Illustration: Richard Downs "Free software" used to conjure up visions of a half-baked program with an ugly interface that someone cooked up in a garage--usable, but only for limited functions. Today you can find plenty of top-notch programs that look good and work quite well, for little or no cost. But can such software challengers hold their own against the market leaders--and save you a ton of money in the process?
We put some to the test and found that, yes, you really can replace many of your expensive, big-name packages with powerful free or low-cost alternatives. You may have to get multiple programs to accomplish what a single suite would otherwise do. If you don't mind a few rough edges, however, you'll find that the software challengers presented here can hold their own quite well. So read on to see what these packages can do for you.
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