There are often times when someone cannot afford to or does not want to pay a premium for "industry standard" software. Then they find out about Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) that people say is an alternative to the premium/proprietary software they need to use. In fact, I have even made lists of software that are great alternatives to such paid software, available at no cost. So, even I am guilty of misleading you (consumers) with FOSS.
Let's begin with the cold, harsh truth about FOSS that most of its advocates won't tell you when recommending alternatives to paid software: "No FOSS software is a true alternative to any paid software."
Now, I'm not accusing anyone of spreading misinformation. In fact, most FOSS software really are great alternatives to paid software, but (extra emphasis on the but), they aren't direct alternatives to paid software; they are alternatives to people's needs. Let me elaborate on this statement.
When we nerds mention a FOSS alternative to paid software, we consider the types of tasks that an average user performs on a regular basis over the specialized use cases those paid software have. For example, during my career as a consultant/developer, we worked on spreadsheets almost daily for bug tracking and fixes. That is a very basic use case of a spreadsheet program, so we didn't need those fancy MS Excel exclusive features that "Excel Professionals" use. So everyone in my branch used LibreOffice or OpenOffice for spreadsheets.
Similarly, GIMP isn't a true alternative to Photoshop. In fact, it falls behind in so many ways that a professional Photoshop user would never consider using it, let alone recommending it to someone else. So why do people even consider GIMP to be a Photoshop alternative? That's because 90% of people don't need more than 10% of what Photoshop can do, and that 10% can easily be done in free software like GIMP.
Another ridiculous FOSS vs. paid comparison is Kdenlive vs. Premiere Pro. Kdenlive is an excellent FOSS video editor; in fact, it is so good at what it does that my good friend FANG 73 uses it to edit his videos. But as a freelance video editor, I cannot say it is an alternative to any industry standard video editing software. Even DaVinci Resolve's free version wipes the floor with Kdenlive for professional-grade video editing.
And now, the question arises: "If FOSS alternatives are so bad compared to premium software, is there even a point in considering them?"
The honest answer is, 'it depends.' It depends on your use case. If you want to make a career out of specialized skills, like professional video editing, graphic design, analysis/assistance, etc., then it is worth it to invest in the premium software/subscriptions and to avoid these FOSS alternatives. But if you only need to do a little bit of touch-up/mock-up every now and then, only then do these FOSS qualify as alternatives.
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