Happy 10th Anniversary, AlternativeTo!

This week 10 years ago, we launched AlternativeTo. Even though I believed we had a good idea, I didn't think I would sit here 10 years later and write a little post about our anniversary.

I came up with the idea for AlternativeTo when reinstalling my computer in 2008. I remember when I was about to install WinRAR, I started thinking "There must be some better alternative to WinRAR I can use," and then started to Google for "winrar alternatives". I have no idea what I found (probably some blog post mentioning 7-Zip), but I remember what I did not find, and that was a site dedicated to software alternatives.

I started to think about the idea and planned a little bit, and very soon I talked to AlternativeTo Co-Founder Markus, and he really liked the idea. We were already working together on some hobby projects, but for this idea, we thought we had to go for it.

AlternativeTo was made available to the public for the first time on March 11th, 2009. It has been ten years filled with fun, interesting challenges and great growth alongside the ever-changing world of software. We here at the AlternativeTo Crew are happy that we’ve made it this far.

Wanting to go further than just listing applications in different categories, we founded AlternativeTo to focus on providing relevant alternatives to software while also being guided by input from the community. The whole Crew here believes that it has continued to succeeded well in that goal.

Just like on our fifth anniversary, the feedback we've received is more important than anything else. We continue to receive positive and kind words and suggestions from all of you alongside positive press coverage. The fact that people use and enjoy AlternativeTo has driven the entire Crew to keep improving the site and provide new features and content for you all.

With that, here we are today. To everyone that's visited AlternativeTo in the past ten years: thank you. On top of that, we want to give a special thanks to everyone who has helped people worldwide in finding better software by contributing to AlternativeTo's ever expanding database of alternatives to apps and services of all kinds, from construction to gaming to social networks and more.

Happy birthday, AlternativeTo! This is for the entire community! Please continue to spread the word about the site on Facebook, Twitter, and the social media service of your choice. Here's to another happy and healthy ten years and beyond!

Ola, Markus, A2 and the rest of the AlternativeTo Crew