With all the hype around AI agents and bleeding-edge automation, I spent my Saturday morning… installing htop, nmap, and rsync on a fresh Debian box. Why? Because they still work. And they don’t phone home.

There’s a quiet power in using software that does one thing well—and respects your privacy while doing it. I’ll take a stable CLI tool over a flashy web dashboard that breaks under load any day.

If you’re a small team trying to stretch your tech budget, look hard at open-source. Not just because it’s free—but because it puts you in control. That’s worth more than fancy UI any day.