Here's an interesting service I've just learned about: AlternativeTo. When you're contemplating a software purchase, you may visit AlternativeTo and find, well, alternatives to the product you're considering. A search on Adobe Photoshop, for instance, produced 15 alternatives, several of them free. AlternativeTo provides a brief description, an indication of which platform or platforms the alternatives run under (Winows, Mac, Linux, etc.), and a link to the product or online application. In addition, the alternatives are rated by AlternativeTo users, so you have some idea in advance of how useful, or usable, the alternative might be.
If you're thinking of investing significant dollars in a software product, you might first want to visit AlternativeTo and see if there's a good (i.e., cheap) alternative.
