I haven’t financially supported project or developers, but I have supported fediverse streamers financially. That way they can support their infrastructure. I try to bug hunt it suggest improvement for foss projects since it helps improve and let maintainers and developers improve their projects

I support Thunderbird and Lemmy.

I support Thunderbird because it’s a great email client and I use it daily. I feel like I owe them at least a few euros a month.

I support the development of Lemmy because it’s a social media platform without a large company controlling it’s content, and keeping that afloat with a small monthly payment is worth it to me.

GrapheneOS because we need a consumer privacy focused alternative to Google and Apple.

Octoprint. It’s web page front end for 3d printers. Instead of copying to an SD card, walking to the printer, loading the file and printing, I can just upload and print. It also has camera support for timelapses and a very healthy addon ecosystem. I use it on both of my printers.

I budget my donations so I make an effort to see who I think need it the most. For example, I use Tor daily, but they have huge institutional funding. My to-do list app doesn’t.

There are also some worthy candidates who simply reject donations, like Handbrake.

A few I haven’t seen mentioned:

• Small websites anyone can use for FOSS services, like (e.g. Private.coffee, Disroot, Nadeko, Riseup)
• Any of the 5 remaining Invidious instances, Google has put effort into killing off other instances. Same with other social media alternative frontends.
• Someone mentioned F-Droid, I don’t know what I’d do without the Google Store alternatives like Aurora.
• yt-dlp devs
• Lemmy and various instances
• Your operating systems, incl phones and servers if relevant
• Codeberg
• A few FOSS softwares used for non-fediverse sites I use. Look at all the sites you use and think about which ones are probably underfunded. Don’t be afraid to ask if they haven’t said anything.

I find it important to support projects that contribute to the greater free software ecosystem. I pick projects I benefit from and whose continued existence I am invested in, despite any faults.

• The NetBSD Project
• The Free Software Foundation (FSF)
• Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
• The SDF plan9front server
• Project Gutenberg
• Standard Ebooks
• The Internet Archive (IA)
• The Wikimedia Foundation

KDE because I liked it when I used it and wanted it to get even better. And Lichess because it’s what I wish all free services were like. I should do more.

Because I find them useful.
And also I never pay for paid software (at least not directly).

Linux Mint 
Manjaro 
Tor Project 
The Document Foundation (LibreOffice) 
Arch Linux 
KDE 
Mozilla 
F-Droid 
Termux 
db0 Lemmy instance (lemmy.dbzer0.com) 
Arne Schwabe (dev of Android OVPN client) 
Deluan Quintao (dev of Navidrome server) 
Arty Bishop (dev of Look4Sat) 
sc07 (Fediverse Canvas creator) 
Markus Fisch (dev of Binary Eye) 
VideoLAN 
Meshtastic 
Kiwix 
FFmpeg 
IzzyOnDroid 
Lemmy   

Which open source projects have large expenses? Buying the creator a coffee is nice, but if money is actually required for something to exist I’d rather give there.

Right now I’m extremely poor, but maybe someday I’ll be in the same boat as OP. My Lemmy instance and Tor come to mind, and then maybe Wikipedia, although I know their aggressive fundraising has already worked.

Edit: Oh shit, the Invidious instance I use should probably go first.

i do KDE and Graphene, i usually sponsor bug hunts. might buy some system76 stuff if cosmic keeps getting better

When I work with Ardour professionally, I always make a donation on a per-project basis, depending on budget of said project.

It is truly Pro Grade software, it deserves it.

And if the budget is small, I do i small donation, easy :)

It ain’t much, but so far this year I donated to Disroot and Signal.

Just signal for now

I’ve always donated to Signal, Bitwarden, and KDE. Lemmy got added to the list this year, plus I always try to support a quality project that’s between a rock and a hard place. I gave to the Oregon State University open source lab this year when I heard about their struggles. They’re why Mozilla is a thing along with many other foundational components of the open internet.

KDE