Buy once, use forever A directory of one-time purchase software

Posted by richbowen 3/30/2025

Buy once, use forever A directory of one-time purchase software(buyoncesoftware.com)

222 points | 100 commentspage 2

TheRealPomax 3/30/2025|

You need some kind of special decoration for "you buy a license to use the app, not a specific version of the app", like VueScane or FL Studio (you pay for a lifetime license to "the thing", not "whichever version of the thing happened to be the current version when you bough it").

And maybe a badge of shame for "buy once, and yeah, you own that version, but you get punished for not upgrading by skipping a version meaning you now pay full price again" like DxO... Yeah it's "you own it" but my goodness is it the worst possible way to offer that.

crawsome 3/30/2025||

There's a ton of shovelware in here and there's currently no good method of filtering it out without manual comprehension. For example, there's an LLM interface that "Lets you access multiple LLM models" (https://buyoncesoftware.com/fridaygpt) But you obviously will not have access to these and it's clear self-promotion spam of over-eager people looking for exposure for their commonplace apps.

pmags 3/30/2025||

I was about to recommend VueScan which I purchased once way back in 2004 and have used ever since using the same license, but I was disappointed to learn that they have now moved to a subscription model (guess my perpetual license got grandfathered in). How disappointing!

This motivated me to check another perpetual license I've had for a while -- MediaMonkey (license bought in 2006). Looks like this is still available as a lifetime license!

hamrickdavid 3/30/2025|

VueScan Developer here. We have a subscription option - but that's really intended for customers who have short term scanning needs (ie. scan all of your slides). If you purchase a one-time VueScan license, you can use it indefinitely.

hypercube33 3/30/2025|||

Cool to see you here - I purchased a license for an old Nikon scanner and haven't circled back to benefit from it but I trust VueScan will serve me wonderfully. Thank you!

hamrickdavid 3/30/2025||

Those old Nikon scanners really were great scanners - VueScan will be there when you need it!

pmags 3/30/2025|||

Glad to hear it and thanks for the correction.

My impression was that the previous "Professional Edition, Single User" license included upgrades in perpetuity (which no longer seems to be the case). Am I misremembering on this point?

hamrickdavid 3/30/2025||

Yes, back in 2004 we did offer lifetime free updates for Professional Edition customers. We changed it to 1 year of updates a number of years ago, but indefinite access for the versions released during your free update period. But of course, we grandfathered in all licenses that came with lifetime free updates. I think when we started offering lifetime free updates back in 1998, we didn't expect to still be working on VueScan 27 years later!

ipcress_file 3/30/2025||

I don't mind re-purchasing software if it ages out gracefully.

I recently bought a (non-subscription) copy of Softmaker Office. If I have to buy a newer version ten years from now, that's okay. It's got better file compatibility with Word than LibreOffice and it doesn't force me to connect to the internet or anyone's cloud.

candiddevmike 3/30/2025||

Since this website is pretty terrible (and broken, can't submit without a cloduflare error), our app Homechart is a one time purchase, self-hostable household management app. No ads, no gamification, just get-out-of-your-way organization:

https://homechart.app

richbowen 3/30/2025|

I'll add Homechart. currently having an unexpected bug with payments I'm working through.

ghaff 3/30/2025||

Unless it's (maybe) mainfraame software, your software is going to break with an OS update. O you can maybe keep it working for a while in a VM, but the idea that you'll keep a software binary working forever is, for practical purposes, mostly silly.

Aachen 3/30/2025||

Is it? I'm pretty sure Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 continued to function on Windows Vista (released some ten years after the game) and in Windows 7 everything besides saving worked, and iirc there was a trick for that as well. These things can last a long time

Weird example perhaps but that's one of the oldest totally unmaintained things I used back in my Windows days. WINE may also be a way to run older Windows wares without needing a whole VM setup

On Android, I also use software written for Android 4 on Android 10 without problems. The permission model got more strict so it asks you for giving some blanket permissions because those weren't granular at that SDK/API version (iirc network and storage access are two of the three main ones), but after that one-time confirmation it works perfectly, and from f-droid I also trust that it doesn't abuse these permissions

Of course, there's also plenty of counterexamples. GOG exists for a reason, patching up games to run on modern OSes. I guess it's a risk but I don't generally expect most things to break with every version upgrade

mixermachine 3/30/2025|||

Windows and Android are OK to pretty good when it comes to backward compatibility.

MacOS Software sadly does break sometimes.

nikau 3/30/2025|||

It's called open source - I'm confident in 30 years time there will still be a vim port to whatever OS is in vogue.

ghaff 3/30/2025||

Port is the operative word there.

Proprietary binaries may work but there's no guarantee depending upon how the software was written.

nikau 3/30/2025||

End of the day I don't care if it's same binary or not, i just want my apps and tooling to work the way they have always worked.

erwincoumans 3/30/2025||

Windows backward compatibility counter example: Paint Shop Pro 7.04 still works great here after almost a quarter century.

hypercube33 3/30/2025|||

Somewhere buried on the Microsoft site there is a page that says they are committed to getting any 32bit windows software or above working and they have a separate support team for. I assume they are the Compatibility team.

ghaff 3/30/2025|||

Microsoft generally strives for pretty good backward compatibility. Especially for, relatively speaking, simpler software.

semanticist 3/30/2025||

Literally the first piece of software I looked at there does not have any option I could find for paying once, just one and three year subscription plans. (NanoCAD.)

So it looks like they'll list anyone who pays the fee, making the whole exercise a waste of time.

politelemon 3/30/2025||

This is just a big affiliate marketing site. You have to pay to get listed.

richbowen 3/30/2025|

Payment acts as a filter for those not serious about posting actual products.

SubiculumCode 3/30/2025||

FL Studio. Buy once, forever version upgrades. Good software too. https://www.image-line.com/

Perenti 3/30/2025|

Yes. They do have subscription cloud services, but you don't need it.

Something quite amazing is that it's written in Delphi. I love Fl Studio. It's possibly the best commercial software I've ever seen.

Perenti 3/30/2025||

Something else about FLStudio - you can run it on multiple machines with a single license. So ImageLine don't charge you for each computer you use it with.

riddley 3/30/2025|

It would be nice if i could limit by my preferred operating system.

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