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With software, there can be so many choices that figuring out where to start is less easy than it could be, let alone deciding which project fits your needs best. In my experience, finding good quality software is usually a matter of taking a moment to ask the right questions and look in the right places.
One important thing to remember is that it’s best to not let perfect get in the way of good enough. The best software for you is whatever allows you to achieve your goals while meeting your requirements.
With that said, there’s also no reason to let adequate get in the way of even better. :)
Also, note that I rarely ever go through this formal of a process. Think of it as a collection of ideas that I wanted to organize.
There’s plenty of software out there, but whether it’ll be useful to you somewhat depends on if it fits your use case. You might find that understanding your requirements and preferences helps not only with choosing which project to use—it can also improve your overall satisfaction with the end result.
Here’s a list of questions that could be helpful for determining exactly what you’re looking for in software.
As you read through this list of questions, consider whether the answers will stay the same in the future or not. It’s good to plan a little. Ideally, by doing so you’ll choose the right software for today and tomorrow (and maybe even the day after that, too).
What problem will the software solve? If it’s going to replace a prior solution, what about the previous approach didn’t work and what needs to be different this time? A good understanding of these things is foundational for everything else. At its core, the process of choosing software is about finding what would solve a problem you have.
Is it possible to break that problem down into smaller ones so that specialized tools can handle each part more effectively? Sometimes you may not even need another application and can handle it with the programs you already have, especially if you’re good at shell scripting.
Who are the target users and what are their requirements? Consider their accessibility requirements and whether the program will be usable for them. User interface (UI) and user experience (UX) considerations most likely fall under this category as well.
What functionality is needed? Let’s say you have a list of web pages and need to take a screenshot of each one. A utility that only checks if those websites are still online may be useful for other reasons, but it won’t do everything you need it to on its own. You might also need some features related to tool integration, like the ability to work with certain data formats (JSON, XML), databases (SQL, NoSQL), APIs, or other common data exchange systems (standard input and standard output are among my favorites).
What functionality isn’t needed? The simpler a piece of software is, the less places there are in the code for bugs to exist; from experience, it can be wise to choose something with enough features to comfortably accomplish your end goal. Perhaps you’re thinking of creating a blog written in Markdown, one that doesn’t need dynamic elements like JavaScript or PHP. With this in mind, you could eliminate complex content management systems and start looking at static site generators or Markdown-to-HTML converters instead.
What operating system(s) and/or environments does the software need to be compatible with? Software is generally more useful when you can actually install and run it. Though something to keep in mind is that you can often deploy programs in a container or virtual machine if needed (or you could try porting it to your platform, if you feel like doing that).
What are your privacy and security requirements? To give a meaningful answer, you need to know the answer to this question first: what’s your threat model? There’s little sense in assuming that something is private or secure without a threat model, since it’s unknown what it’s secured against or what’s kept private from whom. Thinking about these things will help you protect your assets more effectively and could save you some headaches.
Do you have any preferences or requirements when it comes to software licensing, source code availability, and things of this nature? Here are some examples of where the differences between open source licenses in particular can be important to think about.
What other constraints do you have? These can be factors like performance, scalability, user support, compliance with standards and regulations, and so on. Knowing these things allows you to prioritize the options that are most likely to work for you.
Now that you have a better idea of what you need, you can start searching for software. There are many different ways you can go about this. Remember to verify that a given resource is worth placing your trust in before following any instructions or taking any advice.
Searching websites or applications that provide or index software. This is the most direct option, and it’s good to be familiar with them since you’ll need these at some point anyway. However, sometimes it can take some digging to figure out how to find things. Browsing topics or “awesome lists” on a place like GitHub can provide some insight into what’s available.
Reading discussions (think forums, chatrooms, and mailing lists, to name a few), wikis, blogs, or other written resources that concern something relevant to the kind of software you’re looking for. You can get some good ideas by visiting these places and skimming through them.
Consulting other forms of media such as videos. These tend to take more time, or at least they do for me. However, they’re still valuable and can lead to some good finds.
Prompting large language models (LLMs) to brainstorm ideas with you, make suggestions, and explain concepts. It’s usually good to remain a little skeptical and fact check the output to make sure that it’s legitimate. Artificial intelligence (AI) is promising despite its current limitations, and I’m interested to see how it develops.
Asking knowledgeable people what they use, how they found it, and why they chose it over the alternatives. It's likely that you'll get a better response from people if you ask good questions and show them that you value their time; in other words, it should be evident that you’ve already done some research, such as using a search engine and consulting other publicly available resources.
Once you’ve found some software through trustworthy means that fits your use case, it raises another question: how do you decide between them?
There are certain positive signals that can indicate that a project is worth keeping in mind. They don’t offer any guarantee of code quality; only examining the code itself can provide that. Even so, these have been good heuristics (rules of thumb) to follow for me because many of them do seem to be correlated with code quality.
Though if you have sufficient time, motivation, and skill, reading through the source code is a good idea.
Here are some things to take a look at when reviewing open source projects. Some of these are going to depend on the frontend (GitHub, Gitlab, etc).
A priority in many cases is to check the license and README, ensuring that everything there fits with your goals and use case.
Check what programming languages are used. Are you able to fix or extend software written in those languages? Do you like something about the programming language used for one project more than the language used by another?
Is there a security policy? If so, what does it say? Vulnerability disclosure programs, bug bounties, and regular audits are good things to see.
Are best practices and standards in the industry generally present (tests, linters and static analysis tools, continuous integration and continuous delivery, conventional commits, semantic versioning, etc)?
When was the project first started? Repositories that have been active for a while may be more likely to stick around.
What different types of activity are happening and how recently have they occurred? These are ways to see if a project is still being actively maintained, which means resolution of bugs and vulnerabilities may be more likely. Remember that the simpler the code is, the less maintenance it probably needs.
Indicators of popularity, such as the number of stars and forks. But be careful with these. Fake stars and forks have been available for purchase in various places for a while now.
The number of people that regularly contribute. Bus factor is something to consider—how many people would have to get hit by a bus for the entire thing to stall indefinitely? Is that an acceptable level of risk for something you may be consistently using? Are you willing to maintain it yourself if the project suddenly goes dormant?
Open and closed issues. Observe the ratio between them and apply various filters, combining them if it seems interesting. The manner in which problems are resolved can speak volumes about the level of care put into the software.
Pull requests. Ideally, there will be a certain degree of scrutiny present, and yet also a willingness to accept good contributions. You can use many of the same sorting and filtering options as before.
The documentation. READMEs, manuals, official wikis and blogs, release notes, etc.
How many external dependencies does the project pull in? These are additional unknowns that you’re implicitly placing your trust in when you use the software. Dependencies aren’t inherently a good or bad thing, so much as they are another data point to consider.
See if you can find the project on a website that lists publicly disclosed vulnerabilities. What vulnerabilities have come up before and are there any patterns? For instance: does the same class of vulnerability keep cropping up? Are vulnerabilities typically severe with low exploit complexity?
Have any security audits been performed, and are they done on a consistent basis? What were the results? What did the security researchers think of the product’s overall design?
How have the developers handled vulnerabilities in the past? Have they been consistently transparent with their users when it comes to security issues?
Do the developers cryptographically sign their releases and/or commits to provide a greater degree of safety for the users?
Can you install the software through your system’s package manager?
Do some research and find other places that mention the software, especially community oriented ones that aren’t owned or moderated by the creators. What are other people saying about it?
If there’s a company behind the software, what are the public’s impressions of that company? Are there indications that the company cares about its users and the quality of its product? Where does their money come from and where does it go?
Look through any important documents, like terms of service and privacy policy. Is there anything interesting or out of place there?
If there’s a dedicated website, is it put together in a logical, effective fashion? Not “do I like the website aesthetically speaking”, but “from an engineering standpoint, is this website intelligently designed for what it needs to do?” Plain, fast, and functional is a much better sign than flashy, slow, and nearly disintegrating.
You can throw the software into a virtual machine you don’t use for anything else and run it to study its behavior.