For me, that would be Secure CRT. I have yet to find a terminal emulator that matches its feature set. If you regularly manage hundreds of machines using various connection protocols (serial and ssh mostly in my case) It’s worth the $$$, and so far there hasn’t been any subscription nonsense. I liked using it at work so much I forked over the dough to have it at home.

None of the free alternatives do everything I need.

I’ll also mention a few iOS apps. One is Sun Surveyor. It’s an AR app that shows you the position of the sun, moon, and galactic center at any given time. The other would have to be Radarscope. It’s a weather radar app, but it’s a really good weather radar app.

EDIT:

This one’s debatable, but I use it all the time. Plasticity is 3D modelling software that attempts to bridge the gap between practical CAD programs and software meant for 3D artists like Blender. It’s not cheap considering Blender is free, but it’s buy once use forever, and at (I think) $150 it’s within reach of an individual hobbyist who knows what they want and is willing to pay for it.

  • madcaesar@lemmy.world
    1·
    8 months ago

    Immich https://immich.app/

    Absolutely amazing and it’s technically free, but please donate if you can, they fucking deserve it.

    Being able to host your own photos and have ai to help identify faces WITHOUT internet or giving your private photos to the tech giants is worth every penny.

    • Scrollone@feddit.it
      1·
      8 months ago

      I love Immich, but I’m afraid to donate because they’re part of FUTO which looks sketchy and I know there was some drama about them.

  • boletus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    8 months ago

    Bitwarden. It’s free and open source, but you can pay for a subscription if you don’t want to self host for synchronisation between devices. It’s very cheap and no doubt worth it.

    Also Aseprite, for pixel art and custom format exports.

    Edit: looks like both these programs are just straight up fully featured and freely available now.

  • thermal_shock@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    8 months ago

    TeraCopy if you move lots of data around.

    However, even with a pro license, I still got an ad notification in my task area recently pushing their other software. Fucking hate advertisements that go out of their way to interrupt you.

    • Tiger@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      8 months ago

      Another happy Kagi user here, and I also hate sounding like a shill but I’m really so glad I use their product. Not having to parse through ads and AI slop when I’m busy and looking for info is so helpful when I’m trying to work.

      • baggachipz@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        8 months ago

        I think it might be one or both of:

        • people are sick of seeing it mentioned. I’m not a shill, I just really like the product.
        • they are indignant about Kagi occasionally using Yandex when it compiles search results

        In both cases, meh. I’m answering the OP question with my opinion, and hopefully somebody finds it useful.

        • other_cat@piefed.zipEnglish
          0·
          8 months ago

          Also that Kagi is working alongside AI instead of resisting it. I’m not thrilled about that part either, but it’s not a complete deal breaker for me since I can just choose not to use it.

          • baggachipz@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            8 months ago

            IMO, LLMs are a tool which are sometimes useful; I like appending a question mark to a query to get a quick answer. But I agree that the AI work should be kept to a minimum. At least they are using models which are far more sustainable and lightweight.

      • pulsewidth@lemmy.world
        1·
        8 months ago

        I didn’t downvote, but probably because they’re a young USA-based search engine that requires login to use - which is usually a huge red flag for privacy, and their privacy of user searches is claimed but has never been verified by any kind of audit - another significant red flag.

        Why trust another for-profit Palo-Alto search company with your search data, assist their (potential) tracking by logging in, and pay for it in the process?

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
    1·
    8 months ago

    In the world of music production Reaper is an insanely good deal with a fantastically refreshing licensing system.

    • scytale@piefed.zipEnglish
      1·
      8 months ago

      I haven’t used Reaper in a while, but you can technically use it for free with full features by perpetually using it in trial version mode right?

      • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
        1·
        8 months ago

        Yes!

        The developer is pretty insistent on saying that Reaper is NOT free but also that stupid licensing schemes for other DAWs like the horrid iLok and others only punish people who actually buy the software, which is self-defeating since the pirates are unaffected by the ways in which the tool is made worse for people who actually bought the tool legally.

        I bought it simply because of how incredibly refreshing this was, free open source DAWs have gotten better since I did but there used to be barely any accessible, lowcost ones that were fully featured enough to be useful. Now there are open source options like Muse and LMMS but the thing about Reaper is it isn’t a budget/hobbyist DAW, in many ways it is an industry leading software so even with good FOSS DAWs out there Reaper is still well worth it.

        In specific, a lot of people use Reaper for live performance of software instruments as Reaper is an efficient beast at running complex chains of software effects efficiently… and yet a lot of people also use Reaper for mixing and production because it has such high quality audio processing capabilities. Reaper is a behemoth.

  • atopi@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    8 months ago

    do games count? If yes, Terraria

    i have over 375 hours on 2 games(Terraria and TModLoader) for the 5 USD i paid to get the game

    • aivoton@sopuli.xyz
      01·
      8 months ago

      I would’ve said Minecraft, but M$ unilaterally removed my account even though I bought it when Mojang still advertised it as keep forever.