Open-source operating-systems software
1492 open-source libraries, tools and applications tagged operating-systems, ranked by how closely operating-systems is their primary purpose, then by adoption and maintenance health. Each entry links to a page with sources, use cases and when to choose or avoid it.
1492 products, primary matches first, then adoption-weighted; health v2 shown.
| Product | Health v2 | Stars | Maturity |
|---|---|---|---|
| torvalds/linux The official source tree of the Linux kernel, the core of Linux operating systems that manages hardware, system resources, and fundamental … | 77 | 251470 | stable |
| Microsoft Activation Scripts (MAS) Microsoft Activation Scripts (MAS) is an open‑source batch/PowerShell tool that activates Windows and Microsoft Office using HWID, KMS, TSf… | 88 | 191377 | active |
| ventoy/Ventoy Ventoy is an open-source tool for creating bootable USB drives that can hold many ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI image files at once. Users simply … | 94 | 79662 | stable |
| tw93/Mole Mole is a free, open‑source command‑line utility for macOS that cleans caches, removes leftover files, optimizes system services, and provi… | 81 | 70975 | active |
| ChrisTitusTech/winutil WinUtil is a PowerShell‑based CLI utility that automates Windows app installation, system tweaks, fixes, and update management. It provides… | 99 | 63916 | active |
| PowerShell/PowerShell PowerShell is a cross-platform command-line shell, scripting language, and automation framework built on .NET, supporting Windows, Linux, a… | 96 | 55515 | stable |
| Omarchy Omarchy is a modern, opinionated Linux distribution that provides a curated set of applications, themes, and tools. It includes a custom de… | 83 | 45029 | active |
| Omarchy Omarchy is an opinionated, preconfigured Arch-based Linux desktop setup by DHH, built around Hyprland with curated themes, tools, and dotfi… | 83 | 45029 | active |
| Hyprland Hyprland is an independent, dynamic tiling Wayland compositor for Linux written in C++, featuring extensive animations, blur, and visual ef… | 96 | 38896 | active |
| Rufus Rufus is a free, portable Windows utility for formatting USB drives and creating bootable media from ISO or disk images. It supports BIOS a… | 88 | 37748 | stable |
| fish shell fish is a user-friendly, smart interactive command line shell for macOS, Linux, BSD, and Windows (via WSL/Cygwin), written in Rust. It prov… | 97 | 34297 | stable |
| Windows Subsystem for Linux Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is a compatibility layer that lets you run native Linux command‑line tools, utilities and applications di… | 98 | 33917 | active |
| SerenityOS/serenity SerenityOS is a graphical Unix-like operating system for 64-bit x86, Arm, and RISC-V computers, built from scratch in C++ with a custom ker… | 76 | 33868 | active |
| ValveSoftware/Proton Proton is a compatibility tool for Steam Play, based on Wine and additional components, that lets Windows-exclusive games run on Linux thro… | 100 | 33090 | active |
| Shizuku Shizuku lets normal Android apps call system APIs with elevated ADB or root privileges by running a server process via app_process and prox… | 31 | 30654 | active |
| asmvik/yabai yabai is a tiling window manager for macOS that automatically arranges windows using a binary space partitioning algorithm. It extends the … | 82 | 29718 | stable |
| OpenWrt OpenWrt is a Linux-based operating system for embedded devices, primarily routers. It provides a writable filesystem, package manager, and … | 95 | 28793 | active |
| niri niri is a scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor written in Rust on top of Smithay. Windows are arranged in columns on an infinite horizontal… | 82 | 27911 | active |
| LSPosed/LSPosed LSPosed is an ART hooking framework implemented as a Riru/Zygisk Magisk module that provides Xposed-compatible APIs for Android 8.1-14. It … | 67 | 25120 | active |
| kholia/OSX-KVM A collection of scripts, OpenCore configurations, and documentation for running macOS virtual machines on Linux using QEMU/KVM, without nee… | 57 | 23739 | active |
| osquery/osquery osquery is a SQL-powered operating system instrumentation, monitoring, and analytics framework that exposes OS data as a high-performance r… | 88 | 23587 | active |
| nikitabobko/AeroSpace AeroSpace is an i3-inspired tiling window manager for macOS built in Swift. It emulates virtual workspaces independently of native macOS Sp… | 82 | 23202 | active |
| BCC BPF Compiler Collection (BCC) is a toolkit for writing efficient eBPF-based kernel tracing and manipulation programs, with instrumentation … | 89 | 22707 | active |
| Atlas AtlasOS is an open-source, lightweight modification for Windows that applies privacy, security, and performance optimizations. It removes t… | 81 | 21852 | active |
| p0deje/Maccy Maccy is a lightweight, open-source clipboard manager for macOS that keeps a history of copied items. It offers fast keyboard-first search … | 93 | 21697 | stable |
| jart/cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan Libc is a C/C++ library and toolchain that makes C a build-once run-anywhere language by producing polyglot executables that r… | 79 | 21396 | active |
| iSH iSH is an iOS/iPadOS app that runs a Linux shell locally using a usermode x86 emulator and syscall translation. It ships an Alpine Linux en… | 86 | 20592 | active |
| Atmosphère Atmosphère is a customized firmware (CFW) for the Nintendo Switch, composed of components that replace and patch the console's bootloader, … | 94 | 20042 | active |
| Sandboxie Sandboxie Plus & Classic is an open‑source sandbox‑based isolation tool for Windows that lets applications run in a virtual environment wit… | 100 | 19712 | active |
| ntdevlabs/tiny11builder A set of PowerShell scripts that automate building a trimmed-down, debloated Windows 11 ISO image from an official Microsoft ISO. It includ… | 37 | 19624 | active |
| TGSAN/CMWTAT_Digital_Edition CloudMoe Windows 10/11 Activation Toolkit is a Windows application that activates Windows 10 and 11 using digital licenses. It is distribut… | 83 | 19507 | active |
| tiann/KernelSU KernelSU is a kernel-based root solution for Android that runs inside the Linux kernel to grant root access. It provides stealthy, permissi… | 95 | 19399 | active |
| OpenCore Legacy Patcher OpenCore Legacy Patcher is a Python‑based application that patches OpenCore to enable macOS Big Sur and newer on unsupported legacy Macs. I… | 98 | 18574 | active |
| OpenCore Legacy Patcher A Python-based GUI application that builds and installs OpenCore boot configurations to run modern macOS (Big Sur through Sequoia) on unsup… | 98 | 18574 | active |
| DXVK DXVK is a Vulkan-based translation layer that implements Direct3D 8, 9, 10, and 11 APIs, allowing Windows 3D applications and games to run … | 98 | 18322 | active |
| xbar xbar is a macOS menu bar application (a rewrite of BitBar in Go using Wails) that displays the output of any script or program directly in … | 23 | 18068 | active |
| NixOS/nix Nix is a purely functional package manager that builds packages in isolation for reproducible, reliable, declarative package management. It… | 77 | 17889 | stable |
| OpenEmu OpenEmu is an open-source retro video game emulator for macOS that unifies multiple emulation engine backends behind a native Cocoa front e… | 41 | 17787 | active |
| NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules The source release of NVIDIA's open Linux GPU kernel modules, released per driver version and built with make. It must be paired with match… | 93 | 17411 | active |
| swaywm/sway Sway is an i3-compatible tiling Wayland compositor that works as a drop-in replacement for the i3 window manager on X11. It arranges window… | 82 | 17365 | stable |
| systemd/systemd systemd is a suite of basic building blocks for a Linux system, providing a system and service manager that runs as PID 1 and starts the re… | 96 | 16851 | stable |
| Zephyr RTOS Zephyr is a scalable, secure, real-time operating system (RTOS) designed for resource-constrained embedded devices across multiple hardware… | 91 | 16683 | stable |
| redox-os/redox Redox is a full-featured Unix-like operating system written in Rust with a microkernel architecture, inspired by seL4, MINIX, Plan 9, Linux… | 66 | 16594 | active |
| Lynis Lynis is an open-source security auditing and hardening tool for UNIX-based systems including Linux, macOS, and BSD. It performs in-depth l… | 83 | 16450 | stable |
| davatorium/rofi Rofi is a popup window switcher, application launcher, and dmenu replacement for Linux. It presents a searchable textual list of options fo… | 78 | 16450 | stable |
| dots-hyprland A usability-first dotfiles bundle that turns Hyprland (a Wayland compositor) into a polished, Material Design-styled Linux desktop shell, b… | 80 | 16335 | active |
| ianyh/Amethyst Amethyst is an automatic tiling window manager for macOS, inspired by xmonad. It arranges windows into configurable layouts controlled enti… | 89 | 16296 | active |
| Lakr233/vphone-cli A Swift CLI tool that boots virtual iPhone instances on Apple Silicon Macs using Apple's Virtualization.framework and PCC research VM infra… | 83 | 15734 | active |
| OpenCore OpenCore is a UEFI bootloader for booting macOS (Hackintosh) and other operating systems on PC hardware, with an accompanying UEFI developm… | 89 | 15505 | active |
| polybar/polybar Polybar is a fast and easy-to-use tool for creating highly customizable status bars on Linux desktop environments. It provides built-in mod… | 39 | 15346 | stable |
| LGUG2Z/komorebi komorebi is a tiling window manager for Windows 10 and above that works as an extension to Microsoft's Desktop Window Manager. It provides … | 87 | 15294 | active |
| Cockpit Cockpit is a web-based graphical interface for administering Linux servers, interacting directly with the operating system through real sys… | 95 | 15200 | stable |
| dwarvesf/hidden Hidden Bar is an ultra-light macOS utility that lets users hide menu bar icons to declutter the menu bar. It works by inserting spacer icon… | 85 | 15159 | stable |
| WeChatTweak A command-line tool that patches the WeChat macOS client to add features like preventing message revocation, blocking automatic updates, an… | 65 | 13840 | active |
| Jguer/yay yay is an AUR helper for Arch Linux written in Go that wraps pacman to manage both official repository and AUR packages from a single pacma… | 93 | 13785 | active |
| qemu/qemu QEMU is a generic open-source machine emulator and virtualizer written in C. It can emulate complete machines in software via dynamic trans… | 75 | 13764 | stable |
| bin456789/reinstall A one-click shell script for reinstalling operating systems on VPS servers, supporting 19 Linux distributions and Windows via official ISOs… | 76 | 13561 | active |
| Darling Darling is a translation/compatibility layer that lets users run macOS and Darwin software directly on Linux without a virtual machine, sim… | 81 | 13423 | active |
| microsoft/mimalloc mimalloc is a compact general-purpose memory allocator developed by Microsoft, serving as a drop-in replacement for malloc with excellent p… | 96 | 13399 | stable |
| 89luca89/distrobox Distrobox is a command-line tool that uses podman, docker, or lilipod to create tightly integrated containers of any Linux distribution ins… | 90 | 13036 | stable |
| OpenZFS OpenZFS is an advanced copy-on-write file system and volume manager originally developed for Solaris, now maintained by the OpenZFS communi… | 97 | 12492 | stable |
| umbrelOS umbrelOS is a home server operating system for self-hosting apps on your own hardware, with an app store of 300+ one-click installable appl… | 93 | 12376 | active |
| mas-cli/mas mas is a command-line interface for the Mac App Store, written in Swift. It lets users search, install, update, and manage App Store apps f… | 89 | 12356 | active |
| netboot.xyz netboot.xyz is an iPXE-based network bootloader that presents a menu of operating system installers, live distros, and rescue tools that ar… | 91 | 12314 | active |
| waydroid/waydroid Waydroid is a container-based tool that boots a full Android system inside Linux namespaces (LXC) on GNU/Linux systems running Wayland. It … | 86 | 12310 | active |
| RT-Thread/rt-thread RT-Thread is an open-source, community-based real-time operating system (RTOS) for IoT and embedded devices, written primarily in C. It com… | 90 | 12286 | stable |
| Alexays/Waybar Waybar is a highly customizable status bar for Wayland compositors, built with GTK and C++ for Sway and other wlroots-based compositors lik… | 77 | 12034 | active |
| thaw-app/Thaw Thaw is an open-source macOS menu bar manager that helps users organize, hide, and manage menu bar items. It is built in Swift/SwiftUI and … | 76 | 11950 | active |
| shirou/gopsutil gopsutil is a Go port of Python's psutil library for retrieving system information such as CPU, memory, disk, network, and process metrics.… | 98 | 11931 | stable |
| ImmortalWrt ImmortalWrt is an open-source fork of OpenWrt, a Linux-based operating system for embedded network devices like WiFi routers. It targets ma… | 77 | 11751 | active |
| Loop Loop is a free, open-source macOS window management app that lets users move, resize, and arrange windows via a customizable radial menu, k… | 80 | 11735 | active |
| Noctalia Noctalia is a native Wayland desktop shell written in C++ that provides bars, launcher, notifications, lock screen, wallpaper, dock, contro… | 82 | 11411 | active |
| giampaolo/psutil psutil is a cross-platform Python library for retrieving information about running processes and system utilization (CPU, memory, disks, ne… | 77 | 11294 | stable |
| tini Tini is a tiny init system written in C designed to run as PID 1 inside containers. It spawns a single child process, reaps zombie processe… | 28 | 11269 | stable |
| siderolabs/talos Talos Linux is a minimal, immutable, API-managed Linux distribution purpose-built for running Kubernetes. It ships no shell, SSH, or packag… | 96 | 11246 | stable |
| jemalloc/jemalloc jemalloc is a general-purpose malloc(3) memory allocator implementation emphasizing fragmentation avoidance and scalable concurrency suppor… | 89 | 11241 | stable |
| xzhih/one-key-hidpi A shell script that enables macOS HiDPI on non-retina displays by injecting display overrides, giving a native 'Scaled' option in System Pr… | 35 | 11140 | active |
| noah-nuebling/mac-mouse-fix Mac Mouse Fix is a macOS application that enhances third-party mice with smooth scrolling, button remapping, and trackpad-like gestures. It… | 99 | 11125 | active |
| rr-debugger/rr rr is a lightweight record-and-replay framework for Linux that captures the full execution of applications (process and thread trees) and r… | 88 | 10710 | active |
| i3 Window Manager i3 is a tiling window manager for X11, written from scratch in C using xcb. It arranges windows in a tree structure, supports multi-monitor… | 77 | 10596 | stable |
| nix-community/home-manager Home Manager is a tool for declaratively managing a user's home environment using the Nix package manager and Nixpkgs. It handles user-spec… | 77 | 10430 | active |
| bpftrace/bpftrace bpftrace is a high-level tracing language and CLI tool for Linux that compiles one-liner scripts to eBPF bytecode via LLVM. It supports ker… | 97 | 10355 | active |
| noisetorch/NoiseTorch NoiseTorch-ng is a Linux application that creates a virtual microphone with real-time noise suppression using RNNoise, working with PulseAu… | 23 | 10330 | active |
| wwmm/easyeffects Easy Effects is a Linux desktop application that applies audio effects (limiter, compressor, convolver, equalizer, autogain, noise reductio… | 76 | 10289 | active |
| ophub/amlogic-s9xxx-armbian A set of shell scripts and build tooling that produces Armbian (Debian/Ubuntu-based) images for Amlogic, Rockchip, and Allwinner ARM device… | 99 | 10168 | active |
| rgcr/m-cli m-cli is a Swiss Army Knife command-line tool for macOS that lets users control system functions, manage utilities, and tweak preferences f… | 71 | 9916 | active |
| Xiaomi Kernel OpenSource Xiaomi's official open-source release of the Linux kernel sources for its phones and tablets, organized as one branch per device and Androi… | 75 | 9858 | active |
| macfuse/macfuse macFUSE is a macOS software package that lets non-privileged users create file systems in user space, with a kernel extension bridging to k… | 94 | 9845 | active |
| Sparkle Sparkle is a secure and reliable software update framework for macOS applications, serving as the de-facto standard used by thousands of ap… | 98 | 9824 | stable |
| HyDE HyDE is a shell-based theming and configuration framework that turns Hyprland-based Linux systems into a fully customized, aesthetic deskto… | 87 | 9673 | active |
| Rocky Linux Rocky Linux is a community-driven, open-source enterprise Linux distribution built to be 100% bug-for-bug compatible with Red Hat Enterpris… | 10 | 9481 | stable |
| AppImage AppImageKit is the reference tooling for the AppImage format, which packages desktop Linux applications as a single executable file that ru… | 62 | 9437 | active |
| ronitsingh10/FineTune FineTune is a free, open-source macOS menu bar app for per-app volume control, multi-device audio output routing, and a 10-band equalizer w… | 71 | 9421 | active |
| pwr-Solaar/Solaar Solaar is a Linux device manager for Logitech keyboards, mice, trackpads, and other peripherals connected via Unifying, Bolt, Lightspeed, o… | 81 | 9402 | active |
| FreeBSD The official publish-only Git mirror of the FreeBSD source tree, containing the complete kernel, userland, libraries, boot loader, and buil… | 77 | 9398 | stable |
| vinceliuice/WhiteSur-gtk-theme WhiteSur GTK Theme is a macOS Big Sur-style theme for GTK-based Linux desktops, supporting GTK3, GTK4, GNOME Shell, GDM, Flatpak apps, and … | 91 | 9314 | active |
| ublue-os/bazzite Bazzite is a gaming-focused Fedora Atomic (Kinoite/Silverblue) custom operating system image built with OCI tooling, pre-installed with Ste… | 95 | 9201 | active |
| containers/bubblewrap Bubblewrap is a low-level unprivileged sandboxing tool for Linux that uses user namespaces to let any user run processes in isolated contai… | 93 | 8998 | active |
| Morganamilo/paru Paru is a feature-packed AUR helper for Arch Linux, wrapping pacman to search, install, and upgrade packages from the Arch User Repository … | 47 | 8990 | active |
| sveinbjornt/Sloth Sloth is a native macOS application that displays all open files, directories, sockets, pipes, and devices in use by running processes, ser… | 82 | 8968 | stable |
page 1 / 15 next →