Puter, a free and open-source browser-based desktop environment, has finally ended its beta phase after two years of development, boasting an impressive 370 community contributors, 40,000 stars on GitHub, and over 400,000 downloads.

Puter, a tool that aims to provide all the necessary apps and functions—from simple notepads and voice recorders to spreadsheets and cameras—on a single platform, has been officially released.

GitHub - HeyPuter/puter: 🌐 The Internet Computer! Free, Open-Source, and Self-Hostable. · GitHub

Puter is a free, open-source tool described as an 'Internet OS.' It's a desktop-like environment that runs in a browser, allowing you to control file management software, document management software, and other applications directly from your browser.

In addition to being self-hostable, you can also use it through the following website.

Puter
https://puter.com/

Puter Marketplace offers a variety of software ported for Puter, and it can be used as a platform for creating and publishing websites, web apps, and games, as well as an alternative to Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive, and as a remote desktop environment for servers and workstations.

While various advantages are being touted, such as the fact that self-hosting is possible with just one line of code, on the online forum Reddit, there are voices questioning its purpose in the first place, saying things like 'KasmVNC is sufficient' and 'I don't understand the use cases that have led to 400,000 downloads.'