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Bekah Hawrot Weigel
Developer Experience Lead
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How to Build Your Open Source Dream Team

· 6 min read
Bekah Hawrot Weigel
Developer Experience Lead

We've talked a lot about the challenges of being a maintainer, especially a solo maintainer. But like I say in our recent newsletter, open source is a team sport. But finding the right teammates can be a tricky situation as well. You might not get it right all of the time. And that's ok. Taking steps to make sure you and your project stay healthy can help to create a smoother and more rewarding open source experience. In this blog post, I'll provide a checklist and examples to help you build and manage an effective team for your open source project.

Nurturing Open Source Collaboration and Growth

· 4 min read
Bekah Hawrot Weigel
Developer Experience Lead

Today is day 29 of my 29 Days of Open Source Alternatives series, where I explored open source alternatives to proprietary software in the categories of Game Development and Multimedia, Development Tools and Platforms, Productivity and Collaboration Tools, and more. If you'd like to see the full list of the open source alternatives I covered, head over to my 29 Days of Open Source Alts Page.

It's been almost a year since I started at OpenSauced. It's incredible how much we've grown and accomplished over that year. I say this very genuinely. Our team looks at problems and finds ways to solve them. We think about the users and how we can provide them value. We understand the importance of Open Source Insights, especially since GitHub deprecated their Activity Overview of Organization Insights on January 5. We recognize the importance of recognizing contributors and recognizing maintainers. This is a bit of a meta blog post. I want to take the time to recognize my team and the great contributors we have.

ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or HuggingChat’s Open Source Option

· 7 min read
Bekah Hawrot Weigel
Developer Experience Lead

Today is day 28 of my 29 Days of Open Source Alternatives series, where I'll be exploring open source alternatives to proprietary software in the categories of Game Development and Multimedia, Development Tools and Platforms, Productivity and Collaboration Tools, and more. If you'd like to see the list of the open source alternatives I'll be covering this month, head over to my 29 Days of Open Source Alts Page.

By now, most of us have probably used AI in some way, whether that's GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Gemini, or HuggingChat. But which is the best? And what does it mean to have open source AI? And who's going to come out on top?

Would you use an open source personal finance app?

· 3 min read
Bekah Hawrot Weigel
Developer Experience Lead

Today is day 27 of my 29 Days of Open Source Alternatives series, where I'll be exploring open source alternatives to proprietary software in the categories of Game Development and Multimedia, Development Tools and Platforms, Productivity and Collaboration Tools, and more. If you'd like to see the list of the open source alternatives I'll be covering this month, head over to my 29 Days of Open Source Alts Page.

On January 1, 2024, Mint, the personal finance app - acquired by Intuit in 2009 - shut down. If you're not familiar with Mint, it allowed users to see multiple accounts, to track spending, savings, and create budgets. Mint was one of the top personal finance apps, and despite Intuit encouraging users to move over to their other product, Credit Karma, the broken trust didn't exactly sit well with a lot of users. Although there are other alternatives, like YNAB, Pocketguard, and Oportun, choosing a personal finance app is, well, a personal decision, and not one to be taken lightly. All of these are closed-source, which lack the transparency that you might want from a finance app. Maybe Finance becomes and interesting alternative because of it's open source nature.

Exploring Supabase, the Open Source Backend for Developers

· 4 min read
Bekah Hawrot Weigel
Developer Experience Lead

Today is day 26 of my 29 Days of Open Source Alternatives series, where I'll be exploring open source alternatives to proprietary software in the categories of Game Development and Multimedia, Development Tools and Platforms, Productivity and Collaboration Tools, and more. If you'd like to see the list of the open source alternatives I'll be covering this month, head over to my 29 Days of Open Source Alts Page.

If your skillset is in front-end but you need to implement a backend for your project, there are a lot of options out there. But are they all equal? Do they have a good developer experience? Do they have the features you need, including database integration, user authentication, data updates, and secure file storage solutions? Are they transparent about the project development? By default of its open source status, Supabase has all of those things. But how does it compare to the other proprietary solutions?

Open Source AI Glasses: Would you wear them?

· 3 min read
Bekah Hawrot Weigel
Developer Experience Lead

Today is day 25 of my 29 Days of Open Source Alternatives series, where I'll be exploring open source alternatives to proprietary software in the categories of Game Development and Multimedia, Development Tools and Platforms, Productivity and Collaboration Tools, and more. If you'd like to see the list of the open source alternatives I'll be covering this month, head over to my 29 Days of Open Source Alts Page.


There have been some really exciting launches in the AR/VR world lately. These are exciting times to rethink how we learn, interact, work, and find entertainment. But of course there are questions of cost, privacy, isolation, and more. For most of the world, a new AR/VR Tool probably won't be in our house any time soon. But what about the open source competition. Is it really competition or something you should be keeping your eye on? Today we're looking at Frame by Brilliant.xyz.

What would your dream home automation look like?

· 3 min read
Bekah Hawrot Weigel
Developer Experience Lead

Today is day 24 of my 29 Days of Open Source Alternatives series, where I'll be exploring open source alternatives to proprietary software in the categories of Game Development and Multimedia, Development Tools and Platforms, Productivity and Collaboration Tools, and more. If you'd like to see the list of the open source alternatives I'll be covering this month, head over to my 29 Days of Open Source Alts Page.


I don't know about you, but when I was a kid I was into science fictions and imagined I'd be living in a Jetson's world.

Sending Emails with React

· 4 min read
Bekah Hawrot Weigel
Developer Experience Lead

Today is day 23 of my 29 Days of Open Source Alternatives series, where I'll be exploring open source alternatives to proprietary software in the categories of Game Development and Multimedia, Development Tools and Platforms, Productivity and Collaboration Tools, and more. If you'd like to see the list of the open source alternatives I'll be covering this month, head over to my 29 Days of Open Source Alts Page or if you're interested in some of the top OSS projects of last year, check out this list. This is the last post in the Content Management and Publishing category.


Recently, I’ve gained some experience working on drip campaign emails to help support our new users at OpenSauced. So when Vic asked this question on X, I thought it would make for an interesting blog post in my series.

From Messy to Memorable: Shorten Your Links, Boost Your Brand

· 4 min read
Bekah Hawrot Weigel
Developer Experience Lead

Today is day 22 of my 29 Days of Open Source Alternatives series, where I'll be exploring open source alternatives to proprietary software in the categories of Game Development and Multimedia, Development Tools and Platforms, Productivity and Collaboration Tools, and more. If you'd like to see the list of the open source alternatives I'll be covering this month, head over to my 29 Days of Open Source Alts Page or if you're interested in some of the top OSS projects of last year, check out this list. This is in the Content Management and Publishing category.

I had never really used a link shortener until about a year and a half ago, and didn't realize how convenient they really are. So if you're not sure why you would use one or which to choose, you can check out the rest of this post.