibreOffice office suite. Indeed, OO / LO does its job perfectly well, however, as a worthy replacement for the cloud service, Office 365 can hardly be useful. OnlyOffice is more suitable for this .
The office editor has a number of advantages that must be reckoned with.
- Highest level compatibility with MS Office file formats.
- Open source product, development is carried out on GitHub.
- Works on all devices: workstations with Windows, Linux and MacOS, mobile platforms Android and MacOS;
- A complete set of formatting and co-editing tools.
The actual subscription for using OnlyOffice as a SaaS is paid, but since the product is distributed with open source, you can independently deploy your own document server from the container .
sudo docker run -i -t -d -p 80:80 \
-v /app/onlyoffice/DocumentServer/logs:/var/log/onlyoffice \
-v /app/onlyoffice/DocumentServer/data:/var/www/onlyoffice/Data onlyoffice/documentserver
Element instead of Slack
Element is the new incarnation of Riot.im , a secure and open source messenger based on the Matrix protocol. From its first stable release, Element has been a solid alternative to Slack due to several key benefits.
- Support for different platforms and architectures.
- Protection from data collection by advertising agencies.
- Security, end-to-end encryption by default.
- Support for extensions through the Element App Store platform.
- Self-hosting support.
There are several implementations of the server-side Matrix protocol, among which the most common is Synapse . There are various options for installing Synapse Server, including from a Docker container and Ansible playbook. Build instructions and Synapse binary packages exist for major Linux distributions as well as Windows, macOC, and OpenBSD.
Installing the client side is extremely easy on any Linux distribution.
$ sudo emerge -av riot-desktop
Local copy of remote index is up-to-date and will be used.
These are the packages that would be merged, in order:
Calculating dependencies... done!
[binary N ] dev-db/sqlcipher-4.0.1::gentoo USE="readline -debug -libedit -libressl -static-libs -tcl -test" ABI_X86="(64) -32 (-x32)" 1397 KiB
[binary N ] net-im/riot-desktop-1.6.6::calculate USE="emoji" 74770 KiB
Total: 2 packages (2 new, 2 binaries), Size of downloads: 76167 KiB
Would you like to merge these packages? [Yes/No]Wire instead of Teams
Another Slack alternative to Microsoft Teams is Wire, an encrypted communication and collaboration app created by Wire Swiss . It is available for iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux platforms, and also as a web application. Wire offers a collaboration package that includes instant messenger, voice and video calling, conferencing, file sharing and collaboration, all secured with end-to-end encryption.
It is also worth noting that the source code has been repeatedly subjected to security checks by independent auditors.
Comparison table of Slack and other
messengers.
The messenger can be used on a paid basis, as a cloud service, and as such it will cost less than Slack. However, the main difference is that Wire has fully exposed both client and server code and is developing on GitHub.
The server side of the messenger is installed via Kubernetes and the Helm package manager. Installing the client for DEB distributions is much easier:
(1:26)$ wget https://wire-app.wire.com/linux/debian/pool/main/wire_3.3.2872_amd64.deb
(1:27)$ sudo dpkg -i wire_3.3.2872_amd64.debGhost Porting WordPress
The popular blogging platform project Ghost made a lot of buzz after a successful Kickstarter campaign. From the outset, Ghost has aimed to displace WordPress as the main blogging site. Of the advantages:
- simplicity and ease of customization;
- open source;
- extensive opportunities for integration and extensions thanks to the flexible JSON API;
- support for automatic publication of posts on schedule;
Ghost Pro is available as a PaaS, currently hosting prices start at USD 29 per month. However, you can significantly save on the price if you place the platform yourself on a dedicated server.
Ghost's interface.
If you deploy Ghost using Kubernetes, you can meet the budget server ratefor 1000 rubles. per month. In addition, Ghost itself will not take up a lot of resources and on the same server you can perform other tasks as needed. Follow the link for details of the container build process and blog host installation. The docker image itself can be directly downloaded and run from DockerHub .
Postfix / Exim instead of GSuite
A distinctive feature of Postfix is its emphasis on security. The creator of the Wietse Zweitze Venema program developed a mail server for his own needs while working in the research department of IBM. Moreover, Postfix was originally designed to address the legacy Sendmail vulnerabilities. If MTA security is top priority, then Postfix is your choice.
MTA Postfix architecture.
Thanks to its well-thought-out architecture with a centralized dispatcher, qmgr Postfix scales well and is suitable for large queues and heavy workloads. In terms of performance, Postix is also in an advantageous position over Exim.
In terms of configuration and flexibility, Postfix is also great. A single configuration file
/etc/postfix/main.cfis understandable even for a beginner. Still, Postfix is not as versatile and versatile as Exim, although it has many options for fine tuning for you.
The Exim mail server is great for small to medium sized organizations and fits perfectly as an MTA for WordPress and other web applications. Compared to PostFix, Exim is more versatile, has excellent integration facilities, and can provide the required functionality to system administrators. Exim supports most of the MTA features in one form or another. Exim is also available from cPanel, a common control panel for domain owners.
MTA Comparison Chart ..
Postfix mail server is available on all Linux distributions, as is Exim.
(1:681)$ eix -e mail-mta/postfix;eix -e mail-mta/exim
* mail-mta/postfix
Available versions: 3.5.6 ~3.5.7 [M]~3.6_pre20200925 {+berkdb cdb dovecot-sasl +eai hardened ldap ldap-bind libressl lmdb mbox memcached mysql nis pam postgres sasl selinux sqlite ssl}
Homepage: http://www.postfix.org/
Description: A fast and secure drop-in replacement for sendmail
* mail-mta/exim
Available versions: 4.93.0.4-r1 ~4.94-r1 {X arc +dane dcc +dkim dlfunc dmarc +dnsdb doc dovecot-sasl dsn exiscan-acl gnutls idn ipv6 ldap libressl lmtp maildir mbx mysql nis pam perl pkcs11 postgres +prdr proxy radius redis sasl selinux spf sqlite srs +ssl syslog tcpd +tpda ELIBC="glibc"}
Homepage: https://www.exim.org/
Description: A highly configurable, drop-in replacement for sendmailFull implementation of a modern mail server including additional modules and services.
- Dovecot IMAP and POP3 server.
- SpamAssassin
- Sender Privacy Framework settings in order to be able to authenticate the sender's domain.
- DKIM DMARC.
