Replace an American subscription with open-source software hosted in France

The open-source equivalent almost always exists. What was missing is somebody to run it.

Starting at €2.99/month

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By · Président de By-Hoster, directeur de publication

Last updated:

Most of the services you pay for monthly have an open-source equivalent. That is not new, and it is not what stops people. What stops people is that open-source software implies a machine, a certificate, a database, backups and security updates — that is, system administration nobody has time for.

By-Hoster managed applications remove that step. You pick the application from a catalogue of 82 titles, fill in two or three fields, and it is online a few minutes later over HTTPS, on your own subdomain. The server, the operating system, the backups and the version upgrades are on us.

Everything runs in our datacentre in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, operated by a French non-profit association. Your data stays under French jurisdiction, with no transfer outside the European Union, and the software stays free: you can export and leave whenever you want.

82
Applications in the catalogue
2.99€/month
Starting from, incl. VAT
0€
Cost per extra user
100%
Hosted in France

What moving to managed open source changes

A price that does not track headcount

A SaaS subscription is billed per seat: every new joiner costs. Here you pay for a machine. Adding a user does not change the invoice.

A clear jurisdiction

Data hosted in France, in our DC-FR_NA(01) datacentre, with no transfer outside the European Union as part of the service. GDPR stops being a contractual topic.

No lock-in

This is free software. We host it, we do not own it: you export your data and reinstall it elsewhere if you decide to.

Updates actually applied

The weak point of self-hosting is the application nobody remembers to update. Version upgrades are applied and checked by us.

What the switch actually costs

An honest comparison is not made line by line but on the whole. A SaaS subscription is paid per user per month; a managed application is paid per machine, however many accounts connect to it.

Concretely: at five users, a tool billed €8 per seat costs €480 a year. The same function as a managed application at €8.99/month costs €108 a year, and the figure does not move if the team grows to fifteen.

The gap narrows at a single user, and it reverses for very occasional use. That is the kind of arithmetic better done before migrating than discovered afterwards.

What you have to accept in exchange

Worth stating plainly: open-source software is not always an exact clone of the service it replaces. Some features are missing, the interface is sometimes plainer, and the mobile app does not always have the same polish.

In return you get three things a subscription does not offer: control of your data, a price that does not track headcount, and the assurance that a feature you rely on will not move behind a higher pricing tier overnight.

Our practical advice: start with one application, the one whose replacement carries the least risk — the password manager or the RSS reader are good candidates. The full catalogue is on the managed applications page.

Mappings, and the recommended plan for each

Use Open-source application Recommended plan Price / month incl. VAT
Shared passwords Vaultwarden App Essentiel €4.99
Files, calendar, contacts Nextcloud App Performance €15.99
Notes and knowledge base Docmost App Confort €8.99
Lightweight analytics Umami App Essentiel €4.99
Detailed analytics Matomo App Confort €8.99
Team messaging Mattermost App Performance €15.99
Kanban boards Kanboard App Essentiel €4.99
Email-based customer support FreeScout App Confort €8.99
Personal photos and videos Immich App Performance €15.99
Collaborative database NocoDB App Confort €8.99
Newsletters and bulk sending Listmonk App Essentiel €4.99
Appointment booking Easy!Appointments App Essentiel €4.99
Quotes, invoices, accounting Dolibarr App Confort €8.99
Code repositories and CI Forgejo App Confort €8.99
Automation between services n8n App Confort €8.99
RSS reader Miniflux App Découverte €2.99

The replacements people ask for most

Password manager

<a href="/app-vaultwarden">Vaultwarden</a> speaks the same protocol as the Bitwarden apps and extensions: your colleagues do not change tool, only server.

File storage and sharing

<a href="/app-nextcloud">Nextcloud</a> covers files, share links, calendar and contacts. It is the closest thing to a complete online office suite.

Web analytics

<a href="/app-umami">Umami</a> for the light essentials, <a href="/app-matomo">Matomo</a> for detailed analysis. Both measure without the trackers that trigger a consent banner.

Team messaging

<a href="/app-mattermost">Mattermost</a> brings channels, threads and integrations. The history is yours; it does not vanish after 90 days for want of a paid tier.

Photo backup

<a href="/app-immich">Immich</a> syncs photos from the phone, recognises faces and sorts by place. It is the most finished equivalent of a consumer photo service.

Automation between tools

<a href="/app-n8n">n8n</a> connects your services to each other, with no per-task billing. Useful when an automation runs thousands of times a month.

Frequently asked questions

It depends on the application. Vaultwarden imports Bitwarden, LastPass and 1Password exports; Nextcloud accepts a direct file upload; Matomo and Listmonk import CSV files. Ask us before ordering — we will say plainly when an import is painful.

No. The applications run in our DC-FR_NA(01) datacentre in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, operated by the association. No transfer outside the European Union takes place as part of the service.

This is free software: you export your data from the application and reinstall it wherever you like. Data is kept for 15 days after the service ends, so you have time to retrieve what matters.

Yes, from the App Confort plan upwards, with its certificate. Your users then see your domain, not ours.

It is not the number of accounts that counts but the memory available. Each application page states the recommended plan, calculated on the software's real consumption rather than its theoretical minimum.

Not on this offer. If you want your own docker-compose or software outside the catalogue, the right product is a VPS, with root access.

Further reading