AlternativeTo

AlternativeTo is a crowd-sourced software discovery service built around a practical question: what can replace the app or service you use today? Instead of presenting products as isolated launches, it connects each accepted application to relevant alternatives and lets visitors compare by platform, cost or license, application type, features, tags, likes, and user opinions. The site also publishes community lists, new-app releases, activity, reviews, and technology news. On August 4, 2026, its homepage displayed 149,630 apps and software alternatives ranked by 2,021,749 user opinions.

Adding a new application is free, but it is neither anonymous nor immediate. AlternativeTo identifies itself as a free, crowd-sourced service and says the site will remain 100% free for users. The live registration form requires a username that cannot normally be changed later, an email address, a password of at least eight characters, completion of hCaptcha, and agreement to the terms and privacy policy. To deter spam and bots, a new account must be seven days old before it can submit a new app page.

Once eligible, the account holder opens the User menu, selects “Suggest new application,” fills fields including Platforms, License, Descriptions, and Tags, and submits the application. Every new app is verified and approved by AlternativeTo’s admins. The published approval window is usually a couple of days to one week, and acceptance remains at the admins’ discretion. The application and its listing information must use English, and the product itself must support English.

AlternativeTo’s acceptance rules are unusually specific. It generally wants one generic entry per product instead of separate free, lite, and pro editions; the description can explain editions, while the license should reflect whether the free version delivers the product’s main purpose. Closed-beta or merely announced products are rejected, whereas open-beta or easily accessible products may be accepted. Hardware is generally excluded, porn sites are not allowed, and apps restricted to a single nation or narrow geographic market are usually declined. Descriptions must not contain addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, or website links because dedicated fields exist for official, creator, app-store, and social URLs. Official links should normally be clean URLs without UTM tags.

The FAQ warns that low-value, low-effort, duplicate, and saturated submissions can be denied. Examples include personal sites and blogs, custom service companies, automated local publications, simple converters and calculators, basic AI wrappers or generators, AI-tool directories, review or comparison sites, and collections of small online tools. Online and mobile games face a higher quality bar. Makers should read the full exclusion list before waiting seven days to submit.

AlternativeTo does not provide a dofollow backlink on a normal app profile. The Grain Social page, added and updated on August 4, 2026, was the newest listing shown in the New App Releases view during the audit. Its developer-name link and “Official Website” link both pointed directly to https://grain.social and carried rel="nofollow noopener". Because the primary vendor anchors themselves include nofollow, KittyDir records no_dofollow. The listing can still generate discovery, votes, reviews, and referral visits, but it should not be marketed as a followed SEO link.