Top 100 Best Budget Buys: Affordable, Tested Tech That's Actually Worth It

Although it runs Windows 11 with an optional keyboard, Microsoft's Surface Go 3 competes more directly with Chromebooks and Apple's iPad than traditional laptops. A compelling starting price, paired with top-notch styling and build quality, make this the best inexpensive Windows 2-in-1 tablet you can buy. It's not exactly a major leap over its predecessor, but Microsoft’s rivals haven’t been able to consistently provide worthy competitors.

Asus is among the laptop-making leaders partnering with Google on its "Chromebook Plus" initiative (which aims to deliver better Chromebooks for under $500), and its Chromebook Plus CX34 brings more performance, longer battery life, and even better features than ever to budget ChromeOS models. The snazzy CX34 represents a standout value in this category, making it an easy recommendation and worthy of our Editors' Choice award. If this is the new direction Chromebooks are heading, we are all for it.

For under $200, Samsung's Galaxy A15 5G offers everything you need from a phone. Highlights include excellent battery life, a decent set of cameras, and a bright screen with a fast 90Hz refresh rate. Moreover, Samsung promises four OS upgrades and five years of security updates, meaning you can confidently use the phone for a long time. A microSD card slot for expandable storage and a 3.5mm headphone jack for wired playback round out the wallet-friendly package.

Apple's 2022 iPhone SE keeps the crowd-pleasing small design and Touch ID fingerprint sensor of the previous model. It also now has 5G, which gives it better reception than its predecessors, especially as T-Mobile and Verizon expand their 5G networks. Of course, if you can find a 2020 model of the SE around, you can get similar app performance for even less money.

This simple 8-inch slate isn't a powerhouse, by any means, but it offers easy access to gobs of media at a price that most competing 8-inch tablets can't match. A clear step up from Amazon's extremely entry-level Fire 7, it's an appealing option for Amazon Prime subscribers, first-time tablet buyers, or anyone seeking a robust spare slate to carry on adventures.

If you’ve got less than $600 to work with, it’s tough to beat an all-in-one PC like Dell’s latest 24-inch Inspiron AIO for its versatility, wireless accessories, and 1440p pop-up webcam. With a 1080p touch screen, this Inspiron is an ideal home PC for handling everyday tasks and keeping up with family and friends over video chat. This AIO also has enough memory and storage to last you a long while before becoming obsolete, and a broad enough port selection to handle all of your peripherals.

AMD's Ryzen 5000-series CPUs have been around for a while and are often steeply discounted, which maintains them as solid budget options. You can find the Ryzen 5 5600, in particular, for around half of its introduction price, which puts it right around $130 to $140 and solidly below all of AMD's latest Ryzen 7000-series processors. We don't recommend the Ryzen 5 5600G based only on the price; it also delivers solid CPU performance and capable integrated graphics powerful enough to run most games with the settings turned down (and possibly dropping the resolution to 720p). Titles a few years old might even run at 1080p, or with higher settings, but results vary game to game.

We’ve reviewed more than our share of great budget PC cases of late, and this latest victor is all about value for money. If you’re a function-over-form PC builder, the Air 903 Base gives you a lot of options for installing liquid-cooling gear on the cheap, freeing up more money for another radiator, better fans, more RAM, or even a leveled-up GPU or CPU. It’s not a sexy glass aquarium case or a slick aluminum effort, but call the Air 903 Base the budget-strapped enthusiast’s best friend. You get lots of storage bays, three powerful fans, and respectable cooling performance at a rock-bottom price.

Budget motherboards aren’t as cheap as in the past, but the Asus Prime Z790-P Wi-Fi often goes on sale for under $200 and is a whiz for the latest-gen Intel chips. The economical, full-ATX option has premium enhancements for advanced DDR5 handling and smart cooling for balancing thermals and noise. The loadout includes three M.2 SSD sockets, integrated 2.5Gbps Ethernet and Wi-Fi 6, and even a Type-C USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20Gbps) port on the rear I/O panel. The usual classy Asus BIOS tops off this winning LGA 1700 package.

The relatively affordable Addlink AddGame A93 PCI Express 4.0 internal SSD tallied above-average scores in our benchmark tests and comes in capacities of up to 4TB. Its lack of DRAM could affect its performance in sustained large-file transfers, but that won’t be a problem for many users. The A93 also meets Sony's requirements for use with the PlayStation 5 thanks in part to a compact heatsink that fits the M.2 expansion slot of the console.

The MSI Pro MP161 E2 portable monitor comes in at a bargain price and offers both USB-C and HDMI connectivity. Its IPS screen has excellent contrast and an adequate maximum brightness level, though its limited sRGB color coverage makes it more suitable for workday tasks than photo editing. One nice touch is that its flexible kickstand integrates a tripod socket.

The ADATA 810 comes in at a very reasonable cost per gigabyte and offers superfast performance for computers with a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interface. (It also works fine along with the ubiquitous Gen 2 USB-C interface.) This tiny aluminum-clad drive is impervious to dust and water, as well as meets military standards for impact resistance.

The $159.99 Brother MFC-J4335DW offers paper handling suitable for a micro/home office or personal use and stands out for its speed and low cost per page (0.9 cent for monochrome pages, 4.7 cents for color ones). As a four-function all-in-one or multifunction printer, the MFC-J4335DW prints, copies, scans, and faxes. It offers a 150-sheet input tray, plus a single-sheet bypass feeder, and it has a 20-sheet ADF for copying or scanning multipage documents. It can connect to your computer via USB, Wi-Fi, or Wi-Fi Direct, and it prints from iOS and Android mobile devices using the Brother mobile app. (See more cheap printers.)

This low-cost all-in-one inkjet model is suitable for both homes and home offices, so long as your emphasis is on the printing side of things, not scanning or copying multipage documents. (It has a flatbed scan surface, but no automatic document feeder.) You get impressive output quality for just a bit over $100, and the printer itself is compact for what it is. We’d opt for this model over some closely matched, similarly priced competitors if your print jobs tend to include some photos in the mix.

Canon's $230 imageClass MF264dw II mono laser printer offers fast print speeds, clean page quality, and roomy paper handling, making it an all-in-one workhorse option for small and home offices. Text quality is merely a half-step down from top-tier competitors, with characters showing crisp edges and all of the business-friendly fonts we test appearing legible. The MF264dw II is missing the ability to scan in duplex, but if you don’t need this feature, it could be the ideal budget choice.

Kodak’s line of snapshot printers is a solid-value budget photo-printing option, and the Step Instant Mobile Photo Printer cranks out quick, high-quality snapshots using Zero Ink (Zink) paper, which uses crystals embedded in the surface to generate the image. Zink printers can't match the image quality of dye-sublimation models, but this Kodak is a small-format pocket photo printer that's easy to like primarily because of its extraordinary value, at just $70. Or, you can opt for a $120 starter bundle that includes a 20-pack of paper, a carrying case, a small photo album, markers, thousands of stickers for a host of occasions, and even an improvised clothesline for drying your creations. An optional battery lets you print on the go, too—it’s rated for up to 25 prints on a charge.

The Bambu Lab A1 mini is a top-notch 3D printer for beginners or hobbyists seeking an affordable option. It's easy to get going, fast, and even capable of four-color printing. Most important, it makes great-looking prints. Priced at $249 but offered with an add-on module (bringing the price to $399) that can print with any or all of four different-colored filaments, the A1 mini makes multicolor creations easy. It’s the lowest-cost four-color fused deposition modeling (FDM) printer currently on the market. And with ease of use that rivals pricier models from other vendors, it’s a nearly perfect device for someone new to 3D printing.

The Epson Perfection V39 II is an excellent budget flatbed photo scanner with robust software that makes it especially suitable for creative types and hobbyists. A high-resolution 4,800dpi scan engine, top-notch OCR accuracy, and streamlined task processes help it outclass the competition.

Vankyo's Performance V700W is a 1080p projector that’s designed for home entertainment. It delivers surprisingly robust audio and high brightness for its price class, plus good input lag for casual gaming. Plus, its use of a single LCD and a white-LED light source guarantees an image that’s free of rainbow artifacts, which will be a big deal for those users who are prone to seeing them. (Not everyone is.)

The Kodak Luma 75, at around $180, is a tiny, finely crafted yet minimalist take-anywhere portable projector. Weighing just 5 ounces and measuring 0.8 by 3 by 3 inches, it easily slips into a coat pocket. Its native resolution is 640 by 480 pixels, though it can display 1080p input without introducing scaling artifacts. A built-in battery lets you project for 90 minutes between charges. This easily focused projector handles photo and video content well and can mirror PowerPoint presentations; its 1-watt speaker is adequate for a small room. Its rated 30 lumens of brightness limits your image size, but for such a tiny device it does a more than credible job.

Dell’s Wired Collaboration Keyboard is a low-profile, compact keyboard that has dedicated video meeting buttons compatible with both Zoom and Microsoft Teams. This keyboard is comfortable and quiet, and it packs more than a few shortcut keys, including a Microsoft Copilot key, which automatically pulls up Microsoft's AI service on devices that support it. Membrane key switches muddle the typing experience, which might deter some people, but this keyboard is almost certainly a far better productivity pal than whatever came bundled with your PC.

The $49.99 Logitech Signature AI Edition M750 is a respectable mouse by itself, but the introduction of a few AI-based shortcuts turns it into an impressive productivity tool. For instance, the middle button, highlighted in teal, automatically opens Logitech's ChatGPT-based AI Prompt Builder software. Otherwise, its long battery life and compact size make it especially good for travel.

The TP-Link Archer AX10 is proof that you don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade your network with Wi-Fi 6 technology. This reasonably priced dual-band router delivered solid throughput on the 5GHz band and good signal range in our performance tests. Though it lacks features typically found on more expensive models, including link aggregation and USB connectivity, you’d be hard pressed to find these features on any sub-$100 router. If you want to take advantage of the faster connection speeds, decreased latency, and more efficient client battery life that you get with Wi-Fi 6, but need to keep costs down, it’s an excellent choice.

Yes, it's possible to cover your entire home in a blanket of Wi-Fi for a little more or less than $100. We know this because the Vilo Mesh Wi-Fi system can do it. (The price depends on the discounts of the moment.) This ensemble isn't the fastest mesh system on the market, but it significantly undercuts any other three-piece mesh network we've tested on price. The Vilo kit is sure to eliminate any dead spots a midsize house could have, and it's an unbeatable value as long as you're not looking to stream 4K video or download huge amounts of data. (See more budget routers and mesh systems.)

With smartphone cameras as good as they are, there’s little reason for budding photographers to grab a compact. If you want to get started with a full-frame model, the same type of sensor format the pros use, we recommend starting with the Canon EOS RP. It’s the best way for beginners and price-sensitive shoppers to get started with a full-frame sensor, either for $999 as a body only or $1,299 with the RF 24-105mm STM kit lens. Additional lenses start at $199.99 if you want to expand your kit.

The DJI Mini 2 SE is a good drone for beginner pilots thanks to its ease of use, registration-free 249g takeoff weight, and stabilized 2.7K video camera. Safety features include an integrated GPS, an automated return-to-home function, and a geofence to keep you out of trouble. For photography, the lens snaps 12MP photos in DNG or JPG format. At $339 with a remote control, it’s DJI’s most affordable camera drone.

For less than $100, the Sennheiser MKE 200 mic seriously enhances your camera’s audio quality. It’s a worthwhile upgrade for everything from vlogs to home movies and easily attaches to your camera’s shoe accessory mount. Just make sure your camera has a 3.5mm mic input before purchasing it.

Instant cameras are always a hit at parties, and a breath of fresh air from the smartphone photos that dominate our social feeds. The $80 Fujifilm Instax Mini 12 is the latest in a long-running series that prints glossy, high-quality instant photos on either color ($7.50 for a 10-shot pack) or black-and-white ($8.25 for a 10-shot pack) Instax film. It couldn’t be easier to use—there’s just one button and a nifty twisting lens collar for mode selection.

The third iteration of the Echo Show 5 continues to be the best smart display available for less than $100. It's loaded with useful features like Amazon Alexa support and a 5-inch touch screen, and it sounds good for the size. It's ideal for nightstands and bookshelves.

Smart light bulbs used to cost a lot, and almost all of them relied on a hub to connect to your home network. But newer options, including the Roku Smart Bulb SE Color ($9.88 for one, $17.99 for a pack of two) don't suffer from either downside. This LED bulb offers a full spectrum of hues, supports voice and app controls, and conveniently pairs with other Roku products.

The iRobot Roomba Combo Essential is a top-performing dual-purpose robot floor cleaner with vacuuming and mopping capabilities. In our tests, it kept up with models that cost several times as much in terms of hardwood cleaning, and it collected pet hair without tangling. It lacks some perks of pricier models, namely self-emptying functionality, but this budget vacuum does offer long battery life and Wi-Fi connectivity for app and voice control.

We’ve reviewed scores of smart plugs over the years, but none quite as versatile as the TP-Link Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Plug Slim With Energy Monitoring. This small plug works with nearly every available smart home platform, is a breeze to install, and even tells you how much energy it supplies to any appliance you connect. A four-pack costs $49.99, which works out to $12.50 per plug, a very reasonable price for all of the features you're getting.

Although the Blink Video Doorbell + Sync Module 2 costs just $69.99, it supports Alexa, captures sharp 1080p video, and offers both cloud and local storage. The doorbell camera also captures a 180-degree view, can run for up to two years on two AA batteries, and bundles a full-featured app. Some advanced features require a monthly subscription, but the plans are at least affordable.

Don’t let its affordable price and diminutive size fool you, the TP-Link Tapo Indoor/Outdoor Home Security Wi-Fi Camera C120 is a full-featured model with 2K video, color night vision, intelligent alerts, and built-in spotlights. It can store video recordings locally or in the cloud, and supports Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice control. We can forgive its lack of mechanical pan and tilt controls since the camera works just as well indoors as outside.

With long battery life, a color touch screen, and all the basic activity and sleep features you need, the Fitbit Inspire 3 is the best fitness tracker you can get for less than $100. The tracker's simple interface and well-designed companion app make it easy to monitor key fitness and health metrics, including your activity, blood oxygen saturation, breathing rate, sleep, heart rate, and more. Its Exercise app supports up to six activity shortcuts on the device at a time, and you can customize the list via the Fitbit app.

Just because the JLab JBuds Mini are tiny doesn’t mean they don’t offer a full set of capabilities. They sound punchy, include a highly effective transparency mode, work well for calls, and support a companion app with adjustable EQ. Best of all, they come in under $40 and are durable enough for workouts thanks to their IP55 rating.

The understated and comfortable EarFun K2 Kids headphones push out impressive bass for the price and support the AAC codec for quality Bluetooth streams. They also ship with a fabric-lined 3.5mm audio cable for passive listening and should last up to an impressive 40 hours of wireless operation per charge. As for volume limiting, you can restrict the headphones to an output of either 85dB or 94dB.

Graphics cards, fast monitors, $70 AAA games: PC gaming can get plenty expensive, and premium gaming keyboards can hit your wallet hard, too. But Corsair's K55 RGB Pro can keep gamers competitive and their checkbooks in the black. With dedicated macro buttons, a detachable wrist rest, and RGB lighting, the K55 RGB Pro certainly looks the gamer part. It's not a mechanical board, but it does offer comfortable-enough key action for typing, game mashing, or just surfing the web. Its plastic body signals its budget roots, but it's a reliable gaming keyboard for just about any situation.

Introduced in 2020, the SteelSeries Rival 3 is a little older than some of the choices on this list, but that speaks to the enduring value of this bargain clicker. At just $29.99, this is a no-frills mouse with a quality sensor that delivers fast movements at a respectable DPI. The three-part RGB rim adds some flair to the mouse’s subtle curves, while the low weight and solid build quality ensure long gaming sessions without issues. It favors a claw grip over a palm grip, but its value proposition might just be enough to sway noobs and hard-core gamers alike.

When it comes to cheap gaming monitors, the ViewSonic Omni VX2728J-2K is easy on the eyes and the wallet. With surprisingly great color range and accuracy, the $199 gaming display sports a 2K resolution (2,560 by 1,440 pixels) at a refresh rate of 180Hz over a DisplayPort connection. It’s missing some of the finer additions newer, more expensive models enjoy, like HDMI 2.1 ports, but the affordable price makes up for that. It's a perfect match for console and PC players looking to save a buck.

Razer's Barracuda X gaming headset produces enjoyable sound, has a clear boom mic, and feels comfortable to use for long gaming sessions. We also like that it lets you choose between 3.5mm, Bluetooth, and USB-C transmitter. Pricier alternatives might offer a more accurate surround sound mix or premium accessories, but the Barracuda X nails the basics for any gamer who doesn't want to spend over $100 on their audio needs.

Cheap gaming chairs are typically disappointing, but the Cooler Master Caliber X2 stands out from the pack. This sub-$400 chair offers the build quality and comfort you expect from more expensive options, with dense foam and sliding lumbar support.

Building upon the familiar and free-flowing Metroidvania template, Tales of Kenzera: Zau is a beautiful and emotional 2D sidescroller with a poignant perspective about life and death. You swap between sun and moon abilities in a world inspired by African mythology to vanquish foes that serve as metaphors for the creators' experiences of overcoming grief. (See all of our favorite PC games.)

Hop into your spacecraft and gun down alien hordes in this mechanically complex shmup. Cygni: All Guns Blazing is a visual treat that uses perspective to challenge you from the air and the ground. Cycle power between your weapon systems and your shield to survive brutal gauntlets, or burn your resources to bring down as many foes as possible. With plenty to master and excellent replay value, Cygni: All Guns Blazing is a fine gateway game into the shmup genre.

Thunder Ray updates the classic Punch-Out!! formula. In this intergalactic boxing tournament, you slug your way through towering alien challengers, each with bizarre abilities. Winning requires studying their attack patterns and fighting back with the correct timing. There aren't many challengers, but they’re brought to life through such gorgeous illustrated visuals and animations that you’ll want to replay them again and again.

En Garde is a 3D beat ‘em up that trades vulgar urban fisticuffs for elegant European swordplay. This $20 PC romp takes you across vibrant 17th-century Spanish locales as you slice your way to victory with precise and satisfying rapier attacks. En Garde is short, but full of personality. Randomized bonus modes put your slashing skills to the test after the credits roll.

Pentiment is a Renaissance-style whodunit set within the beautiful confines of an illuminated manuscript. The $19.99 game forgoes conventional action in favor of an engaging narrative, branching dialogue options, and character relationships. Centering on the life of Andreas Maler, an artisan living in the town of Tassing at the start of the game, you investigate a murder, gather evidence, and make long-reaching decisions. Over three acts and 25 years, it highlights the consequences of your actions and how time and perspective alter the meaning of truth.

At $60 per year, Sophos Home Premium doesn't sound like a cheap antivirus solution—until you realize that that subscription lets you install and manage protection on up to 10 PCs or Macs. That brings the price per device down to $6, undercutting even K7 Antivirus Premium's discounted price. Only one of the testing labs we follow includes Sophos in its regular reports, but that lab awards it AAA certification. And the program earned an excellent score in our own hands-on malware protection test. Best of all, you can manage your installations remotely, even from your smartphone. No more driving across town to sort out an aging relative's antivirus woes.

Bitdefender Internet Security has many of the same protections you get from Bitdefender's excellent antivirus software, plus firewall protection, spam filtering, parental control, and more. This entry-level suite includes so many protective components that it rivals the top-tier mega-suites of some competitors. It is a PCMag Editors' Choice winner for the best entry-level security suite. A 10-license subscription goes for $94.99.

All VPNs do essentially the same thing: They encrypt your web traffic so your ISP can't see what you're up to, and they make it harder for snoops to track you as you move around the web. Mullvad is no different. It uses a privacy-protecting account system and accepts cash deliveries if you don't want to use an online payment method. Mullvad also takes a strong stance on privacy and transparency. This VPN service stands apart with its flat, cheap pricing: Five euros ($5.48) per month gets you access to all the service's features, including multi-hop connections. It's close to half the price of what most competitors charge while offering most, if not all, of the same functionality.

Photopea is a surprisingly capable online clone of Adobe Photoshop. The free version is quite usable, though a mere $5 per month gets you online storage, generative AI tools, and no ads. It doesn't offer the most advanced features from Photoshop or other expensive photo editing apps, but it includes vector editing and works right within your web browser.

Digital audio workstations (DAWs), which let you record, edit, mix, and master music, tend to cost hundreds of dollars. And although Apple's GarageBand is free, it works only on Macs, and it lacks a proper mixing board (among other things). Enter Cockos Reaper, a full-blown, cross-platform DAW with multichannel recording, mixing, music notation, scoring for video, plenty of customization options, and other facilities normally associated with software that costs much more than its paltry $60. For that price, Reaper offers nearly all of the features and flexibility, if not the ease of use or visual appeal, of powerhouse digital audio workstations like Avid Pro Tools and Apple Logic Pro.

At $69.99 for a macOS or Windows license, the vector image editing program Serif Affinity Designer is a steal. It costs just slightly more than one month of a subscription to Adobe's Creative Cloud suite and is part of the only graphic design package we've tested with a generous free trial. Moreover, the software runs smoothly and has all the features beginner and intermediate designers need.

If you write movie and TV scripts, you need a writing app that can help you appropriately format your work. The screenwriter's fave Final Draft is the one you'll hear mentioned most often, but Fade In's $79.95 is a lot more palatable than that app's $249 (even if Final Draft is often discounted to around $200). Despite its bargain price, Fade In is a competitive screenwriting package that helps scriptwriters work efficiently and in an organized fashion. It helps you keep track of all the details of your scripts, such as locations, character names, and scene numbers. Fade In is available for macOS, Windows, and Linux, and you can use the same license to install the software on as many personal desktops as you own. Once you pay for the software, you get free upgrades to any new versions. And you can add the mobile apps for just $4.99.

IDrive is one of the fastest and most full-featured online backup players around. It's also among the cheapest. Clear interfaces in the IDrive apps for all major platforms let you store, sync, and share cloud files easily. You also get a significantly higher storage quota than any major competitor, with plans starting at 5TB for under $80 per year (and that's frequently discounted). IDrive also offers full disk-cloning software and remote web-based backup management.

The free League of Legends combines role-playing stat progression, tower defense, and real-time strategy to produce one of the most revered games in the genre. Every playable champion is rich and varied, and new ones get added regularly to shake up the meta. To top it off, the League's competitive ranking system is perfectly designed to fire up your tier-climbing addiction.

Featuring fantastic combat, great visuals, and expansive endgame content, Lost Ark will fuel your loot-grinding obsession for months to come. The game launched in other regions in 2019, so the Western release comes with years' worth of polish, content updates, and balance adjustments. The game uses a top-down, Diablo-esque camera perspective that's different from other MMO titles, but once you get used to the look, there's no shortage of brawl-heavy gameplay. And it's free, unlike the $9.99 Black Desert Online.

A free mobile multiplayer card game based on Marvel superheroes sounds like something most serious gamers can safely ignore. However, the designers behind Hearthstone turned Marvel Snap into a deckbuilding masterpiece thanks to sublime strategy mechanics. Once you annihilate your opponent with Hulk or ruin their day with Hobgoblin, you’ll be ready to dive into another matchup. You can battle for free and unlock cards at a steady clip, too. Of course, you can turbocharge the experience by purchasing a battle pass that lets you quickly receive cards and bonus goodies.

For many years, Avast has been a mainstay of free antivirus protection. With Avast One Basic, you get Avast's powerful antivirus protection, along with some elements of the Avast One security suite. All the testing labs we follow test Avast, and it regularly posts perfect or near-perfect scores. This free tool extends protection to macOS, Android, and iOS devices, though not at the same level as its Windows protection. It earns excellent scores in our own hands-on tests, and its features include ransomware protection, a simple firewall, and a bandwidth-limited VPN.

Sending a message using traditional email is about as private as sending a postcard or thumb-tacking it to a community bulletin board. Even when your email travels over HTTPS channels, it's still exposed to the email provider. With PreVeil, you get full-scale, business-grade email encryption at a cost of exactly zero. You don't have to spin up a new email address, and the service integrates automatically with Apple Mail, Gmail, and Outlook. Forgot your all-important encryption password? A unique and sophisticated key recovery system lets you get it back with a little help from your friends.

Bitwarden is an open-source password manager with a generous free tier and inexpensive premium plans. Under the free personal plan, you can store an unlimited number of passwords and sync them across all your devices. Bitwarden offers native apps for Windows (including a Microsoft Store app), macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. Bitwarden's browser extension supports Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, and Safari, as well as the less common Vivaldi, Brave, and Tor browsers. The free version also lets you enable multi-factor authentication via an authenticator app.

It's hard to beat free, and if you're looking to start a podcast or record music, or just need a tool to assemble and convert some audio samples, Audacity is your program. Now owned by Muse Group, this venerable software started life as an open-source, two-channel stereo editor, but it has grown and expanded to include multitrack recording, many effects, and spectral and spectrogram views for sample-level editing. Despite unlimited undos and redos and a new clip editor, Audacity is destructive at heart, with no support for VSTs or other real-time plug-ins. But if you're careful with your edits, Audacity will get you where you need to go with no money down—or ever, in fact.

If you need a place to store your photos online for free, use Google Photos. It's a complete consumer photo workflow app for mobile and web that lets you automatically back up, organize, edit, and share your images. It no longer gives you unlimited storage (free users get a respectable 15GB), but its capabilities remain impressive. And if you want more storage, a $1.99-per-month Google One subscription includes 100GB.

Where can you go to learn the basics of something from school you've since forgotten? For most academic subjects, the best place is Khan Academy. Khan Academy is a free online learning service with course material covering math, science, art history, and other subjects. The lessons contain videos, readings, and interactive components, which are sequenced so you can start from square one with any subject and slowly build your knowledge. The site focuses on kindergarten through early college courses, making it an ideal help source for students. Given what it offers and the fact that it's entirely free to use, Khan Academy is the best learning site for academic subjects. If you want to pursue more university-level courses or develop your professional skills, Coursera is another excellent resource.

Considering that to-do list apps are a dime a dozen, it's downright shocking that so few of them are truly helpful, well designed, and affordable. Todoist, however, is all that. Whether you use the wonderful free version or pay to upgrade to an inexpensive Premium account, Todoist is clearly the best to-do list app on the market. It works on all your devices, tracks your productivity, and lets you geek out on organizing and analyzing your life. If you need an app to organize your tasks, either by yourself or in collaboration with others, you need Todoist.

A dating app like Tinder, which prioritizes fast hook-ups over drawn-out relationship analysis, needs to have as many users as possible. That's why it costs you nothing to sign up and instantly start swiping to let people know whether you find them hot or not. If you want to pay money for perks such as profile boosts and Super Likes, you can do that, too. Still, free Tinder promises plenty of potential romantic rewards, unlike eHarmony's no-cost tier.

Wix is an excellent website builder—and unlike many of its competitors such as Gator or Squarespace, you can use it for free. You won't get a custom domain, and you'll need to be okay with ads appearing on your site, but in return you'll enjoy powerful tools for building fantastic desktop and mobile sites. Besides, there's nothing stopping you from upgrading later on.

An extension of Google’s entertainment arm and an offshoot of the enormous YouTube platform, YouTube Music lets you enjoy its many ad-supported offerings without spending a dime (though you can upgrade to a premium account to ditch the ads). YouTube Music's community uploads, music videos, podcasts, scrolling lyrics, and recently added Samples (a music discovery tool) all make for an excellent package. It lacks hi-res audio, but YouTube Music is hard to beat for recommendation-based listening.

Tubi doesn’t offer a limited free tier that simply acts as a teaser for a premium video streaming plan. Instead, it serves up its entire library of major studio releases—for free! Sure, it has ads, and certain movies and TV shows may come and go without warning. Still, Tubi proves you can enjoy great streaming video content without paying for a subscription.