Published Apr 29, 2026, 7:00 AM EDT

Never in my life have I imagined that WhatsApp would want to put some of its features behind a paywall. I am sure that most of its users didn’t see it coming a few years ago.

I’m not worried about companies putting their services behind a paywall as long as the features I use remain free for everyone.

However, I’m wary of this becoming a trend in the near future. If this happens, it’ll surely hurt the consumers in the long run.

I started preparing for those days by trying out open source alternatives to many of my favorite apps, which I don’t want to ever come under a paid subscription.

During my first few days with open source apps, I wasn’t sure whether this was too much work to solve something that might become a problem in the future.

A few months have passed since then, and I’m glad I have become more open to open source apps because they saved me money.

I saved $50 a month by switching to these five open source Android apps .

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