Handmade Network just held their first essentials jam for designing software in a week without AI. I am unsure of which are Windows only, which are Linux native, what the licensing is for each project, and where most of these projects are actually stored in repos, etc... a twitch stream highlighted some of the projects, and it'll be available on Youtube in the coming days afaik.
Handmade Essentials Jam for April 2026 — Submissions
- All in one Virtual Table Top — Virtual table top & map editor for Game Masters — mrtaico
- Bind — Hotkey launcher — who
- Berliner — Small & snappy RSS reader for Windows — Felix
- Budgeting App — Clone of YNAB desktop app — Mike Mallon
- BIND — Assign hotkeys to launch programs — who
- Cacophontonic — Replacement for Windows sound mixer — 7rve
- calx — calc.exe replacement — _laserman
- Cactus Viewer — (mentioned as inspiration, not a jam entry)
- FILLET — Select & cut videos to fit Discord’s 10MB limit — Smilex
- Folder Garcon — Simple server syncing folder contents across devices — Voran
- fuBar — Taskbar for macOS — Inês Almeida
- Gaze — Hex editor that explains byte meaning — fruitig._.
- Gap — GUI text diff — starfreakclone
- KanbanVi — Minimal keyboard‑centered kanban board — Andrrs
- LRCalc — Calculator with value sharing & stored results — rstefanic
- Mail Guy — Email downloader for Gmail — nickav
- Muze — Music composition software — luca
- OSX Paint — MS Paint‑like app for macOS — mojo.monkey
- Overseer — Task Manager alternative — hhammon
- Pencil — On‑screen drawing tool — Damian930
- Personal Web Server — Pure Windows SDK web server — thetechnomaniac
- PervMon — GUI performance monitor for Linux — karton24
- Pex — Hex viewer — paulpage
- Poortsayer — Offline documentation viewer — James Duran
- Project Notes — CLI tool for TODO/FIXME markers — TheMantarain
- Rendezvous — File server for normal & virtual filesystems — philb
- RoboType — Typing practice program — tejas3543
- Salc — Spreadsheet calculator — bonmas
- scratchvault — General‑purpose scratch space with global keybind — jojor
- Send Files — File transfer program — Dan S
- SimulTime — Clock, timer, stopwatch — Paul Clarke
- The Missing Games Folder — Suite of classic‑style games — Ben Visness
- Unimap — Unicode character map — Taylor Plewe