Puter

A desktop environment that runs in a browser, Puter aims to hold every app you need to work, create and play under one roof, from a notepad and a voice recorder through to a spreadsheet and a camera. It is self-hostable and built to be extended rather than merely used.

For developers it doubles as a platform. Everything needed to build and publish a web app or a game is exposed through APIs, so there is no separate backend to assemble, and the project treats distribution as part of what it offers rather than someone else's problem.

There are five things worth knowing before you start.

• Local development: clone, install and start, and the environment comes up on a local port.
• Self-hosting: one shell command installs it on Linux and macOS, with a PowerShell equivalent on Windows.
• Hosted service: the maintainers run a public instance for anyone who would rather not operate one.
• Developer APIs: AI, object storage, a key-value database and serverless workers back the apps you build.
• App store: publishing a finished app puts it in front of the platform's existing users and lets you monetize it.

The README is translated into a long list of languages, which says something about how widely it has travelled. Everything in the repository is licensed under AGPL-3.0 unless explicitly stated otherwise, while bundled third-party libraries keep their own terms.