Best new design, file sharing, developer and AI agent resources: 16 October

The directory additions from 16 October were thirty free tools and websites plus ten open-source projects from GitHub. This roundup groups them into writing and notes, scheduling and typing, colours and illustrations, finding more free software, file sharing and media, developer and privacy tools, and AI agent projects. Features and pricing change, so check each tool's own page before you commit.

Writing, notes and automation

Espanso is a free, open-source text expander that replaces short triggers with longer text, dates or form fields in any app. Snippets live in plain YAML files, which makes them easy to sync, though setup happens in config files rather than a graphical editor.

Zettlr is a free, open-source Markdown editor for researchers, students and writers. It connects to Zotero for citations, supports linked Zettelkasten-style notes and exports to PDF and Word through Pandoc, keeping every file as plain text on your computer. Overleaf is a collaborative LaTeX editor in the browser; the free plan covers unlimited projects and thousands of templates, but allows one collaborator per project and limits compile time.

Markmap turns Markdown headings and lists into a zoomable, collapsible mind map in the browser or inside VS Code. Prompt Optimizer is a free, open-source app that rewrites a rough prompt into a clearer, more structured one and lets you compare results side by side; it needs your own AI API key.

Scheduling and typing practice

When2meet is a free group scheduling tool where everyone paints the hours they are free on a shared grid, with no account needed. Its interface is dated and it has no calendar integration. Every Time Zone lines up the current time across chosen cities on a single slider, which helps when planning calls across countries. Monkeytype is a free, open-source typing test with timed, word count and quote modes, many themes and languages, and an optional account to track progress.

Colours, illustrations and icons

Coolors generates a new colour palette with each press of the spacebar and lets you lock the colours you like; the free plan has ads, and some saving and export options need Pro. Color Hunt is a curated collection of four-colour palettes you can browse by theme, Huemint uses machine learning to suggest palettes shown on live mockups, and Realtime Colors applies your chosen colours and fonts to a sample website, with contrast checks and export to CSS or Tailwind.

For graphics, unDraw offers flat illustrations free for personal and commercial use without attribution, recoloured to match your chosen highlight colour. Haikei generates randomised blobs, waves and backgrounds for export as SVG or PNG. SVG Repo hosts a very large library of SVG icons and vectors with a built-in colour editor; licences vary from file to file, so check each one before commercial use.

Finding more free software

AlternativeTo is a community directory of alternatives to popular apps and services, filterable by platform and licence, though some listings can be out of date. OpenAlternative focuses on open-source replacements for commercial tools and shows each project's GitHub activity, licence and hosting options. Free for Dev is an open-source list of developer services with free tiers; those limits can change without notice. Uneed is a directory and launch platform where makers share new products daily, and browsing and voting are free.

File sharing, media and backups

Wormhole encrypts files end to end in the browser before upload and shares them by link, up to 10 GB without an account, deleting them after 24 hours or a set number of downloads. PairDrop sends files and text between devices peer to peer from the browser, with both devices open at the same time.

HandBrake is a free, open-source video transcoder with presets for phones, web and streaming. ezgif creates and edits GIFs in the browser and converts between GIF, WebP, APNG and MP4, with ad-supported pages and upload size limits. Flameshot captures and annotates screenshots with arrows, text and blur, though it does not record the screen. FreeFileSync compares folders and syncs the differences for backups, and 7-Zip creates and opens ZIP and 7z archives with AES-256 encryption; it has no official macOS app.

Developer and privacy tools

regex101 tests regular expressions with live matching and a plain-language explanation across flavours such as PCRE2, JavaScript and Python. CyberChef, from GCHQ, chains operations such as Base64, hashing and JSON formatting into recipes that run locally in the browser. Ray.so, from Raycast, turns code snippets into polished images for posts, docs and slides. Have I Been Pwned tells you whether your email address appears in known data breaches and offers free alerts; it can only cover breaches it knows about.

Open-source AI agent projects from GitHub

Ten free, open-source projects were also added. Token Monitor is a local-first desktop widget showing token usage, costs and limits across AI coding tools such as Claude Code, Codex and Cursor. Kenfold is a self-hosted memory server that shares project memories over MCP so different agents keep context, and Tree-sitter Analyzer is a local code-intelligence MCP and CLI that lets agents inspect symbols, dependencies and call graphs before editing. BrowserCode runs AI coding CLIs in a WebAssembly browser sandbox, and OpenGateLLM, from Etalab, is an API gateway for teams running self-hosted language models.

TrendRadar aggregates hot topics and RSS feeds and uses AI to filter and summarise them, while OpenBiliClaw is a local-first content-discovery agent that searches across several platforms. Blurt is a macOS dictation app from AssemblyAI, How to Train Your GPT is a twelve-chapter commented guide to building a language model from scratch, and MoneyPrinterTurbo turns a topic into short videos by automating script, voice and subtitles; its output still benefits from human review. These are third-party projects provided as-is by their maintainers. Several need Docker, self-hosting or your own model or API access, so review each project's licence, code and security before installing.

These are only some of the tools added recently. Browse the full directory to filter by category, type, pricing and goal and find the right fit for your work.