Seth's Blog : Software worth paying for

Software worth paying for

There’s more software available for free than ever before, and a lot of it is really good. Handmade by real people, for real people.

If we’re going to pay for it, it needs to be extraordinary.

For the last few years, I’ve been using Superhuman, which costs me about a dollar a day. Even if you don’t use email as much as I do, I think you’ll find that it’s a bargain. (The link gets you two free months). It takes about three hours to learn, which is a big part of why it works.

I also subscribe to the vetted suite of tools at Setapp. They rarely disappoint.

Roon is software to control your home stereo. I have a lifetime subscription, and the link gets you thirty days for free. If you love music, you’ll get a lot out of this.

Lightburn is my favorite way to control a laser cutter.

Bitwarden is a well crafted password manager, and it’s very cheap.

Nisus Writer Pro is a delightful word processor for the Mac. Not distracting or showy, it simply works great.

Ocenaudio is my audio editor of choice. I happily pay for it, but the free version is great.

And yes, Puzzmo. I had a really good score on Bongo today.

Qobuz unlocks millions of tracks of hi-rez quality music. I promise you can hear the difference, especially with headphones.

Yes, of course I’m using software from giant companies like Adobe and Anthropic, but you knew about them already.

And if it’s books you are after, seths.store is a place to find mine.