One open-source tool a week. What it does, what it replaces, and something you can build with it — in under three minutes.
Every week we pick a single open-source tool worth a working developer’s time: what it actually does, what it replaces in your stack, and one concrete thing you can build with it. No launch-week hype, no top-ten lists. Every entry names the licence — including when a tool is source-available rather than genuinely open source — and links straight to the repo and the docs.
This page is the index. Each week’s tool gets its own write-up with the setup notes and resources.
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The tools
- 2026-08-27 · Caddy — A web server that provisions and renews HTTPS certificates for you automatically, replacing nginx + Certbot + a renewal cron job. Apache 2.0, production-ready. Read the entry →
- 2026-08-20 · vLLM — Turn any Hugging Face model into a fast, OpenAI-compatible API server with one command. Apache 2.0, production-ready. Read the entry →
- 2026-08-13 · Ollama — Run open LLMs like Gemma and Llama locally with one command, no cloud API bill or GPU cluster needed. MIT licensed, production-ready. Read the entry →