8 Free GitHub Repos That Replace Paid Software (Photoshop, Fusion, Descript)

Author: Hyperautomation Labs · Watch on YouTube

Video authored by the channel shown, not by IANIA; all rights belong to the creator. Transcript and summary generated automatically; the original-language content is preserved.

Original language: English

Original video: 8 Free GitHub Repos That Replace Paid Software (Photoshop, Fusion, Descript) · Channel: Hyperautomation Labs · 09:42 · Watch on YouTube

Topics: Task and workflow automation, AI content generation, Local and open-source models, Open source and software ecosystems

Summary

The creator builds a Raspberry Pi case product launch in one day using eight free GitHub apps in place of paid software. The video demonstrates each tool, its strengths, and its limitations, including an AI timeout on the creator’s laptop and a non-commercial license that rules out using Rescript for the channel. The listed subscriptions would cost about $162 per month; the creator says the remaining cost is $24 because of Descript’s license. The video concludes that free tools can be effective, but paid software may still be necessary for client compatibility, business approval, or licensing requirements.

Key points

Solid Craft replaces Autodesk Fusion for hobby CAD work and supports modeling through AI agents, but it is an early beta without simulation or manufacturing tools.
Compositor offers a Photoshop-like workflow on Mac, but its content-aware fill can show seams, and it cannot save files as PSD.
Gen Office opens and saves Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files and supports AI editing, but users must provide an AI account, API key, or sufficiently fast computer.
Handy provides offline voice dictation for free, but it transcribes speech as spoken rather than cleaning up rambling.
Pure Mac scans for files such as caches and shows what it plans to delete; the creator emphasizes trust because cleaners need disk access.
Concat includes local AI voice generation and captioning, but it is a beta with fewer templates, no stock library, and an extra download needed for stock voices.
Rescript transcribes locally and edits video through text, but its non-commercial license makes it unsuitable for monetized videos.
Tiny Cast is a free launcher that can import Raycast setups and run Raycast extensions, but it lacks cloud sync and requires users to provide their own AI key.
The creator says the monthly software bill fell from $162 to $24, with the remaining cost attributed to Descript’s license.
The creator recommends paying when client file compatibility, business approval, or income-related license terms make it necessary.

Chapters

Start	Chapter	Summary
00:00	Building a product launch with free software	The creator introduces the one-day product launch and begins replacing paid CAD software with Solid Craft.
02:03	Product photography and office documents	Compositor replaces Photoshop for a product image, followed by a test of Gen Office for documents and AI editing.
04:38	Dictation, disk cleanup, and launch video	The creator tests Handy for voice typing, Pure Mac for cleanup, and Concat for making a video with local AI features.
06:40	Editing clips, launcher, and the final bill	The video covers Rescript’s licensing restriction and Tiny Cast’s trade-offs, then totals the claimed savings and shows the finished launch.
08:41	When free software is not the right choice	The creator explains when paid tools may still be needed and invites viewers to suggest the next app to replace.

Quotes

I made all of it in one day, and I didn’t open a single paid app. — 00:00

My laptop was just too slow for the job. — 04:06

If you earn money from your videos, you’re not allowed to use it. — 07:10

I started the day paying $162 a month. I’m ending it at 24. — 08:11

Free isn’t always cheaper. Today, it was. — 08:41

Concepts and entities

Solid Craft, Autodesk Fusion, Claude Code, Compositor, Photoshop, Gen Office, Gemma, Ollama, Handy, Pure Mac, Concat, Rescript, Tiny Cast, Raycast, Descript, GitHub

Full transcript (original language)

00:00 This is a real product launch. The 3D design, the product photo, the spec sheet, the launch video. I made all of it in one day, and I didn’t open a single paid app. Normally, that job takes over $160 a month in subscriptions. Photoshop, Fusion, Descript, Microsoft 365, eight of them. So, I swapped every one of them for a

00:30 free repo on GitHub. Some of these are so new they didn’t exist a month ago. And one of them completely failed on my laptop. Let’s go in the order I used them. Step one, the product. I wanted something small and real. A case for a Raspberry Pi. That’s a job for professional CAD software, and the one most people use is Autodesk Fusion. $680 a year. The free version is called Solid Craft.

01:00 It’s 9 days old. It’s written in Rust. It already has 3,000 stars. And it does the thing that makes CAD software expensive, change one number and the whole model rebuilds. And here’s the part Fusion doesn’t do. Solid Craft has a built-in connection for AI agents. So, I let Claude code do the modeling. I described the case and in a minute and a half, it built the whole thing. Live in the app. Standoffs on the mounting holes, a cutout for every port.

01:31 >> [music] >> Then I asked for a fan grill and a slot for the SD card. 41 seconds. Then, make it taller. 21 steps rebuilt, zero errors. And I liked what Claude said at the end. The port sizes are its estimates, so check them against your board or do a test print first. The catch with Solid Craft itself, it’s an early beta, the app isn’t signed, so your Mac warns you the first time, and there are no simulation or manufacturing tools yet. For a hobby

02:03 part, switched. $57 a month, gone. Step two, a product photo. That means Photoshop. $23 a month on the cheapest plan, and you never own it. Compositor is a free Mac app that copies the Photoshop workflow almost one for one. Layers, masks, blend modes, healing brush, even a camera raw filter. It came out 1 month ago, and it already has 17,000 stars.

02:33 Watch. I dropped the case render onto a photo of a wooden table. Remove background. One click, and the studio backdrop is gone behind a mask, so nothing is lost. A drop shadow. Then I make the canvas wider, and content-aware fill paints new wood past the edges of the photo. Now look closely at those new edges. You can see the seams, repeating planks, lines that don’t meet. That’s the catch. There’s no generative AI here like Adobe

03:03 Firefly. So, the fill is clever copying, not imagining. It’s also Mac only, on the newest Mac OS. It opens Photoshop files, but it can’t save them back as Photoshop files. If clients send you PSDs every day, keep Photoshop. For everyone else, switched. Step three, the spec sheet and the price list. That’s Word and Excel, so Microsoft 365. $100 a year, more if you want the Copilot AI inside

03:35 it. Gen Office is a free office suite that opens and saves real Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. And it has an AI agent built in that edits the document the way a colleague would, with tracked changes. And And can point that AI at a model running on your own laptop. I did. Gemma through all llama, no key at all. I asked it to tighten my rambling second paragraph and add a table of specs. And here’s what happened. It thought for about a minute and then

04:06 request timed out. My laptop was just too slow for the job. So, the catch. The office part is free, but the brain is bring your own a GenSpark account, your own API key, or a much faster computer than mine. >> [music] >> In their own demo, the AI rewrites the section for you and one click rolls it back. Good enough if you bring a brain. Another $10 a month gone. If this is useful, subscribe. It’s free. And to back the work, hit join here or

04:38 supporter on Facebook. Now, the part where I stopped typing. Step four, the launch emails. I don’t type those anymore. I talk them. The popular app for that is Whisper Flow. $15 a month. And it sends your voice to the cloud. Handy does it for free and fully offline. 34,000 stars. Hold a key, speak, let go, and the words land in whatever app you’re in. Here’s its creator showing it off.

05:09 The catch. It types exactly what you said. Whisper cleans up your rambling for you and Handy doesn’t. For me, that’s fine. Switched. Step five, room to work. Video eats disk space and my Mac was nearly full. The app everyone gets told to buy is CleanMyMac, about $40 a year, and it loves to scare you with a big red number. And my Mac really was full. 99% 7 GB left.

05:39 Pure Mac is free. It’s signed by Apple and it has no tracking. One scan. 36 GB found, mostly caches. 11 of them from old node projects, and nothing gets deleted until you’ve seen the list. The catch. A cleaner needs full access to your disk, so trust matters. That’s exactly why this one being open source is the point. Anyone can read the code that decides what gets deleted. Switched.

06:09 Step six, the launch video. CapCut Pro is $20 a month, and the free one keeps moving the good features behind the paywall. Concat is a free video editor with the AI parts built in, and they run on your laptop. The models download once, a few hundred megabytes, and that’s it. I drop in the product shot. I type one line for the narration, and the local voice reads it in about five seconds, then captions. It listens to that voice and writes them, timed to the words, also on my laptop.

06:40 The catch, it’s a beta version 0.2. It has fewer templates and no stock library. And my first try at the voice failed with an error, because the stock voices need a second download. One more click in settings fixed it. Good enough for a launch video. Step seven, cleaning up talking clips. Everyone says um. Descript fixes that by letting you edit video like a text document, $24 a month. Rescript does the same trick for free.

07:10 It transcribes on your laptop. Highlight the words you don’t want, hit cut, and the video is cut with them. It even exports the edit to Premiere, Resolve, or Final Cut. Now the honest bit, and this one matters. Rescript is free, but its license says non-commercial. If you earn money from your videos, you’re not allowed to use it. So, for this channel, not yet. Last step, the glue. All week I jumped between apps with Raycast, the launcher

07:41 a lot of Mac power users swear by. The pro plan is $10 a month. Tiny Cast is a free launcher that runs real Raycast extensions, and it can import your Raycast setup. One hotkey, a calculator, by the way, that’s Fusion’s monthly price. Your apps, clipboard history, all in under 100 megabytes of memory. The catch, Raycast Pro sells AI that’s included and cloud sync. Tiny Cast’s AI uses your own key, and

08:11 there’s no sync, just a backup file. And it’s still a beta. For the launcher, switched. So, here’s the bill. I started the day paying $162 a month. I’m ending it at 24. And the only reason that 24 is still there is Descript’s license. That’s over $1,600 a year. And the launch? Here it is. The design, the photo, the spec sheet, and the launch video

08:41 with its own voice and captions, all made with free software. >> Meet the pie case, designed, [music] shot, and edited with nothing but free software. Coming soon. >> When should you still pay? When you work with clients who send you their files every day. When you need a tool a business signs off on. And when your income depends on the license. Free isn’t always cheaper. Today, it was. I put all eight in a free one-page list. The links, how to install each one on a

09:12 Mac, the catches, and which paid app each one replaces. Comment unpaid and I’ll send it to you. New to Cloud Code? My beginner guides are in the description. So, here’s my question. Which paid app are you sick of paying for? Tell me in the comments, and the most wanted one goes in the next video. Follow on Instagram and Facebook for the quick ones. And the deep dives live here on YouTube. So, become a member here or a subscriber on Facebook. See you in the

09:42 next one.