Invest in the Future You Want to See.

A First Public Offering of Purism Stock on StartEngine. Minimum $500.

Invest Now

Our Competition

Purism is the only company that, at its core, does everything to respect your freedom and your privacy while manufacturing brand-new hardware.

  • We are a Social Purpose corporation with strong principles enshrined into its articles of incorporation.
  • We hand select individual chips that will work with free and open source software, we provide the means and transparency into the BIOS (including coreboot), the kernel, the operating system, and all software applications.
  • We install free and open source promoting software by default, making sure you retain your freedom and privacy during every step of your computing.

How do we compare to our main competitors?

Here is a table that shows how much Purism does above and beyond any other hardware manufacturer. Such mainstream vendors are the ones we consider our true competitors.
Purism Competitive Matrix

You may also be interested in reading more about: What makes Purism’s Librem computers better than proprietary devices from other vendors?

Threats & Corporate Control

Apple’s Mac OS X and iOS, Google’s Android and ChromeOS, and Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating systems have the following problems:

  • Data capitalism: your data is being routinely mined by the parent companies that create those operating systems, to be sold off to the highest bidder
  • No built-in protection against advertisement tracking
  • No built-in protection against tracking by third-parties
  • Potential surveillance mechanisms (backdoors or “master key”) built-in for governmental agencies
  • Forced software updates
  • A system that progressively deteriorates over time or slows down with new version updates, reinforcing planned obsolescence.
  • User/usage tracking (often called “telemetrics”)
  • The systems routinely “phone home” to their parent companies
  • User identification/account required to use the system in any meaningful way (through app stores and tight services integration)
  • Financial linking between the user and the system
  • Software updates can contain anti-features
  • Often shipped with bloatware
  • Ability for remote control and monitoring
  • Ability to remotely delete or tamper with data

Many privacy and security risks related to these problems have received wide coverage in the media as the phenomenon has been intensifying in recent years.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

When it comes to operating systems, Purism’s PureOS, combined with the “Librem” devices, is a combination that is made fully in your interest to eliminate corporate control and data capitalism. Additionally, Librem devices feature various exclusive security and privacy features, such as hardware kill switches.

Friends & Allies

Purism has a few indirect “competitors” in the GNU/Linux community, but we actually consider them as allies working toward the same goal, with a different approach. If you feel like Purism’s offering does not suit you, please consider these companies that also put an emphasis on Free Software:

  • If you are interested in solid, well-made older laptops (from before Intel introduced the Management Engine in all of its chips in 2008) that currently have a 100% free BIOS and already have the FSF’s RYF certification, you should consider the various laptops from Vikings, Libiquity or Technoethical.
  • If you’re looking for workstations or servers with a freed BIOS, consider Vikings’ D16 workstation or D16 rackmount server.
  • If you are interested in an amazing open-hardware DIY computing platform, you should support Novena.

Liked what you read here? See why Purism to learn more about how and why we do what we do.