There is no dearth of excellent apps on both desktop and mobile operating systems. Many of these apps are free, whereas others require some form of payment, whether as a one-time charge or a recurring subscription. While it’s often believed that paid apps offer a better experience, it’s not true in all cases. There are quite a few free apps that either match or exceed their premium counterparts in terms of features, experience, and privacy. You don’t necessarily need to pay for a reliable and feature-rich experience.

We’ve found five such popular free apps that have managed to carve out a place for themselves despite competition from well-funded premium alternatives. A majority of these apps are part of successful open-source projects, showing the power of community-driven development that cares about open access, privacy, and security. The rest drive their development by charging commercial buyers with deep pockets while keeping the individual usage of their apps free.

VLC is a prime example of a free piece of software that has absolutely dominated the industry and is arguably better than any paid media player. It may not have the prettiest user interface, which is where some premium alternatives may pip it. But otherwise, there is no competition in terms of functionality. It can play virtually any file format, including some of the latest codecs on the market, thanks to its own built-in decoders. More importantly, it has no ads, no upselling for any pro version, and no tracking. This open-source darling cares about your privacy.

Despite its relatively simple look, VLC packs quite a lot of features that go beyond its play-it-all functionality. For example, you can use it to convert your media files from one format to another. It also supports streaming content from online or local network sources. Moreover, you get audio and subtitle sync support, volume boost, and support for plugins and extensions. VLC is available on all popular platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS.

You may think a free password manager won’t be particularly capable or feature-rich, but Bitwarden, which is among the best password managers according to users, packs all the features that you get in its premium counterparts. In fact, it even has some extras, such as support for self-hosting for enhanced privacy. It also has never suffered a major breach, unlike some paid options, such as LastPass. It offers completely free access to individuals, with support for storing unlimited passwords and accessing them on unlimited devices. Since it’s open-source, it allows the savvy community at large to audit its code for any shady behavior.

Additional features include passkeys and autofill, email alias integration, free sharing with another user, the ability to store ID cards and secure notes, and a lot more. It can also generate usernames, passwords, and passphrases. Moreover, Bitwarden has extensions for all major web browsers, apps for all major operating systems, including mobile platforms, and a web app, making it available pretty much anywhere you may need to enter your saved credentials. Unfortunately, some convenience features, such as a built-in two-factor authenticator and alerts for reused or weak passwords, are locked behind the premium tier.

If you’re tired of the trial-expired popups from the likes of WinRAR and WinZip, it’s time to switch to 7-Zip. It’s significantly better in pretty much everything, including superior compression. 7-Zip can extract almost any archive format, and also supports creating archives in several formats. It also has a no-nonsense interface and integrates into the Windows context menu. Moreover, it’s lightweight and doesn’t hog resources.

Other highlights of 7-Zip include support for the industry-leading AES-256 encryption standard, the ability to encrypt file names inside the archives for privacy, open-source code, and an ad-free interface. You can even keep it on your USB stick as portable software. Notably, 7-Zip is available with a graphical user interface (GUI) only on Windows. You can, however, use it via the command line on macOS and Linux. But if you want a free archiving app with a GUI on other platforms, Keka on macOS and ZArchiver on Android are good options. You can also consider PeaZip, which is available on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Blender is a great example of how a free app can become a major player in an industry despite massive competition from expensive counterparts. It’s a 3D creation software that shines because of its all-in-one production pipeline. Rather than paying for multiple premium apps, you can have your entire 3D workflow in Blender. It has tools and features to create, edit, and transform your models. It also includes VFX, animation, and story art tools, and has an impressive render engine. Another highlight of the software is its customizable nature that allows you to adjust everything from layouts, colors, size, and even fonts.

You can also leverage hundreds of community-created add-ons to boost your workflow. Moreover, it’s not restricted to a specific per-year update cycle and can get improvements as and when they are ready. Thanks to its fantastic capabilities, Blender — despite being a free and open-source software — gets funding from industry bigwigs like Nvidia, AMD, Meta, and Valve. You can download Blender for all major desktop operating systems. While there’s a lot to like about Blender, it has a steep learning curve and can be a resource hog.

DaVinci Resolve is one of the most essential apps to install on a new laptop if you’re a video editor. It’s an impressive free piece of software that has emerged as a solid competitor to premium apps like Adobe’s Premiere Pro. Although it started out as primarily a tool for color-grading, it has evolved into a full-fledged video editing app. Unlike many free-to-use video editors, DaVinci Resolve doesn’t restrict any features or put watermarks on the output. You can export your project in up to 4K at 60fps. It also includes access to the Fairlight audio suite for professional-grade audio editing and mixing. One of the highlights of the software is its “all-in-one” workflow. With just one click, you can switch between your edit timeline, visual effects (Fusion), professional color grading, and the Fairlight audio suite.

It’s also known to be pretty stable, unlike Premiere Pro, which is said to crash during complex edits. That said, if you are coming from Premiere Pro or another video editing software, you’ll have to get used to DaVinci Resolve’s different node-based workflow (instead of layers), integrated features, and lack of dynamic linking with tools like After Effects, Photoshop, and Illustrator. While Blackmagic Design — the developer of DaVinci Resolve — offers a paid version called DaVinci Resolve Studio with extra features, the free version is more than enough for a lot of creators. You can download DaVinci Resolve for all major desktop operating systems.

While selecting free apps that are better than their paid counterparts, we dove into Reddit threads and social media conversations to pick some of the best free apps that are popular despite the availability of common paid software. We also went through expert reviews and forums to look for the pros and cons of all shortlisted apps. Moreover, all our recommendations have a long history of delivering solid performance and an expansive feature set.