19 open-source education apps
Open Source Flashcard, E-book & Education Apps
The most popular open-source education apps for Windows, macOS and Linux on GitHub are Anki, Koodo Reader and Calibre. appsgit lists 19, including free alternatives to Kindle, EndNote and Mendeley, each with its platforms, license and install commands.
Updated Oct 8, 2026
Open Source Flashcard, E-book & Education Apps
Anki
ankitects/anki
Anki is a smart spaced repetition flashcard program.
OfficialEducation, flashcards & referenceWindowsmacOSLinuxKoodo Reader
koodo-reader/koodo-reader
A modern ebook manager and reader with sync and backup capacities for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS and Web.
Education, flashcards & referenceWindowsmacOSLinuxCalibre
kovidgoyal/calibre
The official source code repository for the calibre ebook manager.
OfficialEducation, flashcards & referenceWindowsmacOSLinuxReadest
readest/readest
Readest is a modern, feature-rich ebook reader designed for avid readers offering seamless cross-platform access, powerful tools, and an intuitive interface to elevate your reading experience.
Education, flashcards & referenceWindowsmacOSLinuxCalibre Web
janeczku/calibre-web
Web app for browsing, reading and downloading eBooks stored in a Calibre database.
Education, flashcards & referenceWindowsLinuxZotero
zotero/zotero
Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share your research sources.
OfficialEducation, flashcards & referenceWindowsmacOSLinuxAnx Reader
Anxcye/anx-reader
Featuring powerful AI capabilities and supporting various e-book formats, it makes reading smarter and more focused.
Education, flashcards & referenceWindowsmacOSLinuxFoliate
johnfactotum/foliate
To enable auto-hyphenation, you will need to install hyphenation rules, e.g., hyphen-en for English, hyphen-fr for French, etc.
Education, flashcards & referenceLinuxLogisim Evolution
logisim-evolution/logisim-evolution
Digital logic design tool and simulator.
Education, flashcards & referenceWindowsmacOSLinuxSigil
Sigil-Ebook/Sigil
Sigil is a multi-platform EPUB ebook editor.
Education, flashcards & referenceWindowsmacOSLinuxQingjian
qingjian-team/qingjian
青简 Qingjian：用 Rust 写的拼音输入法，候选词旁多一条正在学的语言的译词.
Education, flashcards & referenceWindowsmacOSLinuxJabref
JabRef/jabref
Desktop app for managing BibTeX and BibLaTeX (.bib) libraries.
OfficialEducation, flashcards & referenceWindowsmacOSLinuxThorium Reader
edrlab/thorium-reader
A cross platform desktop reading app, based on the Readium Desktop toolkit.
Education, flashcards & referenceWindowsmacOSLinuxClassIsland
ClassIsland/ClassIsland
一款功能强、可定制、跨平台，适用于班级多媒体屏幕的课表信息显示工具，可以一目了然地显示各种信息。.
OfficialEducation, flashcards & referenceWindowsmacOSLinuxPyglossary
ilius/pyglossary
A tool for converting dictionary files aka glossaries.
Education, flashcards & referenceWindowsmacOSLinuxVeyon
veyon/veyon
Cross-platform computer monitoring and classroom management.
Education, flashcards & referenceWindowsLinuxBeyondtranslate Ce
beyondtranslate/beyondtranslate-ce
BeyondTranslate (formerly Biyi) is a fast, native-experience translation app for macOS, Windows and Linux, built with Flutter and Rust.
Education, flashcards & referenceWindowsmacOSLinuxBookworm
babluboy/bookworm
A simple ebook reader for Elementary OS.
Education, flashcards & referenceLinuxShell Intune Samples
microsoft/shell-intune-samples
Sample shell scripts for Intune admins.
OfficialEducation, flashcards & referenceWindowsmacOS
What are the best open-source education apps?
By GitHub stars, Anki is the most popular (31,840 stars), followed by Koodo Reader and Calibre. People often use these instead of Kindle, EndNote and Mendeley. Each page lists the platforms, license and last commit.
Which of these run on Windows, Mac and Linux?
17 of the 19 open-source education apps listed here run on Windows, 15 on macOS and 18 on Linux; on a Mac, the most starred is Anki. 7 can be installed with a package manager such as Flathub, Homebrew, winget or Chocolatey.
Are these open-source education apps free?
Yes. All 19 use an open-source license (OSI-approved or FSF-free), so you can use, copy and change them for free.
How are these open-source education apps chosen?
Apps come from desktop awesome lists (Awesome Linux Software, awesome-mac, awesome-windows, awesome-electron and the media and file sections of awesome-cli-apps), more than 70 GitHub topics such as desktop-app, electron-app, tauri-app, gtk, qt, macos-app, pdf-editor, cad and remote-desktop, and a hand-picked list of flagship apps. An app is listed only if it has a license (one GitHub detects, or one appsgit checked by hand), a README and a commit in the last six months, is not archived or a fork, and has 1000+ GitHub stars (topics), 500+ (awesome lists) or 100+ (hand-picked). It must also be an end-user application with a desktop signal: installers in its releases, install instructions for Windows, macOS or Linux, or a Flathub, Homebrew, winget, Chocolatey, Snap or AUR package. Libraries, frameworks, themes, plugins and servers are left out, and source-available apps are labelled as such.