Ask HN: What software do you pay for that's not a browser-based SaaS?

Aside from IDEs and media production tools, are there applications that you still have installed on your machine?

Are there applications that cannot be moved into the browser?

5 comments

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Games.

Some other Industries specific software that needs to do local computation. Technology is cyclic and right now we have cycled back to the era of mainframes and terminals. There is very little software that must be on the edge. So, by default, it ends up on servers/cloud. Even computation that could be done locally eventually hits a scale where it's better to send it to a server like 3D rendering.

Very few people pay for desktop apps anymore.

verdverm 4y ago ↗

Cloud hosting, which has tools I install locally, I do not interact with it through the browser.

Streamlabs, the paid version OBS

greenyoda 4y ago ↗

Tax preparation software

baash05 4y ago ↗

Parelles, to allow my kids to use windows on mac's

DarrenDev 4y ago ↗

Recurring payments

- Components from DevExpress (C# and JavaScript)

- Office 365

- Azure

- Add In Express (for building Office Add Ins)

One off payments

- Balsamiq

- Navicat for Sqlite

- Snagit

I used to have a lot more one off desktop apps, but I found that as I migrated to new PCs I never bothered to install them as the free alternatives were as good or good enough.