For me, that would be Secure CRT. I have yet to find a terminal emulator that matches its feature set. If you regularly manage hundreds of machines using various connection protocols (serial and ssh mostly in my case) It’s worth the $$$, and so far there hasn’t been any subscription nonsense. I liked using it at work so much I forked over the dough to have it at home.
None of the free alternatives do everything I need.
I’ll also mention a few iOS apps. One is Sun Surveyor. It’s an AR app that shows you the position of the sun, moon, and galactic center at any given time. The other would have to be Radarscope. It’s a weather radar app, but it’s a really good weather radar app.
EDIT:
This one’s debatable, but I use it all the time. Plasticity is 3D modelling software that attempts to bridge the gap between practical CAD programs and software meant for 3D artists like Blender. It’s not cheap considering Blender is free, but it’s buy once use forever, and at (I think) $150 it’s within reach of an individual hobbyist who knows what they want and is willing to pay for it.
In the world of music production Reaper is an insanely good deal with a fantastically refreshing licensing system.
I haven’t used Reaper in a while, but you can technically use it for free with full features by perpetually using it in trial version mode right?
Yes!
The developer is pretty insistent on saying that Reaper is NOT free but also that stupid licensing schemes for other DAWs like the horrid iLok and others only punish people who actually buy the software, which is self-defeating since the pirates are unaffected by the ways in which the tool is made worse for people who actually bought the tool legally.
I bought it simply because of how incredibly refreshing this was, free open source DAWs have gotten better since I did but there used to be barely any accessible, lowcost ones that were fully featured enough to be useful. Now there are open source options like Muse and LMMS but the thing about Reaper is it isn’t a budget/hobbyist DAW, in many ways it is an industry leading software so even with good FOSS DAWs out there Reaper is still well worth it.
In specific, a lot of people use Reaper for live performance of software instruments as Reaper is an efficient beast at running complex chains of software effects efficiently… and yet a lot of people also use Reaper for mixing and production because it has such high quality audio processing capabilities. Reaper is a behemoth.
Reaper can do more than 99.9999% of people are capable of using it for.
This would have been mine. I generally only donate rather than buy software, but reaper is an exception.
Same with Renoise, though I haven’t bought it yet myself. Pretty cheap by Western standards, especially compared to the big DAWs, but excellent for its particular workflow, i.e. a tracker. It’s actively developed too.
Bitwarden. It’s free and open source, but you can pay for a subscription
if you don’t want to self host for synchronisation between devices. It’s very cheap and no doubt worth it.Also Aseprite, for pixel art and custom format exports.
Edit: looks like both these programs are just straight up fully featured and freely available now.
Sync between devices doesnt require a subscription?
I use it on my desktop, laptop and phone, no issue
Never paid a dime
For real, I had been using Bitwarden for a couple of years for free and it never once had to show an ad to ask me to buy it’s subscription. I just realized that it was giving me tons of value, and that prompted me to buy the (fairly priced) subscription. That’s a gold standard imo.
I saw a banner in the extension telling me the premium version existed once, but it wasn’t very intrusive
what kind of synchronization between devices are you referring to? I’ve never had a subscription and have used multiple vaults on numerous different devices
Basically storing an encrypted backup of your secure content so that a password you add to bitwarden on desktop can be accessed via your phone, accessible via a login.
ok, that’s basic cloud sync, which is a core free feature of Bitwarden, not a premium feature. you don’t need to purchase a subscription for that, it’s literally the fundamental purpose of any modern password manager and is completely free in Bitwarden
Yeah it does look like cloud sync is free now. I was a pretty early adopter of bitwarden so I believe originally you had to pay for cloud sync support, but I may be wrong.
Still, I’ll continue to support them because they’re the only password manager I’ve used that has some semblance of mutual respect.
Libresprite is the open source alternative and it’s nearly identical.
Aseprite is free if you compile it yourself, isn’t it?
It used to be gpl licensed
Right, but it’s still free (even for commercial use) under the current license so long as you compile it from source yourself and don’t share the binary. The author just has some weird thoughts about the GPL.
Hmm odd. So there isn’t really much of a difference between using libre sprite and aseprite.
Kagi. Search that actually works, with no ads. Worth every penny.
Another happy Kagi user here, and I also hate sounding like a shill but I’m really so glad I use their product. Not having to parse through ads and AI slop when I’m busy and looking for info is so helpful when I’m trying to work.
how is it better than ddg? genuinely asking
I like ecosia
They have ads but… they donate their profits to help the coimate
They even have a breakdown of their economy on their site
DDG still does top ranking of advertisers even though they aren’t directly targeted to you. Kagi puts the most relevant information to your search regardless to what it is you search. You’re also able to uprank and downrank different sites you want to see more or less of in your searches. For example if you’re someone who looks up a lot of medical terms for work or something you can completely block sites like WebMD from taking over the results making it harder to find more relevant information to it. Not my exact use case but have been a Kagi user for probably 8 months now and it’s 100% worth it for the rankings as well as Kagi Translate since it has a proofread feature that replaces Grammarly for me as a dyslexic that has to write a lot of emails.
thanks very much for this info. i can see the appeal of personal ranking. appreciate the details.
I don’t know, I never personally used DDG much pardon (I should have, can’t recall why I didn’t).
Why do I always see so many down votes when Kagi is mentioned?
I think it might be one or both of:
- people are sick of seeing it mentioned. I’m not a shill, I just really like the product.
- they are indignant about Kagi occasionally using Yandex when it compiles search results
In both cases, meh. I’m answering the OP question with my opinion, and hopefully somebody finds it useful.
Some people don’t like the Dev also.
Thanks so much! I wouldn’t have known about it had people not talked about it. It’s only been a much or two since switching to kagi and I’ve been happy with it.
Also that Kagi is working alongside AI instead of resisting it. I’m not thrilled about that part either, but it’s not a complete deal breaker for me since I can just choose not to use it.
IMO, LLMs are a tool which are sometimes useful; I like appending a question mark to a query to get a quick answer. But I agree that the AI work should be kept to a minimum. At least they are using models which are far more sustainable and lightweight.
I didn’t downvote, but probably because they’re a young USA-based search engine that requires login to use - which is usually a huge red flag for privacy, and their privacy of user searches is claimed but has never been verified by any kind of audit - another significant red flag.
Why trust another for-profit Palo-Alto search company with your search data, assist their (potential) tracking by logging in, and pay for it in the process?
Wouldn’t using their Privacy Pass solve this?
So, wait… pay for search, which we need you logged in for and ‘we swear is private bro, honest - but oh hey, if you want a search that’s definitely actually private and we promise it (harder)’, pay them more for a Professional/Ultimate/Team plan to unlock Privacy Pass access … that is uhh, a fresh red flag.
Further, you can’t access Privacy Pass (PP) searches via their standard search engine page… you can only access it by installing and using their closed source browser, or their closed source Android app, or their closed source browser extension… So again its just ‘trust me bro’ but you’re paying them more, and each of the technologies they require you use to access the Privacy Pass can theoretically track all of your data in far more detail than a search engine alone? Mate, from my perspective it’s privacy red flags all the way down.
I mean I get it, how do you have a premium search engine that your users pay for to avoid ads, while also identifying that they’ve paid, while guaranteeing their anonymity/privacy? That’s a tricky thing to solve, but the way they’ve opted to solve is arguably even more suspicious. Open source client code (at least) to validate the server service could not be using the PP tokens to link to a specific user would be a right way.
Kagi is definitely worth it.
I’ll be a lifer for Kagi. I still twitch my way to Google sometimes from a lifetime of habit and every time, it’s like a little check-in, and I think, “oh, god, it can’t have gotten this much worse since last time, can it?”
TeraCopy if you move lots of data around.
However, even with a pro license, I still got an ad notification in my task area recently pushing their other software. Fucking hate advertisements that go out of their way to interrupt you.
Fucking hate advertisements
that go out of their way to interrupt you.The rest of that sentence literally defines the procedure of advertising.
Well yeah, just emphasizing I already paid for your software.
Demand a refund or compensation.
I should. But I bought it multiple years ago and I didn’t care that much. But I will definitely think twice next time I need some software to not use them.
I’ve never seen ads and I use the usual free TeraCopy at home. Are there supposed to be ads? (I don’t have a pihole or anything that’d be blocking the ads at the network level)
No, I could have just kept using free. But I was using it a lot and felt like I should pay for it, otherwise free software may not be available in the future. I think it was like $20.
Fair and reasonable. I don’t use it often and have nearly finished moving entirely to Linux, otherwise I may have done the same (its Windows-only).
Immich https://immich.app/
Absolutely amazing and it’s technically free, but please donate if you can, they fucking deserve it.
Being able to host your own photos and have ai to help identify faces WITHOUT internet or giving your private photos to the tech giants is worth every penny.
I love Immich, but I’m afraid to donate because they’re part of FUTO which looks sketchy and I know there was some drama about them.
mullvad vpn
Jetbrains Intellij IDEA Ultimate. 100% worth the price.
Big fan of the all products pack.
Well yeah it’s still the best IDE for the JVM around, but I’m really not happy how their focus shifted towards AI and other useless features like themes that waste more space and take control elements away by default. Enshittification is happening, and it makes me think about cancelling my personal subscription.
As a former Eclipse user I can vouch for this as well.
IntelliJ basically killed Eclipse as a major IDE and the reaction from most of its users was “good job”. It’s funny how such a widely hated IDE was dominant for so long.
(Though to be fair, Eclipse helped kill itself with its UI changes)
Haha no
Why not?
Why should I pay a thousand bucks a year for it? I mean have you heard of emacs and neovim?
Perhaps purchasing as a company. For me as a person the everything pack is under $300/year. And repeat subscriptions get a discount, so I’ll pay even less for it next year.
Subscriptions is even worse :(
Ugh. Subscriptions.
Their subscription model is nice. You will always own the last version you got with your subscription. You just won’t get new versions until you resub.
Oh, this is good to know. But then, why not pay $20 once and stop paying until the next version is out? Can you do that?
In general, I agree. However it’s pretty much better than all of the free offerings and better than many of the more expensive ones.
There aren’t any can’t live without features. There are several very nice to have on so.
Sorry I disagree. There are valid reasons for software with subscriptions, but an editor ain’t one. Much less $20+ a month.
Thousands? I pay like $160/year.
For Ultimate?
I was just slightly off, $179.
Your next year will be even cheaper :)
“Why should I pay hundreds of dollars for a powered motor when I have this push mower?”
Yes, of course I’ve heard of those tools. I use vim all the time as well as other editors like VS Code and Kate.
I just thought you had other more technical reasons besides “costs money”.
It costs too much and has a subscription, that’s not my taste.
You mentioned VS Code, have you seen VSCodium?
That makes sense.
Yes, of course I’ve heard of VS Codium.
Drop your scripts for getting similar refactoring support to emacs and neovim
I paid for a copy of the Torque app on android. It lets you use bluetooth OBD2 adapters to connect to your car’s ECU for reading live engine data and trouble codes. The pro paid version unlocks a lot more customization for data logging screens, allows you to save live data logs to your phone, and enables a wider range of readable codes… Makes a huge difference diagnosing weird engine issues in cars 1996 and newer.
+1 for Torque, pay once and it does exactly what it’s supposed to do and doesn’t bother you with anything else.
I paid for a license of obd jscan for my vehicle since it is specific to Dodge/Jeep it can do everything, including activation of features and access to all data in the vehicle. I had to buy a more expensive vlink adapter, but it was only $20 or so. It has saved me tons of money so far. I was able to program keys, activate remote start (had to install a hood switch), and have been able to diagnose several issues with things like tpms and abs.
Used the free version, don’t know why I updated to paid, WORTH IT ($5). I’ll never not have a BT adapter ($4) on my car computer and Torque on hand. Worth it just to read check engine lights.
Wife’s car occasionally throws, and sometimes clears, a minor emissions error, kills the cruise control. The passenger can reset it rolling down the interstate and we’re back in business.
Link to the app? There seem to be many clones riding on its name
DaVinci Resolve.
The software is free but not FOSS and on Linux paying for the h.264 support is nice.
Keen live is a good alternative but it feels like an advanced form of movie maker to me and lacks polish. If you learn it KDEN Live can be powerful.
I came to say Davinci Resolve. I got it for $300 with the “Speed Editor” keyboard and a lifetime license. Worth every penny.
BeyondCompare. I’ve used it for all my Windows text comparison needs for decades. It also handles comparing spreadsheets and directory structures.
I’m sure BeyondCompare is much more powerful, but have a look at WinMerge if you don’t know it yet. I keep being impressed by it for being free and OSS.
Thank you for the pointer. I’ll try it out and see if I can recommend it to my colleagues. (I’m the library techie, so if a coworker has a problem, I’m the one they’ll ask for help. So, I should at least play around with it a bit first.)
yeah, i know that all too well…
cool, let me know how it goes!
I’ve tried so many other open source or free software for diffing and Beyond Compare is still the best, if only I could convince my company to pay for a license for it
https://kaleidoscope.app/ on macOS is a super nice tool for diffs as well.
Balatro on me iPhone
Yes. This. 100%.
Even if it wasn’t the most reasonable to license, it’d still be the most flexible and “hackable”.
$60 for a lifetime
Yup. A price that respects their user base. On that basis alone I have had (and will continue to have) no issue paying for another license if needed.
When I switched to Linux I just bought a new copy instead of figuring out how to transfer the license I had for my Windows PC because the Reaper team just straight up deserves the money.
It’s FOSS software but I use it so much I donate to support it. FreeCAD. Yeah its interface isn’t the best. But compared to Fusion for my workflow it’s so much bettwr
And only getting better with every iteration.
MakeMKV
This. I don’t if there even exists a FOSS solution which is as reliable as MakeMKV
Personally I just put the libdvdcss2, libaacs and libbdplus dll in Handbrake’s install folder to directly encode my personal Blu-Ray and DVD to MKV straight from the disc.
This sounds interesting. I tried this like a year ago, but could not get it working. Maybe I should give it a try.
But it’s free.
There’s a blu-ray decoder extended license.
The Beta (which is unlimited) is free.
If you hadn’t, I would’ve added it.
Moonreader Pro. It’s an ebook readers for Android. The Pro/paid version has any feature you could ask for:
- reads just about any file format (epub/mobi/pdf/etc)
- has text-to-speech (everything can now be an audio book)
- you can add annotations/notes/bookmarks (and color code them)
- the annotations/notes/etc will sync to a remote server (Dropbox, your own self-hosted webdav, etc)
- it can pull/fetch books from your own remote server
- where you are in the book is also synced to the remote server, meaning you can read on your phone, but switch to a tablet and immediately continue.
Any feature, I wish an ebook reader would have - moon reader delivered (but finding these features is not intuitive).
Honestly I’ve use it, it’s good but uses far my resources that it should.
KOreader is the FOSS alternative and while its interface sucks. Its reader is excellent.
Interesting, I’ll take a look at it. It seems to tick all the same boxes as moonreader, but also works on Linux and Mac.
I was curious if KOreader worked on iPhones (AFAIK, it does not), but a FOSS alternative did, readest. I’ll probably take a look at that too.
The only area KOreader fails in is the lack of widgets. Coolest (or not depending on how you see it) is the Chinese ereaders use it as their devices reading engine and make their own launcher to throw you into KOreader.
FBReader has a free version but it’s so good I bought the Pro just to send them some $$.
I bought the pro version of this app years ago, but after jailbreaking my Kindle and installing the open source KOreader on it, I’ve moved to the KOreader app on Android and Readest app on Ios as it comes with built in reading position sync and it can directly connect to my Calibre OPDS server to download the books
