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Alibre licensing

dalbert

Member
I've been trying to decide whether to purchase AD Expert or an F360 subscription. Both AD and F360 are excellent CAD packages; Alibre is offering some great Black Friday pricing; I really hate software rental and want to buy AD, but when I took a harder look at Alibre licensing, I just couldn't justify it due to Alibre's node-locked license model. Here's why, and Alibre, I hope you'll consider this because you have a great product except for the licensing model:

1. Node locked licenses are soooo 1990s; this is 2021 and working from home is no longer optional. Like most, I routinely do work in the office that I want/need to be able to continue at home. Alibre allows you to move your license manually (slightly klunky), but much more importantly, you can only do this while the product is under maintenance. Your licensing pages neglect this critical detail. This is super important because it means that annual maintenance is not optional, it's a necessity given how most folks work these days.

Admin edit - you do not need to have an active maintenence contract to move licenses around. Maintenence is fully optional.

2. Even if working from home were not an issue, a node-locked license means I would need to pay maintenance if I wanted to upgrade my computer (something I expect to do every 3-6 years). This is less critical than the working from home issue because maintenance might not be required *every* year, but it still undermines the own-vs-subscribe advantage.

Admin edit - you do not need an active maintenance plan to relicense software on any machine, including a new one.


3. The competition, from my perspective, is Fusion. F360 offers features that are competitive with AD Expert and also includes CAM and Eagle electronics CAD. The annual maintenance cost ALONE of AD Expert is comparable to the annual subscription cost of F360 (with a 3-year subscription).

So even though I hate software rental, and am not a fan of Autodesk, Alibre's licensing model is sufficiently restrictive that it undermines AD's main differentiator: own vs. rent. I'd love to buy AD Expert, but I can't do that under your current licensing model. If I could buy it and then pay maintenance only when I needed/wanted new features, that would be great.

Admin edit - you can do this already.

I hope you'll consider adopting permanent floating licenses as your standard license model...that would go a long way towards making Alibre's own vs. rent argument compelling. The node locked license is simply too restrictive in 2021.

Admin edit - we also have floating licenses available, not that you need it for what you are asking above. Contact sales if you would like to inquire about them. They aren't the default because the internet requirement to open the software on floating licenses isn't something most people want.
 
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Ken226

Alibre Super User
I switch between computers every day, as recently as an hour ago. Laptop at work and desktop PC at home. I'm not under "maintenance". Unless I'm mistaken, "maintenance" is only needed to release the licence via the website, and not needed to release it from within the software itself.





I keep the license key on a word doc on each computer.

I just click the "utilities tab, then "release license", on my work laptop, before I go home.

When I'm home, I copy/paste the license key and activate it on the PC. It takes a couple seconds.

Release the license from the PC before going back to work, and copy/paste activate on the laptop in the morning. Only thing is, you need an internet connection to release/activate between computers.

For me, when I'm away from wifi, I use my phone as a hotspot to activate the software on my laptop. I release and activate my license at least twice a day, moving between locations.

They can also provide an offline activation option for anyone who doesn't have an internet connection, but it hasn't been an issue for me.

I came to Alibre Design Pro after over 10 years using Inventor Pro. While Alibre's 2d sketch/design tools are a little lacking compared to Inventor, considering it's price, it's a much better buy. I've even found a few advantages over Inventor.

Customizing drawing templates and title blocks are a snap. The "insert/create custom symbol" tool makes creating, importing and scaling logos so easy.
 
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dalbert

Member
I switch between computers every day, as recently as an hour ago. Laptop at work and desktop PC at home. I'm not under "maintenance". Unless I'm mistaken, "maintenance" is only needed to release the licence via the website, and not needed to release it from within the software itself.





I keep the license key on a word doc on each computer.

I just click the "utilities tab, then "release license", on my work laptop, before I go home.

When I'm home, I copy/paste the license key and activate it on the PC. It takes a couple seconds.

Release the license from the PC before going back to work, and copy/paste activate on the laptop in the morning. Only thing is, you need an internet connection to release/activate between computers.

For me, when I'm away from wifi, I use my phone as a hotspot to activate the software on my laptop. I release and activate my license at least twice a day, moving between locations.

They can also provide an offline activation option for anyone who doesn't have an internet connection, but it hasn't been an issue for me.

I came to Alibre Design Pro after over 10 years using Inventor Pro. While Alibre's 2d sketch/design tools are a little lacking compared to Inventor, considering it's price, it's a much better buy. I've even found a few advantages over Inventor.

Customizing drawing templates and title blocks are a snap. The "insert/create custom symbol" tool makes creating, importing and scaling logos so easy.
@Ken226 Is your AD under maintenance? Do you know if you can un-license and re-license from the application once it is not under maintenance?
My maintenance expires tomorrow (11/28) so, if I'm not locked out of the forum at that point, I'll try it and post the results here.

If it can be done, that's certainly better than being permanently node locked, but even if it is possible it would still be a significant hardship to have to remember to un-license each time you leave home/work so that you can re-license and have access at the other location. I stand by my suggestion that a floating license is the only reasonable sort for this decade; Alibre already supports floating licenses (they call them "concurrent licenses"), and to be competitive with online offerings like F360, Alibre would do well to drop the node-locked license; I suspect they upsell very few concurrent licenses relative to the business they lose to F360 by making their standard products inconvenient to use. Customers are willing to pay for added features, but not to have archaic limitations removed, and in 2021, a node locked license is an unnecessary and archaic limitation.
 

DavidJ

Administrator
Staff member
YES - you can move activations without maintenance, it is only the on-line portal for de-activation that requires maintenance. No you won't be locked out of the forum either - the forum is totally separate from your Alibre Sales account.

After maintenance has expired, Alibre Support can and will release an activation remotely should a computer die.

There are some disadvantages to the concurrent (enhanced mobility) licence which is why it is not the standard offering. It requires continuous internet access to function, even brief connectivity drops will impact the ability to use the software - so it doesn't suit everyone. Problematic whilst travelling for example.
 

Ken226

Alibre Super User
@Ken226 Is your AD under maintenance? Do you know if you can un-license and re-license from the application once it is not under maintenance?

No. I'm not under maintenance. As @DavidJ said, you can absolutely release the licence from one computer, then reactivate in on another without maintenance.


Each software has checks in it's pros column, and in it's against column. Alibre ended up with more in the pro's column than Fusion, even with Fusion being the clear winner in the CAM category.

I have a Fusion hobby license as well as my Alibre license. I can go back and forth between the two at will, but find myself using Alibre alot more often than Fusion.

For me, the permanent license and ability to keep my designs off the cloud, are more important that the minor annoyance of having to release the license.

I use CamBam alongside Alibre, and despite the learning curve, due to the available plugins, find it quite capable.


Once I got used to doing it as a matter of habit, I lost any fear of forgetting to release the license.
 
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dalbert

Member
Thanks @Ken226 and @DavidJ, that's very helpful; I was dismayed when I saw the maintenance requirement for re-licensing on the website and assumed the same was true for use through the software; I'm glad to hear that's not the case! In fact, that was enough to get me to pull the trigger and buy Alibre Expert, taking advantage of the Black Friday pricing. Knowing that even without maintenance, I will retain access to the forums and be able to move the license made the difference.

I still think Alibre should move to floating licenses. Node locked licenses create an unnecessary hardship and reduce AD's attractiveness relative to cloud solutions like F360 and OnShape where you can easily move between work, home, and laptop (as everyone does in 2021). I understand Alibre has a business to run, and that up-selling enhancements (updates), CAM, simulation/FEA, and even some export formats are all reasonable ways to generate revenue from existing customers. However, ease of licensing is not a "feature"; pointless licensing difficulty just makes AD look less competent than its competitors and less friendly to its customers. I hope they'll consider changing that.
 
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simonb65

Alibre Super User
I still think Alibre should move to floating licenses. Node locked licenses create an unnecessary hardship and reduce AD's attractiveness relative to cloud solutions like F360 and OnShape where you can easily move between work, home, and laptop (as everyone does in 2021).
Many businesses don't like cloud based data or licensing ... it's not considered secure or safe and the potential loss of use or downtime due to network outages is very costly and real. You'll never get a perfect one size fits all licencing model, but Alibre has a few good mechanisms to suit most scenarios.

A pro/expert license used to come with the ability to install on up to 3 machines (i.e. your work pc, home pc and laptop). This has been removed over the years, but if you have a chat directly with support, I'm sure they will sort out something to help your workflow.
 

dalbert

Member
Thank you @simonb65, the old license sounds like a good compromise: most users would be well covered by 2-3 machines: work, home, laptop.

My perspective on licensing/purchase/subscription is informed by my experience with CadSoft Eagle (an electronics CAD package). I bought a 3-user professional license many years ago and upgraded it every few years when features I wanted were added. In 2016, Autodesk bought CadSoft and changed Eagle to a subscription model, integrating it with F360. The Eagle product I'd licensed was mature so I stayed at that version rather than change to a subscription model. Over the 5 years AutoDesk has owned Eagle, I have not needed any of the changes they've made (some of which made it significantly slower and more difficult to use). The version of Eagle that I purchased before Autodesk's acquisition continues to serve me well; I regularly bounce between working at the office, home, and my laptop when in the lab or at a client site...the license is never an issue. That's really what I hope for with Alibre.

The underlying problem with subscription (or forced maintenance) is that the customer is forced to pay for updates whether they want them or not and there is no market pressure for the company to do updates that serve *existing* customers (they focus on flashy new features that help with sales while ignoring existing customers who are simply stuck). This is what attracts me to Alibre: I can buy it once and, if it is truly a mature product, upgrade when there are features that I deem necessary...that's a win for everyone: revenue stream for Alibre, features that real users want. I don't mind up-sells for CAM and FEA; the single node-locked license is my only real problem. I'll follow your suggestion and reach out to support to see what they can do; you're right that a 3-node, single-user license would probably cover most modern use-cases; I wonder why they dropped that.
 

Max

Administrator
Staff member
Our maintenance is fully optional and has no effect on your ability to licence the software.

What it does add is the ability to force the delicensing of a machine using an online portal. That's useful for example if you left you work computer open and want to use it at home. But you can always call or email us and we can do it for you if you are not on maintenance.
 

NateLiquidGravity

Alibre Super User
If I remember correctly the original 3 installs license was phased out when new license types/system was added, but users had the option at the time to use the new release version with the new licensing or stay on the old version (though I sure those servers are unavailable now as that was years ago, possibly before the merger and definitely before the subsequent buyout by employees). Additionally I think many users were compensated with a bump in feature level like Pro to Expert.

I'm on maintenance and often use the online licensing portal as I'm forgetful about "ejecting" the license before I leave my PC. Technically I can install on as many machines as I want now - I just have to use the site to "eject" the last machine. The only downside is Firefox doesn't let me save the info in the form, so I do copy and paste.
 

dalbert

Member
Thanks again to all who have replied here. I've purchased AD Expert and will be working on learning it.

I'm super-impressed with Alibre support; @DavidJ responded immediately to a support query on a holiday weekend Sunday! And @Max himself responded in this forum a short while later...amazing...I'd bet good money that would never happen at AutoDesk. It's clear that Alibre is very serious about their customers and product; I hope they will consider some possible enhancements to make modern workflows (working regularly from both home or office) easier:

1. Make the online licensing portal available without requiring maintenance, perhaps for a one-time fee. It's not clear to me why a single feature like that should require a substantial recurring charge.

2. Modify the mobility license to allow a grace period (only when internet is down) that is long enough to make most outages transparent. This would reduce the risk of getting temporarily locked out of your work and also enable occasional portable use (e.g. interactive laptop session at a customer site).

Either way, I look forward to learning Alibre and appreciate the great staff and community support!
 
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BrianC

Member
i purchased 2 days ago . but considering returning cause of the penilty fee that's charged if maintenance is expired . that alone to me makes the software still alot like rental . your saying that if i dont pay each year then your going to come after me with extra fees to punish me .... scary .


Maintenance Policies
Software maintenance is optional and gives you access to a year of product updates as well as customer support. If you decide to purchase yearly maintenance when you do not currently have it, a $200 surcharge will be added.
 

Ken226

Alibre Super User
Noone likes paying more for something, but it's basically a 200$ a year discount for keeping active maintenance.

If they priced it at 550$ per year, and offered a 200$ discount at each renewal for keeping it continuously active, it might come off as being less abrasive.

Their biggest competitor is Fusion 360, which is 495$ per year, complete with updates and excellent CAM.

I think Alibre would do well to keep their overall cost, licence + maintenance, competitive with Fusion. I've mentioned Alibre a few times over at the hobby machinist forum, where Fusion dominates. Basically, they ain't having no part of it. Atom's sketch tools and drawing functionality is too limited to be useful, so comparison starts with design pro.

I guess the question is: Would Alibre's loss of revenue from a more competitive license price + maintenance fee, be made up for by the increase in users?


The common comparison is Alibre design Pro @900$ up front + 350$ per year + a standalone CAM program, vs Fusion 360 for 495$ per year.

The 145$ additional annual price for fusion will take 6 years to add-up to the up front cost of the Alibre license. And that doesn't take CAM into account. I use CamBam, Estlecam, and the Fusion Hobby license just for CAM. 150$ for CamBam and 60$ for Estlecam.

Personally I like Alibre better than Fusion, but I can easily see why Fusion has such a big following.

Atom is just way too limited compared to Fusion for any kind of valid comparison.

I love Alibre Design Pro, and give it good reviews, for example in post#45 of this thread:

But, it it's tough to compete with Fusion when all the features vs costs are considered. I would love to see Alibre come up with something that could beat Fusions feature set, at a competitive price.




Alibre Design Pro's 2d drawing module and assembly module is fantastic in my opinion. Those two modules are each superior to Inventor or Fusions versions, in my opinion. I'll be keeping Alibre for those reasons alone.

My plan is to spring for maintenance every few years, when there is a new software version with enough upgraded features to justify an annual maintenance fee (+penalty), that's higher than the entire annual price of Fusion.
 
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dalbert

Member
i purchased 2 days ago . but considering returning cause of the penilty fee that's charged if maintenance is expired . that alone to me makes the software still alot like rental . your saying that if i dont pay each year then your going to come after me with extra fees to punish me .... scary .
@BrianC I recently purchased AD Expert and so far, I am happy with the decision. Here's why:

* Alibre support is amazing. I too had concerns about licensing, reached out to Alibre, and found their team was unbelievably responsive (even on a Sunday on a holiday weekend). I've never seen support like that from any other software vendor.

* Do you really *need* annual maintenance? Alibre is mature software; you can buy it once and use it indefinitely. If an update eventually comes along that you simply can't resist, then you'll decide whether that extra $200 is worth it, but in the interim you will have avoided paying "subscription fees" for many years. For expert users who depend on Alibre Design daily and will leverage every new feature, maintenance makes perfect sense: a few hundred dollars a year is nothing compared to their increased productivity. OTOH, if you do mechanical CAD infrequently or it's not your primary work, you might be fine with the product as it currently is and not need to upgrade for many years.

* The ability to own the software outright rather than renting it is hugely appealing for me. Here's why: I do a lot of electronics CAD; I purchased Eagle from CadSoft many years ago when they followed a model very similar to Alibre: purchase and then optionally pay maintenance for regular updates (or a small penalty to update if you don't). I upgraded only once in the many years I've owned it. Subsequently, AutoDesk bought Eagle and changed it to a subscription-only model. Eventually, I had to purchase a subscription because one of my customers was using the latest version and I needed to be sure I was compatible. However I am *much* happier with my older Eagle purchase and that is still the version that I use daily. In the 5+ years AutoDesk has owned Eagle, they made no changes that I cared about, but in many ways, degraded the product.

There's no denying that F360 is an excellent product, but there are several problems with the subscription model: 1) you're locked into paying for it forever and there's no guarantee the price will stay the same. If you stop paying, you lose the ability to work on your prior designs. 2) the vendor is under no pressure to make improvements that existing customers care about...they put all their effort into adding glitzy features that help bring new customers in. Existing customers are stuck. By contrast, with the purchase model, you choose whether an upgrade is worth the price...the fact that you have a choice is what keeps Alibre focused on adding features that matter to existing customers, not just new ones. To me, that's a win.

Good luck with whatever you decide.
 

BrianC

Member
no mater pricing with extra 200$ and without ability to do so many things that fusion does still makes it just as high per year .
there is no way you can go a couple years without updating . if you do between windows updates and video card driver
updates something is bound to break or not function . owning a buggy piece of software is not owning much .
so only way to avoid is keep chunking out the $

Nice to have support . but if you have a good hobbyist following then there would be many many more videos
and how too on youtube and the likes therefore they would not need to support the hobbyist sector as much .

but by beating them down $ after $ ( the American way ) ( the other cad company's do it ) we do not get
the large audience of home user to support each other .

i hear it over and over . " business say we are competitive with other business doing same thing "
this just means that if everyone else is jumping off a roof your saying heck we will too.

just cause your competitive dont mean its right .

good luck guys .
i wish you well .

love the software .
but with inflation the 200$ punishment is just killing the joy .
 

simonb65

Alibre Super User
* Alibre support is amazing. I too had concerns about licensing, reached out to Alibre, and found their team was unbelievably responsive (even on a Sunday on a holiday weekend). I've never seen support like that from any other software vendor.
The Alibre presence on the forum is excellent. However, bug fixes and reported issues are sometimes never resolved or take years (or many major versions) to address! Just look at the forum posts from long standing users to see this.

I have a £70/year maintenance on a PCB editing software package (£1,200 for the software) from Number One Systems and their support is ... report a bug today and tomorrow or the following day you get a software patch that fixes the issue. That patch is then on general release in the next monthly bug fix cycle. Just had 3 issues fixed last week with less than 24 hours turnaround. These are software fixes, not workaround suggestions. Now that's responsive support!

Not a big fan of the Alibre 'maintenance' plan, I'd rather pay an upgrade plan on each major release with free regular interim bug fixes as you don't feel like you get a lot for the annual maintenance. At the current pace of major 'new' features and bug fixes, I'm not jumping up and down with excitement to renew my maintenance every year ... sad, but true.
 

BrianC

Member
you guys do know that Alibre Design Pro is never 999$ regular price .. its always 7xx$
you can check the wayback machine .

in may it was 749$ they always have a sale going . so the reg price is just a marketing tactic .

that means your paying almost full price if you wait every 2 years to upgrade.

i say you dont own nothing . your still paying .

no discounts even though they make it appear so .

they told me and i quote :
NASA, US Airforce, US Army, White Sands Missile Range - they are some of our larger customers

a hobbyist user should never have to pay same price as those guys .
that is crazy ... all these company's should be giving student pricing to
home users . we are not making a dime with our use of the software . ( some may )
but im not making any space ships or jet fighters .
 

dalbert

Member
@BrianC I agree with you that many prosumers and light business users will be reluctant to pay $465 annually or $665 periodically for updates, particularly if the main value of those updates is bug fixes. For a heavy business user, that level of maintenance is no problem and an easy decision. Respectfully, I disagree that product updates must be necessary every couple of years. As I mentioned, I am still using the Eagle CAD version that I last upgraded 7 years ago when I was running Windows 7 and it continues to work great on Windows 11.

@simonb65 I hadn't heard of Easy-PC before (I'm an old Eagle user); their development team sounds impressive. I am new to AD and at this point can only hope that their development team's commitment matches their impressive support team (and that the software I just purchased isn't too buggy).

I expect the folks at Alibre have thought long and hard about costs and pricing. Enhancing and maintaining products, even bug fixes, costs money (good developers don't work cheap), so it's not just reasonable to charge for maintenance, it's necessary; the only alternative is subscription. However, it seems that there are a few things Alibre could do to make their offerings more enticing:

1) It's common to include bug fixes for the first year after purchase; people are pissed if they buy a buggy product and then have to pay extra for it to be fixed. In general, customers don't like paying for bug fixes. If their SCM process is good, Alibre should be able to make bug fixes on multiple release branches fairly easily so that customers can get bug fixes without also getting the latest release. Perhaps they could consider separate maintenance and upgrade pricing.

2) I suspect Atom3D is a blessing and a curse: it likely generates just enough sales and maintenance revenue from hobby users drawn by the low price that they are unwilling to give it up. However, it seems like a path to a slow death because few hobby users will ever pay for the higher versions, and their market share will inevitably decline as hobby users flock to the free and less limited packages from F360 and OnShape. Even worse, Atom3D prevents Alibre from attacking the educational markets that are critical to prime the pump for future business sales. Very few educators would consider Atom3D when they could have their students learn full featured products for free. Hobby and educational users provide the ancillary benefit (as demonstrated by F360) of generating enthusiasm in the market and loads of free training materials. Virtually all of their competitors have found a solution here; I hope Alibre does too.

* As you've noted Brian, their maintenance pricing is an issue for prosumers and small businesses that are not heavy users. Folks who are willing to spend $1400-1900 to purchase a quality product, would doubtless feel comfortable paying $100-150 annually for maintenance (that would be a no-brainer for me), but $465 annually or $665 periodically is a much more difficult decision for anyone except businesses making regular use of the product. The annual maintenance in particular is a tough sell against an F360 subscription.

I suspect Alibre management has considered all of this and has made the decision to focus on small-to-medium businesses that are heavy users and on larger businesses that can't tolerate subscriptions. Like you, as a lighter user, I hope they'll find maintenance solutions that work for us too.
 

bigseb

Alibre Super User
... The annual maintenance in particular is a tough sell against an F360 subscription.
Stop paying that F360 subscription and kiss your files bye bye. Happened to a colleague recently. That alone makes Alibre's maintenance seem like pittance.
 

bigseb

Alibre Super User
And as far as capabilities go consider this: Atom + Moi. For the price of around a year's subscription to F360 you get a two softwares that combined do just about all you want. No CAM but Alibre Workshop should fill that gap. No maintenance/subscription required either and you keep your files. And you won't get better service than from Max, Jonathan and the rest of the Alibre crowd.
 
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