Need Alternatives for PS, Premier Pro, Acrobat and AE

[henryr82567045]

I have been using Adobe products for about 20 years. But with this new subscription based model I may move on. I mean really, to get these 4 apps I have to pay the full subscription price (more expensive to subscribe to the 4 separate apps than the full suite of apps)... close to $1000 Cdn a year. I don't need updates, no need to share files... so paying $1000 per year is just insane.

I have to wonder how many loyal users Adobe will lose in the following years due to this subscription garbage.

So my question is this... is anyone aware of good alternatives available for the above noted apps that can be purchased outright at a reasonable cost.

And if Adobe staff see this post... take it to your personal economic heart that you are likely going to lose a very long time customer, very soon if one cannot buy your software outright.

[henryr82567045]

Just as a comparison... Microsoft Office charges around a $100 a year for all their apps... now that seems reasonable in comparison to the cost of their product. Adobe subscription costs should be more in line with this. Maybe $200 to $250 a year would be much more fairly priced in relation to the cost of outright purchase (Cdn that is). That would be about 10% of the price of outright purchase (close anyways). But currently it is more in the range of 40% which is outrageous.

[Abambo]

Microsoft Office was sold for 200 € as a family pack if I remember right. Photoshop alone was sold at 1000€ at that time. Microsoft and Adobe are playing in different leagues.

I would love to have all my software (including Autodesk Maya ...) for free, but that's not happening. Maya is available for € 248,05 on a monthly basis. That's ONE program (a great one, that we once bought on a perpetual license for the price of a small apartment some 25 years ago). Just as a comparison.

[Nancy OShea]

You may purchase Photoshop Elements and Premier Elements.  No subscription required.

Easy Photo Editing & Collage Maker | Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018

[Dave Merchant]

Adobe has fully committed to subscriptions, forget any idea of going to go back to "boxed" software.

Alternatives exist but it depends on what features you are using - there are no 1:1 matching products with every feature the same, and of course plugins won't work. For Pr/AE the obvious contender is Resolve Studio (with Fusion). Many options for Photoshop, such as GIMP, but it really hinges on things like camera raw support or scripting. Acrobat is much harder to replace since there are a lot of proprietary features. Plenty of ways to "print" a basic PDF from an application, hardly any choice if you're working with rich media, scripts, reverse distillation, standards compliance or rights management.

[henryr82567045]

I know and that sucks...

Thanks for the suggestions. And I agree, Acrobat is a hard one to match. The others I can likely use. But certain features of Acrobat Pro are hard to beat. I've considered CS5, but it is problematic on new computers and likely will stop working on future computers.

I don't really have an issue with the subscription model, but Adobe really needs to break it down more. Like a price structure for 1 app, 2 apps and so on. Right now if you use more than two primary apps it gets expensive for the average (occasional) user.

I would not have an issue paying $200 a year for 4 apps. But close to a grand is a blatant ransom based money grab IMO. Taking dedicated loyal users who are used to using your product and then saying... okay, you want to keep using our product - PAY UP or GO AWAY, we don't need your business. Just bugs the hell out of me.