The sentiments you share are very similar to my own. I’ve used DEVONthink since 2007 and think it’s amazing that Devon Technologies have only asked for 3 update payments since I first purchased back in 2007.
As to future updates at $99 per annum, that sounds fair, as long as the DT dev team continue to nurture an application that fits such a wide variety of use cases with the minimum of needless clutter.
My own use of DT is driven because of the internal Ai, that’s been at the heart of DT from its earliest days. I live in the “See Also”, “Tags” and “Graph” views, as well as the Concordance “Cloud” and “List” views. These are the secret sauce of DT for my particular use, as they help me find new connections and relationships between my plain text (Markdown) notes. I use a fastidiously maintained Tags’ taxonomy which I maintain in Obsidian, the twin component of my digital “second brain”, and strictly use DT to index my data. Tags management is handled in Obsidian alone.
The semi-REGEX and boolean search operators, in combination with the search prefixes, provide a more “technical” supporting role when I need to dig deep into my data/metadata within DT.
This slim subset of DT features is the core of the application I value most. It’s great to see modern LLM integration in DT4, but for now I see it more as a set of “gardening tools” that I can use to tend to my digital “knowledge garden” (to borrow a phrase from Tiago Forte).
In reality, I’m not using DT in the core way it was designed to be used, back at v1. But as the application has evolved, the DT team have always attempted to provide flexibility within the application (driven by user feedback) that doesn’t force a single user journey within the application. And they do this without intruding on the application’s core design strategy. And for that I’m willing to pay $99 per annum alone. Any new features that I find useful in future revisions will be the cherry on top.
Thank you for sharing your use case — I really appreciate hearing from someone with such a long and thoughtful history with DT.
Like you, I don’t object to paying for valuable software. And I agree that DT’s flexibility and core architecture are still unmatched in many ways.
That said, I think some of us — especially newer users — are simply looking for clearer expectations going forward. What are we getting for $99/year beyond just “preserving the experience”?
It’s not about rejecting the model, but about wanting to align cost with predictable value. A simple update roadmap, or a forward-facing vision, would go a long way toward helping users plan and feel confident about their long-term investment in DT.
I believe that kind of clarity would benefit everyone — both seasoned users and newcomers alike.
There are no current plans to change our policies in regards to making development plans or trajectories public. Such a thing is fraught with more issues than you’re imagining (and also the reason for our long-standing stance). Making such information public is interpreted as inviolable promises instead of simple estimates of direction by too many. And to the potential rebuttal of "Well, not everyone will…, that is true and those people aren’t vocal. The ones that misread things are often vocal, stirring up dissent (especially on other forums) over things they imagined or unreasonably expected. While people are welcome to complain about whatever, wherever, we certainly have no intention of providing “grist for the mill” as Pound once said.
We, including development, have clearly stated multiple times the development cycle is changing drastically, with more rapid-fire updates made throughout the year. Any announcements and deployment is up to their discretion and shouldn’t be tied to any public timeframe, estimated or not. Software development is far too dynamic an environment, especially with a team of our size.
On a related note: I would recommend (to everyone) far less speculation on the situation. It’s like saying “We are going to live in the forest now.” and everyone is coming up with their own scenario about what the forest will be like. Some will imagine butterflies and deer. Others imagine wolves and bears. Still others, snakes and spiders. Yet we have barely backed out of the driveway, let alone arrived at this forest, a place that may harbor any or all of those things or be nothing but sunshine and trees. For those who don’t want to go to the forest, we understand but also note, it’s where we are headed, not back to where we were (DT3). For those that do want to come along, we love the camaraderie and hope to enjoy the ride and getting there together.
I don’t see the issue with an unpublished roadmap. I realise and value them in applications that are at the beginning of their development trajectory. But far less so with mature products.
I’ll use a concrete example with reference to another of my essential planning tools. That’s the digital whiteboard application Curio by Zengobi. I have a long history using Curio, but since Curio moved to less monolithic releases, it’s suffered a little with feature creep. That’s not an issue in and of itself, but it has meant that there are periods where I’m happy with the features I’m currently using, so I don’t feel the need for another 12 months’ maintenance. But then 18 months down the line Zengobi add features that are important for the way I use Curio and I happily pay for another 12 months’ maintenance at that point.
It’s the best of both worlds, you pay for upgraded features when you need them, but unlike a subscription. You still own the application with the features that are important to your workflow if you decide not to pay for maintenance.
It also lets competitors know what you have planned!
You could buy it, and then not upgrade unless a macOS change forces you to upgrade to a newer version. I’m betting that will happen less than once every 5 years. It’s nearly 5 years since the 64 bit transition and that’s the last time I remember having any of my existing applications break because of a new OS version.
I for one, am embracing these changes.
I first loved DT3, but then found it became stagnant at a certain point. I ALMOST uninstalled it, but nostalgia held me back.
I have been trying every AI PKM I could find and none have suited me.
DT4 comes along and it is an amazing upgrade.
The pricing is fair in comparison to similar apps that EACH meet some of the roles that DT4 fulfills ($10-30 per month; $120-360 per year. That’s if you ONLY use 1 that meets all of your needs).
The introduction of automated AI is amazing. Even with all of the fancy bells and whistles turned on, Notion AI would cost 240, not provide auto summaries, and not access the web for searches. Findr is nice but lacks pdf capture, google gemini does not accept notes easily, Affine is cool but in alpha, Reflect is limited in its AI linking and requires a separate subscription for AI, Obsidian is too text heavy and bloated in my OPINION, Lazy (an app) is promising but going nowhere, Beloga.xyz went belly up after stealing a lot of money from “Lifetime Believers” and so on…
Public road maps are nice, butttttt… a responsive developer with a forum is MUCH better.
Again, I did not expect to be upgrading to DT4. However, it is meeting all of my needs in one product for less money. I am hoping that others check out other products and then provide judgment.
I really don’t mind subscriptions. I would rather not pay $200 up front for a product that I find is useless. $100 is still a big chunk of money, but much easier to swallow.
I don’t see this as a matter of greed, either. $40 a year ($200/5y) is hard for a team to stay supported. These are people with families. I hope the extra money is used to further build the product.
Thank you for the detailed explanations and continued engagement.
I now understand more clearly that DEVONtechnologies is taking a measured, stable approach in a rapidly shifting software environment — especially as the broader AI ecosystem continues to evolve in unpredictable directions. I respect the decision to focus on maintaining a reliable product for long-term users rather than chasing trends or overpromising future features.
Personally, I’m no longer looking for public roadmaps or major structural changes — at this point, I think DEVONthink is already a mature and highly capable platform. Like other tools I use (such as Hookmark or CleanShot X), I evaluate each update on whether it adds something meaningfully new to my workflow. If it does, I’m happy to support it again. If not, I continue using the existing version that already works well for my needs.
So I’ll just say this: no roadmap is needed. Just keep building features that are worth upgrading for. That alone will be the most compelling answer to all discussions.
I really appreciate your perspective, and I think you’ve articulated the “best of both worlds” model very well. I actually handle DEVONthink, Hookmark, and CleanShot X the same way — I continue using the versions that meet my needs, and only pay for updates when there’s a feature that adds clear value to my workflow.
I don’t mind paying — but like you, I prefer knowing what I’m paying for. I don’t necessarily expect a public roadmap, but some indication of direction (or even reflection on development focus) would help users like us decide when to re-engage.
Ultimately, I agree that maturity changes the expectations. With mature apps, it’s less about promises and more about timing and relevance. And when that moment comes, I’m always happy to support further development.
If the latest version has features you want, pay for it. If not, don’t.
It’s really that simple. The version you have will continue to work for as long as you want to use it (assuming you stay with a compatible version of Mac OS), so there’s no reason to pay for – or even care about – new features until they actually exist. At which point DT will describe them in their (generally excellent) release notes.
The “long term” price is exactly as much or as little as you want it to be.
Ultimately I derive enough value from DEVONthink to pay this price, but I think the way it’s being presented comes across a bit disingenuous.
It is a substantial price increase. I’ve kept up to date with my installation since 2006 and averaged about $17/year. This will be about 5.8× that to keep current, in line with the opening comment in this thread. I have had plenty of software companies in the last few years say something along the lines of “to be sustainable we felt we had to raise our prices.” I would prefer that to “we have not only updated the app itself, but also modernized the license model.” (Side note: as a consumer in the US, this is a stressful time to think about more price increases, as who knows what our mad king is going to do to our economy on any given day. Obviously this impacts you as a business too.)
It’s a subscription. It’s not a predatory Adobe-style rental, but it clearly fits the model: our access to updates is time-bound based on our purchase date, not tied to a version. JetBrains uses the same model and calls it a subscription. So does Tinderbox. It’s not that different from subscribing to a periodical or something like that — magazine editors don’t raid my house and confiscate back issues when I lapse.
Based on all the replies here I don’t think you’re aiming to be disingenuous, but I think the marketing copy could stand to be a little more straightforward.
I’m using an accounting software that gets updated every year. And every year I have to pay about 129€ (about 100 USD at the current rate) if I want to get the update. If I don’t pay, I still have the old version, and it keeps working.
In general, I upgrade every second year and thus get the updates of two consecutive versions. So, I pay 50 USD per year on average. You could do the same with DT. Or you could even decide to upgrade it only every sixth year, which would land you at the old price tag of 17USD a year.
Sure. But under the current model, that price has meant staying current. Under the new subscription model, staying current will be a multiple more expensive. Or, I can choose to ration my updates in response to the price increase, presumably watching the blog for news about features since I won’t be reading about them in the release notes of the updates I’m not getting, to determine when something of sufficient value has been added in.
Far better than the rental model, but there’s certainly friction down the path of not paying.
(Due and Agenda use an interesting model here where you can keep updating the base app while not subscribed, all features present up to your subscription end are available, and newly added features are gated off. It helps ensure that we don’t miss compatibility updates, and gives the devs a chance to put the new features in the release notes to entice lapsed subscribers. But this may not be as suited for DEVONthink where there is no free baseline product. Those are also two more examples, to add to JetBrains and Tinderbox, of products where “one year of updates, if you don’t keep paying you can keep using it with those features” is referred to as a subscription.)
In general, I’ve found that most decent developers make their release notes available publicly, so you don’t need to be using the current version to be able to access the current release notes.
Devon Technologies are no different, it’s just that you have to download the latest PDF version of their documentation, rather than accessing the release notes via the in-application Help documentation.
I’ll admit this is more opaque than it needs to be, and I have a preference for release notes being made available via the support section of the developer website in question - a good example of which is the release notes archive that Zengobi make available for Curio:
I’d say this makes more sense from a marketing perspective, too, as some people prefer to make their purchasing decisions based on detailed information rather than marketese laden promotional pages - I count myself in with that particular customer segment.
Well, only until the next major release. Which wasn’t every year (like Claris does it with FileMaker) but it was always clear that it would come and it would be paid. We just had very long release cycles in the past.
Sorry, Tinderbox does not call this model a ‘subscription’. They actually offer two separate ways of keeping up to date: Tinderbox: Buy Tinderbox Today
Upgrade – pay to bring the app up to date when you feel like it and get 12 months further updates. This is the model DT4 adopts.
Subscription – sign up to automatic annual updates, with the next 12 months included. For this you get a one-off $15 discount on the first year. This is more like the traditional rental subscription, though as you can come off the subscription at any point and lose nothing, it is still not as bad as the traditional rental model.
DT have hinted elsewhere that there may also be a similar scheme in the pipeline, but these are two different models and the DT’s current scheme is the former, not the latter.
From their “Update Subscriptions” page at Subscribe.html: “Tinderbox comes with a full year of free updates, and after that you can upgrade whenever you like – upgrades are currently $98 – and get the latest version plus another full year of free updates. Would you like your upgrade subscription to renew automatically?..” [Then sign up for the auto-renewing plan, etc.]
That sure reads to me like the upgrade includes a year’s subscription, but you can sign up for an auto-renewing subscription as well for a slight discount.
DEVONthink is also offering a discount for keeping your subscription current, even though the FAQ says otherwise at first, before reversing itself. “Do I have to pay more if I extend my license later?” says no, but then “What are the benefits of extending my license regularly?” points out that you pay less if you renew early / stay subscribed.
Sure, but I’m talking about the amortized price over 19 years of having paid for every update. (I actually included my DEVONthink To Go purchase in there too, bumping the number up a little. I wound up with a couple extra copies of DEVONthink from bundles, which I didn’t include here, but hopefully you made a few bucks from. My spare copy of v1.9.16 isn’t an upgrade candidate for v4 any more )
If you didn’t change the model but started releasing annual updates as $99 upgrades, that would also represent a price hike for existing customers (with the same argument that one could choose to skip some releases to save money, which may be a rational thing to do, and is a big advantage over the Adobe-style rental model, but had not been necessary until now unless the threshold of one’s price sensitivity was far lower).
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