This week's free software stories covered personal finance, notes, nutrition, theft alarms, camera footage, screen recording and a browser-based strategy game demo. Several share a theme: software that runs on your own device or server instead of a company's hosted service. Vyra and FlyBudget focus on money, while Catch and NutriTrace keep personal notes and food logs under the user's control.
The most practical stories are the ones with a clear reason to act. OpenNVR 0.1.6 includes security fixes, and its notes advise upgrading every installation. Yowl and Sill address specific everyday situations, from an unattended laptop to a streaming session away from home. We left out the Agentic Map lesson platform because it is a learning course rather than a software project.
1. Vyra: Open-Source AI Wealth App Tracks Budgets, Debt and FIRE
Vyra is a free, open-source wealth app built with Django and hosted on GitHub. It covers budgets, debt payoff, investments, property and FIRE planning in one place, and an AI coach generates monthly reports and suggestions. The README presents it as more than a simple expense tracker. Its main detail is scope: one tool for cash flow through early retirement goals.
Best for: Users who want budgets, investments and retirement goals in one app
2. FlyBudget: Open-Source Budgeting App Puts Control of Your Data First
FlyBudget is an open-source budgeting app for planning spending by category and recording actual spending as the month goes on. It shows income, spending, remaining budget and upcoming bills together, supports automated transaction rules, and keeps financial data on the user's own devices. Its key point is data control: records stay on the user's devices rather than with a third-party service.
Best for: Households who want monthly budgets without a third-party service
3. Catch: A Self-Hosted Google Keep Alternative You Run Yourself
Catch is an open notes app inspired by Google Keep, designed to run on a server the user owns. There is no hosted version run by the developers. It works in the browser and on Android, keeps working offline, and syncs once a connection returns. Notes appear as colorful cards with eighteen colors, pinned notes sit at the top, and checklists can be ticked directly on the card.
Best for: Google Keep users who want notes on their own server
4. NutriTrace: A Self-Hosted Nutrition Tracker With No Telemetry
NutriTrace is a self-hosted nutrition tracker published on GitHub. It runs as a single Docker container on the user's own hardware and includes a progressive web app for browsers plus a native Android app. The project collects no telemetry, and cloud sync is available only if users switch it on. For people who already run home servers, it is an alternative to food diaries that store health data remotely.
Best for: Privacy-minded users who already run a home server
5. Yowl: Free Open-Source Alarm Makes MacBook Theft Loud
Yowl is a free, open-source menu-bar alarm for macOS published on GitHub under the MIT licence. When the charger is unplugged, the lid closed or the Mac lifted while armed, it sounds a full-volume siren even if the Mac is muted or wearing headphones. It then locks the screen and can photograph anyone in front of the computer. The project has no user accounts, analytics or developer-run servers.
Best for: Mac owners who leave laptops unattended in shared spaces
6. OpenNVR 0.1.6 Adds Plain-Language Search for Camera Footage
OpenNVR 0.1.6 is an open-source network video recorder release that lets users search recorded footage in plain sentences, such as 'red truck at the dock yesterday'. The release bundles 147 merged changes since 0.1.5, includes security fixes the notes say make upgrading advisable, and adds Home Assistant support and new SDK releases. It suits anyone running IP cameras who needs to find events quickly.
Best for: Operators of IP camera systems who want faster footage searches
7. CyanFocus Adds Auto-Zoom and Auto-Blur to Windows Recording
CyanFocus is a free Windows screen recorder, currently in beta for Windows 10 and Windows 11. It captures cursor position and clicks, then turns each click into a smooth zoom so viewers keep track of the action. It also blurs sensitive details such as email addresses and API keys automatically. It suits people who record software demonstrations and want results without a long editing session.
Best for: Presenters recording Windows software demos without heavy editing
8. Play the Original Total Annihilation Demo in Your Browser
Nanolathe is an independent, open-source 2.5D real-time strategy engine that lets players try three original Total Annihilation demo missions in a desktop browser. No game folder or installation is needed for the browser version. Players who want more can install a native beta on Windows, Mac or Linux, but only if they already own the game files. It suits strategy fans who want a quick look before committing.
Best for: Strategy fans who already own Total Annihilation
9. Sill Mac Streaming App Update Adds Away-From-Home Quality Controls
Sill for Mac 0.5.1 is a streaming app update from developer Noah William Saffer. According to its App Store listing, it starts at a picture quality a slower connection can handle, warns when a connection can no longer keep up, and returns the session to the home network automatically. It also fixes a bug where the Mac appeared twice after an earlier release.
Best for: Mac users who stream from outside the home network
The takeaway
Practical takeaway: before installing any self-hosted tool, check where its data lives, whether it sends telemetry, and whether a recent update carries security fixes. If you run OpenNVR, upgrading to version 0.1.6 is the most time-sensitive step from this week.
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