Free Software
Well - who said software needs to be expensive.
This is a list of free stuff found on the web and whatever the requirement there is usually something available.
Most of the free apps listed are of reasonable quality but it should be realized that some commercial programs can be hard acts to follow (eg: the famous Photoshop app which usually requires a mortgage to obtain) and depending on your requirement the free stuff may or may not do it for you.
It goes without saying that if you do find a free app which works well for you and it happens to be Donationware or similar then by all means support the developer by doing so.
The most usual bug I see with freeware apps is the labelling of fields/buttons/etc which are often truncated however the app is generally OK (admittedly I experienced this mainly with Win apps) -
just a shame about the cosmetics. This effect may be a result of incomplete implementation of system button/control styles which may be able to be disabled via the starting shortcut properties.
Caveats:
P = Personal use
NC = Non-Commercial use
A = Academic use
DW = Donationware ( a lot of open source projects have Donate buttons)
AW = Abandonware (developer run away or not developing further)
TW = Trialware
With some apps you will see the term Generousware. This is applied to fully featured commercial apps that the maker has made available free to Personal Users or Single License Users.
Presumably the maker is making the money on the higher end market (selling Multi-User or Commercial Use licences) and thinks that it doesn't hurt to give it away at the lower end to foster later buyin.
In the past Microsoft went halfway on this by offering the Visual Studio Express editions. Modern day they provide offerings like VSCode.
Pay Software
Sometimes you just have to pay - here is a wee list of useful stuff
VuescanStatus: Commercial Note: Lifetime licence Platform: Mac/Win/Linux |
Superlative scanning app (worth the money) and further (and frequent) upgrades are free |
DaisyDiskStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac |
File & Volume/Disk Usage app | LightroomStatus: Commercial Note: Subscription offering only Platform: Mac/Win |
Excellent for RAW/JPG image processing (no perpetual app since LR6). LRc (Classic) offers equivalent of standalone app and subs are quite reasonable (especially with Amazon special offers). |
JAlbumStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac/Win/Linux |
Web Gallery app - pretty damn good and customisable |
ParallelsStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac |
Virtual Machine for hosting OS's (eg: Windows/Mac/Linux) |
CrossoverStatus: Commercial Note: Improved pay version of WINE Platform: Mac |
Commercial version of WINE allows running of Windows apps pretty well without a full blown Virtual Machine like Parallels |
Sublime TextStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac |
Pretty good text editor |
ScreenflickStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac |
Pretty good screen capture app |
Luna displayStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac |
Allows use of 5K iMac as a screen for laptop (runs as app on iMac and MBPro with dongle on MBPro) |
PixelMator ProStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac |
Graphics/Photo editor app (like Photoshop for Mac) |
Panorama StitcherStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac |
Panorama stitcher (works well) (Mini version for smaller projects available free) |
BracketeerStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac |
Frontend GUI for Enfuse (creates realistic/natural HDR images via tone matching) |
Exif EditorStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac |
Image metadata editor |
RAW PowerStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac |
Photo editing app (close to Aperture without DAM features) |
ForkLiftStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac |
Dual pane file manager and FTP client |
SiteSuckerStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac/IOS |
Web site archiving tool |
NeoFinderStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac |
DAM tool |
Mp3TagStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac/Win |
Music tagging app (donationware on Win) |
MetaDaticsStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac |
Audio metadata editor |
YateStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac |
Audio file tagger |
LynStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac |
Media browser |
Negative Lab ProStatus: Commercial Note: Platform: Mac/Win |
Lightroom plugin for negative conversion |