Looking for a free or open-source alternative to Distill? Hawkwatch is the closest direct swap — MIT-licensed source on GitHub, or a $34 one-time packaged install. Since you're already auditing what you pay Distill every month, here are four more pay-once tools from the same catalog worth a look while you're at it — different jobs, same idea: buy the software once instead of renting it forever.
1. Hawkwatch — replaces Distill
Headless-Chromium price & stock monitoring with screenshot alerts — no quotas, no subscription. $34 once vs Distill's $12/mo. Free on GitHub, or the packaged installer on Whop.
See Hawkwatch → · Source on GitHub
2. Postbird — Lists, segments, a drag-block builder, throttled sending & open/click tracking — no per-contact pricing.
Replaces Mailchimp ($20+/mo (grows with your list)). $59 once. See Postbird →
3. Castport — Upload episodes, get a valid RSS feed, public pages, embeddable player & download stats. Pay once.
Replaces Transistor ($19/mo). $39 once. See Castport →
4. Inkpress — Split-pane markdown editor, 3 themes, server-side highlighting, RSS & SEO — one SQLite file.
Replaces Ghost ($9/mo). $29 once. See Inkpress →
5. Feedloft — Self-hosted Feedly alternative — folders, OPML, full-text search, one SQLite file.
Replaces Feedly ($8/mo). $24 once. See Feedloft →
Why this list is worth bookmarking
Every app above is a one-time purchase with MIT-licensed source, no accounts with us and no telemetry. None of them are trying to be the next Distill — they're trying to be the last subscription you pay for that specific job.
Try Hawkwatch — $34, once
Headless-Chromium price & stock monitoring with screenshot alerts — no quotas, no subscription.