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About this directory
A public directory of small, independent software for people who want to depend a little less on the largest companies on the internet.
We review tools from independent makers, from one-person vibe-coded experiments to established open-source projects, and score them on how much they put the possibilities in your hands. Now and then we review one of the giants too, as benchmarks, so there is something to measure against.
About the book
This website is an independent project inspired by Ivan Illich's 1973 book Tools for Conviviality. We are not affiliated with or endorsed by Illich's estate or his publishers. The book is still under copyright. We paraphrase its ideas, quote it rarely and briefly with a source, and never host or link to copies of the text.
Please read the book itself. You can find it in a library near you, buy it from an independent bookshop through Bookshop.org, or order it from your local bookshop.
About the reviews
Scores reflect our judgement on the date shown on each review and may change as tools change. We don't take payment for listings or reviews. If that ever changes for a link, the page will say so.
Tools marked Made here are built by the site's founder and are scored with the same rubric as everything else.
Corrections
If you make a tool we have reviewed and we got something wrong, tell us through the suggestion form and we will fix it.
Pictures
Logos and screenshots on this site belong to the people who make the tools. We show them so you can recognise what you are reading about, and each screenshot says where it came from and when it was taken. A script fetches them from each tool's own public page, identifies itself as ToolsForConvivialityBot, and skips any site whose robots.txt says no. If you make a tool listed here and would rather we use a different image, or none, write to hello@toolsforconviviality.com and we will change it.