“Current trend in Open Source Software around the world”

Commercial Software Category	Open-Source Equivalent
AntiVirus Tools (eg. Norton, McAfee)	·  No open-source tools recommended ·  Use Grisoft AVG or AntiVir
Application Servers (eg. IBM WebSphere, BEA WebLogic)	·  Enhydra ·  Geronimo ·  JBoss ·  JOnAS ·  Tomcat (servlet container) ·  Zope
Asset Management (eg. Intuit, Peregrine, Remedy)	·  IRM ·  OCS Inventory
Backup Utilities (eg. CA ARCserve, Legato, Veritas)	·  Amanda ·  BackupPC ·  Bacula ·  Rsync
BioInformatics (multiple highly specialized vendors)	·  Open BioInformatics Foundation ·  OpenClinica ·  OpenInformatics
Business Graphics (eg. Microsoft Visio)	·  Dia ·  Kivio ·  OpenOffice Draw ·  StarOffice Draw ·  Xfig
CD / DVD Burning (eg. Adaptec RecordNow, Roxio CD Creator)	·  ECLiPt Roaster ·  X-CD-Roast
Configuration Management (eg. Rational ClearCase, Visual SourceSafe)	·  Arch ·  CVS ·  OpenCM ·  PRCS ·  RCS ·  Subversion
Content Management Systems (eg. Documentum, Interwoven, Vignette)	·  Alfresco ·  Bricolage ·  CPS ·  eZ publish CMS ·  KnowledgebasePublisher ·  Lenya ·  Magnolia ·  Phraseanet ·  TYPO3 ·  Xaraya
Content Management Systems - Web	·  Bika LIMS ·  DotNetNuke ·  Drupal ·  Joomla! ·  Mambo ·  Midgard ·  OpenCMS ·  opensourceCMS ·  PHP-Nuke ·  phpWebSite ·  Plone ·  PostNuke
CRM Applications (eg. Microsoft CRM, Siebel)	·  Anteil ·  Compiere ·  ConcourseSuite ·  openCRX ·  SugarCRM ·  vtiger CRM
Database Software (eg. Microsoft Access, SQL Server)	·  Firebird ·  Gaby ·  Ingres ·  Kexi ·  Knoda ·  MySql ·  Novinyl ·  PostgreSQL ·  Qddb
Database (BI) Tools (eg. Crystal Reports, ERWin, Microsoft Access)	·  Agata Report ·  BIRT ·  DBDesigner 4 ·  DecisionStudio ·  JasperReports ·  OpenI ·  OpenRPT ·  Pentaho ·  SpagoBI ·  Total Rekall ·  YALE
Desktop Publishing (eg. Microsoft Publisher, Quark Xpress)	·  Scribus
Directory Servers (eg. Microsoft Active Directory)	·  OpenLDAP
Disk Imaging (eg. Norton Ghost)	·  Mondo ·  Partition Image
Document Management (eg. Open Text)	·  Contineo ·  KnowledgeTree ·  OpenKM ·  Owl
Email Applications (eg. Microsoft Outlook Express)	·  KMail ·  Mozilla and Thunderbird ·  Spicebird ·  Sylpheed ·  Ximian Evolution
Email List Manager	·  Mailman ·  MajorDomo ·  PHPlist
Email Servers - POP and SMTP (eg. Microsoft Exchange)	·  Exim ·  qmail ·  InterNetNews ·  James ·  Postfix ·  SendMail ·  SquirrelMail ·  Zimbra
Email Servers - IMAP	·  Courier IMAP ·  Cyrus IMAP ·  Scalix ·  UW IMAP
ERP and Financial Software (eg. Oracle, SAP, Intuit QuickBooks)	·  Compiere ·  GNUCash ·  GNU Enterprise ·  NOLA ·  Open for Business ·  Openbravo ·  SQL Ledger ·  Tiny ERP ·  TurboCASH ·  webERP ·  xTuple
File Compression (eg. PKzip, WinZip)	·  7-zip ·  bzip2 ·  gzip
Flash Viewers (eg. Macromedia Flash)	·  Flash for other OS's
Forums, Blogs (Weblogs), Bulletin Boards and Wikis	·  DokuWiki ·  phpBB ·  Pivot ·  Roller ·  Thingamablog ·  WordPress ·  YaBB ·  Yet Another Forum.net
Graphics and Image Editors (eg. Adobe Illustrator, PhotoShop)	·  CinePaint ·  GIMP ·  ImageMagick ·  Inkscape ·  K-3D ·  Karbon ·  Krita
Groupware (eg. Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes)	·  dotProject ·  Horde ·  Kolab ·  Lucane ·  Mimerdesk ·  OpenGroupware ·  Open-Xchange ·  phpCollab ·  phpGroupWare ·  PHProjeckt ·  TUTOS
Help Desk (eg. BMC Remedy, FrontPage Heat, Intuit Track-It)	·  Bugzilla ·  Information Resource Manager ·  OneOrZero ·  phpSupport ·  php Support Tickets ·  RT: Request Tracker ·  SiT! Support Incident Tracker
HTML Editors (eg. DreamWeaver, FrontPage, HomeSite)	·  Bluefish ·  KompoZer ·  Quanta Plus
Instant Messaging (eg. AIM, MSN, Yahoo!)	·  Ayttm ·  GnomeICU ·  Kopete ·  Licq ·  Pidgin
Integrated Dev Environments (eg. Microsoft Visual Basic, Visual Studio)	·  Anjuta ·  Eclipse ·  GLADE ·  GNU Compiler Collection ·  GNU Project Debugger ·  KDevelop ·  NetBeans ·  XEmacs
Learning (or Course) Management System	·  Docebo ·  Moodle ·  Sakai
Modeling Tools (eg. IBM Rational Rose, CA AllFusion)	·  ArgoUML ·  StarUML
Music Playing / Editing (eg. iTunes, Sound Forge, Cool Edit)	·  Amarok ·  Audacious ·  Audacity ·  Banshee ·  GLAME ·  Helix
Network Diagramming and Monitoring	·  Cacti ·  Etherape ·  JFFNMS ·  Kaboodle ·  MRTG ·  ntop ·  RRDtool ·  Snort (intrusion detection) ·  Wireshark ·  Zenoss
Network Management Tools (eg. HP OpenView, Microsoft SMS)	·  BO2K ·  Hyperic HQ ·  Nagios ·  OpenNMS ·  OpenQRM ·  Webmin ·  ZipTie
Office Productivity Suites (eg. Microsoft Office)	·  GNOME Office ·  KOffice ·  OpenOffice ·  StarOffice
Operating Environments (eg. Microsoft Windows, Linux, VMWare)	·  freeBSD ·  freeDOS ·  Linux ·  NetBSD ·  OpenBSD ·  OpenSolaris (Sun) ·  Samba (file/print services) ·  VirtualBox (virtual machine) ·  Wine (Windows emulator) ·  Xen (virtual machine)
PDF File Viewer and Creator (eg. Adobe Acrobat)	·  Evince ·  okular ·  GhostScript ·  PDFCreator
Personal Financial Managers (eg. Microsoft Money, Intuit Quicken)	·  GNUCash ·  Grisbi ·  jGnash ·  KMyMoney
Personal Information Managers (eg. Microsoft Outlook)	·  Aethera ·  KDE-PIM ·  Linux Organizer ·  TreeLine ·  TuxCards ·  Ximian Evolution
Photo Album Manager (or Photo Organizer)	·  digiKam
Portal Servers (eg. Microsoft Sharepoint, Plumtree, Vignette)	·  Gluecode (built on open source) ·  GridSphere ·  JBoss Portal ·  Liferay Portal ·  Metadot
Presentation Software (eg. Microsoft Powerpoint)	·  OpenOffice Impress ·  StarOffice Impress
Privacy (eg. Pretty Good Privacy)	·  AxCrypt ·  GnuPP ·  GPG ·  TrueCrypt
Programming Languages	·  Perl ·  PHP ·  Python ·  Ruby
Project Management and Collaboration (eg. Microsoft Project)	·  Achievo ·  GanttProject ·  GanttPV ·  NetOffice ·  Open Workbench ·  OpenProj ·  Outreach Project Tool ·  Planner ·  TUTOS
Remote Access (eg. Symantec pcAnywhere or VPN appliances)	·  OpenVPN ·  rdesktop ·  Stunnel ·  tinc ·  UltraVNC ·  VNC - Virtual Network Computing
Security (eg. firewalls, scanners)	·  Firestarter (firewall) ·  IPCop (firewall) ·  Nessus (scanner) ·  Nikto (scanner) ·  Nmap (scanner) ·  OpenSSH (secure communications) ·  Paros (proxy) ·  SmoothWall (firewall)
Shopping Cart (eg. AShop, Interspire)	·  PrestaShop
Spam Filters (eg. MailWasher, SpamEater)	·  Anti-Spam SMTP Proxy ·  MailScanner ·  POPFile ·  SpamAssassin ·  SpamBayes
Spreadsheets (eg. Microsoft Excel)	·  Gnumeric ·  OpenOffice Calc ·  StarOffice Calc
Telephone Systems - VOIP / PBX / FAX Servers	·  Asterisk PBX ·  HylaFAX (fax server) ·  OpenPBX ·  SER PBX ·  SIPfoundry PBX ·  Yate
Terminal Server (eg. Microsoft Windows Terminal Server)	·  Linux Terminal Server Project
Test Tools (eg. IBM Rational, Mercury Interactive, Segue)	·  Ant ·  Apache JMeter Load Tester ·  JUnit Testing Framework ·  Open-Source Test Tools List
Text Editors & File Merging (eg. Microsoft Notepad)	·  Emacs ·  gedit ·  gnotepad+ ·  JEdit ·  Vim ·  WinMerge
Video Editing	·  Avidemux ·  Blender ·  Jahshaka ·  Kaltura ·  Kino ·  LiVES ·  VirtualDub
Video Players (WinDVD, PowerDVD, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer)	·  Kaffeine ·  MPlayer ·  RealPlayer for other OS's ·  Totem ·  xine
Virtual Meetings (eg. Microsoft NetMeeting / Messenger)	·  GnomeMeeting
Web Browsers (eg. Microsoft Internet Explorer)	·  Galeon ·  Konqueror ·  Mozilla Firefox ·  Opera
Web and FTP Servers (eg. Microsoft IIS)	·  Apache HTTP Server ·  FileZilla ·  ProFTPD ·  Squid Proxy and Cache ·  squidGuard Access Controller
Word Processors (eg. Microsoft Word)	·  AbiWord ·  OpenOffice Writer ·  StarOffice Writer

Desktop Operating Systems
If you expect desktop functionality from your FOSS operating system, you'll want to find one that's been designed for that purpose. Desktop operating systems tend toward friendlier installation and greater use of graphical user interfaces. In addition, they usually sport newer versions of popular desktop software like browsers and mail clients.
Sample desktop FOSS operating systems include:

• Mandriva
• openSUSE
• PC BSD
• Ubuntu
• Fedora
• devian

Server Operating Systems
Server operating systems may favor stability over the latest versions of software applications. With some server operating systems, the installation of the operating system and programs is done with less graphical (and often less friendly) tools than you'll find in desktop operating systems. The software in server operating systems tends to be somewhat behind "right out of the box", but can be fairly easy to update using the software management tools provided. However, care should be taken to make sure that your updates will work, especially if the software you're installing includes dependencies on other packages – in which case you'll need to update those, too.
Sample server FOSS operating systems include:

• CentOS
• FreeBSD
• Red Hat