Top Friends of Open Source!
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Written by Jason van Gumster
Written by Jason van Gumster
Blender has been open source for an incredible 23 years. That's an amazing feat and worth taking the time to celebrate as part of the Superhive October Blend Fest. You may already know this, but all Blender add-ons need to comply with the terms of Blender's open source license, the GPL. So, technically speaking, all Blender add-ons are, by extension, also open source. That said, just because a piece of software adheres to the requirements of the GPL, that doesn't necessarily mean it's publicly developed out in the open like Blender is. Add-on creators don't have to do that. Not to get to technical in the legal terms, but creators only really have to share source code with the people they give their tools to. So when we see products on Superhive that are exercising the spirit of open source as well as the legal terms, we think it's a great idea to share them with you.
So we dug though the vast library of products on Superhive, looking for great products with publicly accessible code repositories. Then we reached out to some of the creators of those products to see if they'd be willing to make an incredible one-day deal for you. And now... we have a fantastic list to share with you! Actually... it's multiple lists.
But what's the discount... and which products? Well... for that, you're going to have to wait until the end.
Best open source products for $1
If we're going to talk about free software, we may as we start with products that are "zero dollars" free. We have a large selection of free products on Superhive, and a lot of them are also very public about being open source as well. If you get a chance, you should definitely have a look through those products. There are some real gems in there.
Of course, building really great and useful Blender add-ons takes time and energy. Not only that but there's an equal (if not greater) amount of time that goes into answering support emails, adding new features, and keeping up with changes in Blender. That time has value. So there are a bunch of products that have a base price of $1, but also have additional variants that allow you to contribute more to their development. After all, when you purchase an open source tool, you're actually paying for the creator's time to continue supporting you and the tool.
So, in recognition of that, we have a sampling of products here on Superhive that have a base price of only $1, but are also developed in the open, with a publicly viewable code repository.
A free and open source scattering tool for Blender
An add-on for interacting with Blender using a touch interface
A handy tool for quickly letting you know if your .blend file has been saved
Instantly preview your scenes in a web browser!
Detect problems in your .blend file before you render
Great open source products on Superhive
Just because a product is open source, that doesn't mean it costs nothing. Blender add-ons add missing functionality or make time-consuming processes much less painful. The price you pay for them comes back to you quickly in the time and energy that they save you... not to mention reducing the amount of times you pull out your own hair. And when we see products like that which also fully live up to the spirit of their open source licenses. We've put together an exciting list of some of the best ones you can find on Superhive. Check them out!
The popular fluid simulation add-on used everywhere
Get your UV maps perfect before you make textures
Get image reference overlays directly in your 3D Viewport
Your one-click import for scripts from Syntheyes
An advanced lighting system for Blender
Convert your material nodes into a Python script
A high-quality, easy to use remesher for Blender
Now... about that savings
I told you at the beginning of this post that there when we were doing the research for this day, we contacted some of the creators of these products to see if they'd be willing to offer an insane one-day discount on their products as part of the Superhive October Blend Fest. Incredibly, a bunch of them said yes!
So what's the deal?
Really, it's quite simple. We've made an exclusive, one-day only coupon that allows you to get any of the products listed below for 23% of the original product cost (you know, in celebration of Blender's 23 years of open source). That's right. Any of of the products below are available for 77% off! But, this offer is only good for 24 hours. From 9am US Central time today until 9am US Central time tomorrow, you can get any of the products listed below for only 23% of their original value. After that, they go back to full price.
How do you get this deal? That's easy. Just use coupon code ossfriendly when you check out. If you want, you can see the public coupon for this deal here... but only for today. (Note: this event happened on October 21st, 2025 and was only available for one day. The coupon code has since been disabled)
And which products are we talking about? Of course we're talking about more really great products that also do their development in the open, with publicly accessible code repositories where you can submit bug reports and even contribute your own code to improve them. Have a look at the list below.
The best retopology toolkit for Blender... or anywhere
Powerful vertex painting workflow within Blender
Annotate video from your 3D scene and export in YOLO format
Use Blender to visualize all kinds of data in 3D
Quick-access tools for lighting your scenes
Quickly bake trim sheets and tileable texture maps
Get a skeleton fully rigged using the popular BlenRig system
Adjust the normals on your meshes with a brush!
Export your Blender scene to Unreal Engine
Create dimensions, technical drawings, and blueprints from within Blender
Get Poly Haven assets right from within Blender
Hooray for open source! If Blender weren't open source, none of this would be here, so let's celebrate that and support the creators that make our lives easier.