Private Alternatives to Public Services (PAPS)

(First Created: 7/11/2022 Last Edit: 01/02/2023)

This categorized list is our recommendation of mostly self-hosted, open-source private alternatives to public services (PAPS).

Cloud Storage

  1. NextCloud – open-source self-hosted cloud storage with encryption support. Lost of plugins available, like Documents Editor, Talk, Calendar, Tasks Manager and more.

Cryptocurrency Payments

  1. BTC Pay Server – no need in special introduction. This is a one-stop solution to accepting Bitcoin on your website. Altcoins support also available. Self-hosted, free, open-source, reliable, well designed and constantly updated.

CDN (Proxies)

  1. OneClickCDN – the name says it all. Easy-to-use, free, open-source and very small script for building your own CDN network or host. Build-in SSL support, caching and statistics.

VPN

  1. Pritunl Server and Client – best alternative to the native OpenVPN server and client. Easy to deploy, open-source, free, a lot of configuration options and constantly updated.
  2. WireGuard – new, fast and secure VPN tunnel. Our tests show that it tends to be few times faster than OpenVPN. Can be deployed on Pritunl.

Bitcoin

  1. Bitcoin.org – original Bitcoin website which was initially registered by Satoshi Nakamoto. Being a community funded project, it provides a handful list of resources and information dedicated to Bitcoin.
  2. Electrum – one of the most trusted and secure self-custody Bitcoin wallets. Electrum is decentralized, supports cold storage watch-only wallets and hardware wallets.

OS

  1. Ubuntu – #1 alternative to Windows and MacOS. Intuitive GUI, constant updates and LTS releases, strong AES encryption, lovely terminal. [installation instructions]

Encryption

  1. PGPtool – Java-based PGP encryption software. Windows/Linux/MacOS supported. Easy encrypt/decrypt/re-encrypt functions, public/private keys management.