Following on from Phil Ryu’s excellent list of top 10 most beautiful OS X apps, I decided to create this list of top ten open source applications for OS X. I’m fully aware that most of the types of posts are scorned for excluding a certain application, but I honestly feel that this is the best, the crème de la crème of all the open source apps for Mac OS X. And what’s especially cool about this list is that all the apps are available for you to download and use for nothing! So without any more fluff, I present what I think are the top 10 open source OS X apps!
Camino
If you have just stuck with Safari as your default browser, then you really need to have a look at Camino. This browser marries the power of Mozilla’s rendering engine with a slick Cocoa UI. It is very very fast, looks great and fits in seemlessly with OS X. In fact, Apple actually considered using Camino as the basis for what is now known as Safari but elected to use KHTML instead because of it’s smaller footprint. One of Camino’s original developers, Dave Hyatt, now works for Apple developing Safari. However, Camino has come on leaps and bounds recently and sports everything you would need for everyday browsing.
Adium
Don’t even bother downloading and installing MSN Messenger, AIM or YIM. It’s a total waste of your time. Why? Because you should be using Adium. Simple as that! This thing works with just about every single IM protocol out there, and it’s set to get better with the Summer of Code looming large!
Senuti
As everyone knows already, getting your tunes onto an iPod is easy but getting them back off requires some leverage. Senuti allows you to easily grab tracks from your iPod and back them up locally to your HD. There’s no gimmicks and with a clean iTunes-esque interface you’ll be pulling tracks in no time at all!
Firefox
Firefox has taken the web by storm, and because of it’s XUL UI it also works quite well with OS X. Even though the Mozilla foundation has employed Josh Aas to work on further OS X integration, Firefox still lacks in terms of a slick Aqua UI, but work is ongoing to remedy this. The main benefit of Firefox is in the extensions, especially if you are a power user. Web developers are especially well catered for with numerous search marketing extensions such as Aaron Wall’s recently released SEO for Firefox, the Google Toolbar, Yahoo Toolbar and Performancing for Firefox. You can download many more here.
Vienna
While NetNewsWire is a totally top notch app, and it’s free sibbling NetNewsWire Lite is also neat, you really want to download Vienna. For browsing any number of feeds, this is it! Organize feeds with smart folders, open feeds in new tabs, custom display styles and more. It’s just so elegant, an example of an app with perfect Aqua integration.
Colloquy
There are lots of IRC chat clients out there, but there are none like Colloquy. Aside from the slick Aqua UI, Colloquy has a whole bunch of features: buddy lists, file transfer, plugins, single / multi window modes and much more. And it’s open source! And it’s free!
Smultron
Don’t want to spend the money on skEdit (very nice text editor), TextMate or SubEthaEdit then try Smultron. This free and open source text editor has a pretty long feature list as you can see: line numbers, support for syntax colouring for many different languages, functions list, support for text encodings, snippets, a toolbar, a status bar, HTML preview, split window, multi-document find and replace with regular expressions, possibility to show invisible characters, tabs, authenticated open and saves, command-line utility, .Mac synchronisation, full screen editing and more!
Fugu
Looking for a cheap alternative to Transmit, then have a go with Fugu. This FTP / SFTP client has a familiar and intuitive interface (much like that of Transmit), left column for local files and right hand column for remote files. It hasn’t seen a great deal of interest recently and not much has changed except for some localization. But still, it’s worth a look.
Transmission
Way better and much cooler than the standard Bittorrent app, Transmission is P2P done right. Simple and clean, elegant and space saving. Easily up there with Acquisition in terms of coolness. And oh yeah, it’s free.
VLC
While Quicktime works fine with .mov, .mp3, .mp4, .m4a files, it doesn’t do much with other widely spread multimedia formats such as .avi, .ogg, and DivX. This is where VLC comes in. It’ll play back just about anything under the sun!
If there are any cool open source OS X apps that you think deserve to be on this list, then please let me know!
30 responses so far ↓
1 mindsmack // Jul 7, 2006 at 1:55 pm
I have to check it out.
2 The Blog Joint » Links of the Week // Jul 7, 2006 at 6:39 pm
[…] Top 10 open source OSX apps - Has a great list of the top 10 open source apps for the great Mac OSX, recently I also had a list of the “Top 10 open source programs” […]
3 blurbomac » Blog Archive » Top 10 Open Source OS X Apps // Jul 7, 2006 at 9:00 pm
[…] I think I agree with most of this list […]
4 Terinea Tech Tips » Blog Archive » Top 10 Open Source Mac Apps // Jul 8, 2006 at 9:36 am
[…] BoydCreative » Blog Archive » Top 10 Open Source OS X Apps! […]
5 links for 2006-07-08 | blog.ftofani.com // Jul 8, 2006 at 12:21 pm
[…] Top 10 Open Source OS X Apps! Nada muito interessante mas o leitor de RSS, o editor de texto e o ftp valem a pena. (tags: osx mac software apple opensource applications free lists useful) […]
6 slven // Jul 8, 2006 at 1:16 pm
This is great list, i think these apps are more useful than top 10 beauty apps. I want introduce these apps to my friends those macfans from china, Certainly, i’ll trackback to your site. is that ok?
7 Top 10 Essential Mac OS X-Apps Collections at freshlabs journal // Jul 8, 2006 at 4:30 pm
[…] Boyd Creative: Top 10 Open Source OS X Apps (Senuti, Vienna, Smultron, Fugu) […]
8 Parity Violation // Jul 8, 2006 at 8:42 pm
Mac open source software…
This is a somewhat interesting list of OS X open-source apps. Personally, I’m more interested in applications being free than being open source. I love TextWrangler as a Text editor, and the fact it’s not open source doesn’t bother …
9 macblog.ilyan.com » Blog Archive » СпиÑък Ñ Ð¢ÐžÐŸ10 безплатни програми за MACOS X // Jul 8, 2006 at 8:58 pm
[…] Може би като погледнете този ÑпиÑък ще видите много Ð¿Ñ€Ð¸Ð»Ð¾Ð¶ÐµÐ½Ð¸Ñ ÐºÐ¾Ð¸Ñ‚Ð¾ вече ползвате или Ñте чували за Ñ‚ÑÑ…. Ðапример Adium чат Ñофтуера, Camino - Ð±ÑŠÑ€Ð·Ð¸Ñ Ð¸ елегантен браузър базиран на Firefox, Senuti - удобното приложение за извличане на музика от iPod, или универÑÐ°Ð»Ð½Ð¸Ñ Ð²Ð¸Ð´ÐµÐ¾ плейър VLC. Погледнете ÑпиÑъка, заÑлужава Ñи наиÑтина. […]
10 Jonny Five » Top 10 Open Source OS X Applications // Jul 8, 2006 at 8:59 pm
[…] BoydCreative » Blog Archive » Top 10 Open Source OS X Apps! […]
11 Branders.name » Blog Archive » links for 2006-07-08 // Jul 8, 2006 at 9:20 pm
[…] Top 10 Open Source OS X Apps! list of top ten open source applications for OS X (tags: mac software apple article) […]
12 Top 10 Open Source OS X Apps! at Knowledge Work // Jul 9, 2006 at 10:56 am
[…] A lot of old favorites here, like the Mac-optimized Mozilla browser Camino and the Adium chat client, but a few surprises, too. BoydCreative » Top 10 Open Source OS X Apps! […]
13 Like Your Work » Blog Archive » links for 2006-07-10 // Jul 10, 2006 at 1:20 am
[…] BoydCreative » Blog Archive » Top 10 Open Source OS X Apps! (tags: apple osx mac freeware oss) […]
14 生活帮-LifeBang » Blog Archive » å大Mac OS X上的优秀开æºè½¯ä»¶ // Jul 10, 2006 at 1:52 am
[…] 原文链接 […]
15 The Second Press » Blog Archive » Top 10 OSX Apps // Jul 10, 2006 at 11:32 am
[…] A Guide to OS X Software for Switchers Top 10 Open Source OSX Apps […]
16 bhuot // Jul 10, 2006 at 6:37 pm
My favorite open source OS X applications are OpenOffice.org 2.0, Cyberduck, Inkscape, Seashore, GimpShop, Thunderbird, and Nvu. I also like Firefox, Camino, and Smultron.
17 LifeSlate » Blog Archive » Top 10 Open Source OS X Apps! // Jul 14, 2006 at 10:40 pm
[…] Source […]
18 Born to Click » Pour les Macophiles // Jul 20, 2006 at 6:45 pm
[…] > Le plaisir du Mac, c’est que la plupart des petites applis respectent la charte graphique Apple, et sont très soignées. Même le monde Open Source s’y met : le top des 10 meilleurs logiciels Open Source sur Mac oS X. Amusant de comparer l’interface sous Linux et sous Mac de la même appli. Ci-dessous Transmission, un excellent et simplissime logiciel de Peer to Peer, vu sous Mac et sous Linux… […]
19 JohnMcCarville.com » Hot Hot Hot // Jul 31, 2006 at 3:53 pm
[…] Free stuff for OSX! […]
20 Na Han (å‘å–Š) » Helping Hands // Nov 5, 2006 at 10:31 pm
[…] [L]ist of top ten open source applications for OS X. I’m new to the Mac game and therefore after a lifetime of Windows work I’m eager to learn what apps and software make Mac OS run at its very best. This list (and others out there) seem a useful way for me to accomplish this. Why reinvent the wheel. Top 10 Open Source OS X Apps […]
21 St. Louis Blogs : Great Lists of Software Utilities // Nov 27, 2006 at 8:26 pm
[…] Sixth, a top ten list of Open Source programs for the Mac. […]
22 Luci May’s Intimate Thoughts » Top Ten List of Top Ten Lists // Feb 6, 2007 at 1:03 am
[…] Top 10 Open Source OS X Apps! […]
23 Don’t Look Here » Blog Archive » More links to some cool apps and stuff // Feb 21, 2007 at 8:21 am
[…] The top 10 open-source OS X apps […]
24 Chris T // Mar 21, 2007 at 5:44 am
You spelled sibling wrong under Vienna :(.
25 Ted Curran // May 24, 2007 at 6:31 am
Don’t forget Audacity. A very powerful audio editor!!
26 Juan // Jun 29, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Does anyone know about an antivirus or some kind of open source app that can scan my Hard drive?? anything would be helpfull, my computer keeps crashing….
27 screenmates // Dec 30, 2007 at 9:57 am
Don’t worry about viruses on a Mac. Windows has over 115,000 viruses whereas OS X had only 2 or 3 so far and they were squished! There are not many talented hackers who can write viruses for OS X and even if they do the number of users that get affected is minimal which is why no one attempts to write viruses for OS X!!
28 green Pope // Mar 15, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Good selection !
29 Matt // Mar 20, 2008 at 8:21 am
Great selection, however I have most of them or alternatives I prefer. Nothing new in there for me I’m afraid.
30 Terinea Weblog // May 11, 2008 at 12:59 am
I get the feeling that Mac users don’t mind spending $20 dollars he and there on programs, where perhaps Windows users don’t or at least have more choice.
Thanks for the list, just need a decent desktop blogging client which can match Windows Live Writer.
Jamie
Recently newbie in the Mac world
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