Software I Use

I use a wide variety of software on a daily basis, and while I can't recommend all of it for everyone, I can tell you why I use what I use.

If you're here, you're probably somewhat tech-oriented already and have some opinions on software.

So I will try to avoid telling you why This Thing is better than That Other Thing and try to focus more on the small, random stuff I got great value out of, and maybe based on my description you can determine if it fits your use case. As a result, most of it is Linux/Android/Windows rather than iOS/macOS.

Syncthing, for file synchronization

Syncthing allows you to synchronize folders between connected devices. It has pretty much completely devoured every other option for me since it 1) doesn't rely on cloud storage and therefore doesn't have a hard limit on size and 2) it automatically connects across both LAN and WAN. Having an easy dropbox to just slap files into, on any device, has been unbelieveably useful. It's the backbone for so much in my digital flow now.

I dump everything into one giant mono-folder, and then use exclusion filters to pare down the total size on a per-device basis. I also use gocryptfs to set up an encrypted subfolder for sensitive docs. (DroidFS lets me use the folder on Android.)

Obsidian, for editing markdown

With syncing done by Syncthing, you can just take notes in Markdown or even just plain text. I use Obsidian because it hands off well between the desktop and mobile client (even mirroring user-made extensions and my own custom stylesheets!! I can't even get that with Firefox!). This has become my notes, my journal, my personal wiki, and pretty much anything else text-based.

I had previously used Notion, but the complete lack of an online mode eventually became a dealbreaker.

Bitwarden, for managing passwords

I got Bitwarden because it was free with no limits on passwords and synced devices. I paid the relatively cheap ten bucks a year for 2FA support after using it quite a bit, and if you don't already have a password manager it's the one I recommend most. There is also a self-hosting option if you already have a server or favorite VPS provider to use.

Musicbee, for managing music

Windows only, but I've taken to running it in a virtual machine on Linux because nothing else works for my use case. I can't find another music management solution that lets me create a one-click button to filter my library by star rankings and then mass-compress that selection of songs for my phone. I have tried so many music management apps and nothing even comes close to Musicbee for its versatility and organization. My music player on Android is Shuttle+ but it really just exists to be a "shuffle all" button.

Kdenlive, for editing video

I have searched long and hard for video editing software. Premiere is good but subscription-based, DaVinci Resolve is extremely powerful at some types of tasks (e.g. color correcting) and rather weak at others, Shotcut's interface is a labyrinth, and while the excellent Blender does have a video editor, it's clearly built around its rendering pipeline. Kdenlive manages to find a good balance in its purpose.

Krita, for digital art

GIMP walked so Krita could run. Don't get me wrong, GIMP is excellent at what it does. However, Krita ramps up in two areas that I think put it above GIMP: 1) digital painting, with countless brushes and customization options, and 2) non-destructive editing, with useful things like filter layers. I think GIMP might be better suited for photo manipulation specifically, but if I need to throw a quick edit together it's Krita. (Its text tool kinda sucks though.)

mpv, for playing video

The general advice I see on the internet for video playing software is to just use VLC (because it "just plays everything!"), but any video player based on the ffmpeg suite of decoders can play the same files. MPV is slimmed down in its UI and souped up in its customizability. A special highlight is being able to customize and hot-switch between scaling filters, allowing you to upscale different content differently (e.g. sharper scaling for animated video).

That's most of the software I've got that is useful enough to recommend to a general audience, while still not being so large that everyone's heard of it already (e.g. Blender). There also probably isn't going to be too many more listicle-style articles here like this, but no promises :3