A list of great subscription-free alternatives to common software. After all, maintaining a lot of subscriptions is like death by a thousand cuts and a good way to stay broke, but that's my opinion (and lived experience).
All prices listed are USD (United States Dollar).
- KeePass (Free)
- Friction (Free)
- Audacity (Free)
- SOUND FORGE Pro ($349 base)
- Affinity Designer ($69.99)
- CorelDRAW ($549)
- InkScape (Free)
- Affinity Publisher ($69.99)
- Capture One ($299)
- darktable (Free)
- Luminar Neo ($299)
- PhotoLab 7 Elite ($229, w/o free upgrades)
- PhotoLab 7 Essential ($139, w/o free upgrades)
- Affinity Photo ($69.99)
- ArtRage ($80)
- GIMP (Free)
- Krita (Free)
- Luminar ($199, "Lifetime")
- Pixelmator Pro ($49.99, macOS/iPadOS only)
- Procreate ($12.99, iPadOS only)
- Rebelle ($89.99, "Pro" for $149.99)
- DaVinci Resolve (Free)
- DaVinci Resolve Studio ($295)
- Final Cut Pro ($299.99, macOS Only)
- Olive (Free)
- Shotcut (Free)
- VEGAS Pro ($399, "New License")
- Wondershare Filmora ($79.99, "Perpetual Plan" w/o free upgrade)
- Thunderbird (Free)
- nocodb (Free)
- Ableton Live ($99.99 base)
- Ardour (Free)
- Cubase ($99.99 base)
- FL Studio ($99.99 base)
- LMMS (Free)
- Logic Pro ($199.99)
- PreSonus Studio One ($99.95 base)
- Zrythm (Free base, paid for additional features)
This software does have a perpetual license but encourages you to purchase a subscription license.
- Finale ($299)
- FORTE ($99, Windows only)
- Guitar Pro ($69.95)
- LilyPond (Free)
- MagicScore SongWriter ($29.95)
- MuseScore (Free)
- PreSonus Notion ($149.95)
- StaffPad ($89.99, Windows/iPadOS only)
- OpenToonz (Free)
- Procreate Dreams ($19.99, iPadOS only)
- ToonBoom Harmony ($442.50 base)
- TVPaint ($292.75 base [approx. from EUR])
- FreeWorship (Free)
- OpenLP (Free)
- OpenSong (Free)
- ProPresenter ($399 base)
- VideoPsalm (Free)
(see Adobe Illustrator)
- LibreOffice (Free)
- OpenOffice (Free)
(see Avid Pro Tools)
- OBS Studio (Free)
- Mattermost (Free)
(see Airmail)
(see Maya)
- GameMaker (Free)
- Godot (Free)
- MonoGame (Free)
- OGRE (Free)
- Panda3D (Free)
- Ren'Py (Free)
- Stencyl (Free)
- Jitsi (Free)
Are you looking for some great self-hosted alternatives to common online software? Shoutout to Fireship.io for recommending these!
- ERPNext (Free if self-hosted)
- Dokku (Free)
- Coolify (Free)
Here is some awesome software you should check out that doesn't necessarily fit into the categories above but doesn't require a subscription.
- µTorrent (Free, native build not supported by macOS)
- qBittorrent (Free)
- Transmission (Free)
- yt-dlp (Free, CLI-only)
- CircuitMaker (Free)
- KiCAD (Free)
- GNU Emacs (Free)
- Notepad++ (Free)
- Vim (Free)
- Visual Studio Code (Free)
- FFmpeg (Free, CLI-only)
- Handbrake (Free)
- MediaHuman Audio Converter (Free)
- MediaHuman Video Converter ($14.99)