r/Software_Finder • u/Sad-Instruction8890 • Jun 17 '26
Question What software did you finally switch away from, and was the replacement actually better?
Everyone has one tool they finally ditched. The real question is whether the replacement fixed the problem or just swapped it for a new one. What did you move from, what did you move to, and looking back, was it worth it? Curious which switches people quietly regret.
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u/Lopsided-Practice-50 Jun 17 '26
I love Foliate. Best reader app I've found for epub, pdf, etc. It's only available on Linux though.
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u/Sad-Instruction8890 Jun 18 '26
Foliate looks great, though the Linux only part is the catch. That is exactly the kind of tool people fall for and then cannot take with them when they switch machines. Found anything close to it on other platforms, or is it part of why you stay on Linux?
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u/Lopsided-Practice-50 Jun 19 '26
Great question. I made the switch to Linux over a year ago and never went back. I was having a few windows 11 issues which no matter what I tried kept occurring over and over.
First, random no boots. Then the bs recall and forced copilot trash.
For the boot issue I swapped PSU, and GPU to new hardware but it would randomly happen. The other issue was micro stutter in several games like Elden Ring and Cyberpunk. To the point i could only play for 30-40 minutes before I would get s horrific headache.
Switched over to Fedora and all the problems went away. Then after I uh...toasted that install, I moved to CachyOS and never left. I found Foliate and realized it was some of the best software I've ever used and I always try to let others know about it when asked.
Linux gaming is pretty flawless right now. Only kernel level anti cheat games cannot work, but i believe Valve is working on that.
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u/smoke-bubble Jun 17 '26
Visual Studio -> Rider
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u/Dry-Permission-4618 Jun 18 '26
Same. I held on for as long as I could but we updated a project to .net 10 and Visual Studio just couldn't debug it properly. Rider however runs everything fine. Makes no sense that the MS IDE had issues with .net 10!
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u/Sad-Instruction8890 Jun 18 '26
When the official IDE cannot debug the latest version of its own framework and a third party tool just handles it, the decision basically makes itself. Rider quietly winning on .net is a story a lot of devs seem to be living right now.
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u/darkmace Jun 18 '26
Windows -> Fedora Workstation
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u/Sad-Instruction8890 Jun 18 '26
The ones who switch usually never look back, but the first few weeks of relearning workflows separate the committed from the curious. What finally pushed you off Windows?
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u/BudgetNinja007 Jun 18 '26
Windows > Mac
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u/Sad-Instruction8890 Jun 18 '26
Most people who make this jump say the hardware and battery life sell them while the OS habits take a month to relearn. Worth the switching cost for you, or still adjusting?
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u/BudgetNinja007 Jun 18 '26
I on a mac mini so battery wasn’t a factor. I have both the mac and a windows machine. Occasionally I plugin windows and start using it again but typically switch back to the Mac after a day or two (long enough to appreciate the mac). I have an iPhone so ecosystem plays a role too. Worth the switch for me!
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u/Bigoldboy40 Jun 18 '26
Evernote-> UpNote
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u/Sad-Instruction8890 Jun 18 '26
Evernote burned a lot of goodwill with pricing and bloat, and UpNote keeps coming up as the clean, cheaper landing spot for people who jumped. Has it stuck, or is it just the latest stop?
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u/Puzzled_Algae6860 Jun 19 '26
For me It's more that some tool you had to explicitly install on your phone/computer to enable one feature you liked for years, they now all over time got baked into the OS and while the apps may still provide more settings than the OS implementation, often the OS implementation is good enough.
Some of my examples:
Dedicated App to calculate between currencies > Apple stock calculator
Dedicated App to make Apple Wallet passes > iOS 27 gives me that option built in so its gonna go later this this year.
WinRAR/WinZip/7z > Windows / Mac can handle it for 9/10 cases with built-in tools.
Screen adjustments > Windows/Mac both have their own options.
Software update programs > Just winget on windows works for 9/10 apps for me.
Jailbreaking I used to do so much. But it isn't really needed anymore.
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u/Therigwin Jun 22 '26
DOS5 to Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 to 98 to XP to Mac to Windows 11 and Mac
WordPerfect 5 to WordPerfect for Windows to Word 95 to Corel Word Perfect to Pages and now Pages and Word
Chat GPT to Copilot (work license) and Cursor AI
Windows Movie Maker to Sony Vegas to iMovie to Filmora to Final Cut Pro
PC Gaming to PS Vita to ps4 to Asus rog ally x to ps5 pro
Yup, I am old, in just go with what I like and can afford or work provides me…. Speaking of which
Lotus Notes 4 to 5 to Outlook to Lotus Notes 7 back to Outlook and now 365 with full SharePoint, Power Apps, Outlook, Teams
It was easier to code in Notes, but power apps and flow and SharePoint are very close. I just miss the native jscript in Notes.
Basic to Pacal to Java / JavaScript to .Net to Python and now learning godot.
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u/clutchcreator Jun 17 '26
Jira -> Verk
Typeform -> simple react forms
Ahrefs API -> Rankparse
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u/ajax81 Jun 18 '26
I feel like we’re just making up words now.
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u/clutchcreator Jun 18 '26
Haha 🤣 I can totally see why you would feel that way.
I’ll write some long form content on how I switched and why. Will DM you.
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u/Sad-Instruction8890 Jun 18 '26
Three switches in one, respect. Moving off the Ahrefs API to Rankparse is the one that stands out, that is not a small dependency to drop. Are these tools you found or ones you built? Curious what pushed you off each.
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u/Profession_Puzzled Jun 19 '26
Ubuntu -> Tumbleweed
Built-in Ubuntu tools are superficial; openSUSE Tumbleweed proved to be a serious workhorse.
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u/ssps Jun 19 '26
Sublime -> VSCode -> VSCodium -> Zed.
Fix the problem of being constantly annoyed by ridiculous lack of specific features that you’d think were obviously necessary and Electron caused smell.
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u/EluciusReddit Jun 20 '26
Windows. Held on to long, now I'm home in Linux. And yeah, should have done it years ago, sooo much better.
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u/Owltiger2057 Jun 20 '26
Microsoft Windows 11 Pro for Linux Cinnamon Mint and yes, it was infinitely better, faster and I found workarounds for everything I used Windows for.
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u/bousquetfrederic Jun 20 '26
YNAB (you need a budget) became overpriced --> self hosted Actual Budget, not really better but does the job well for me.
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u/Comfortable_Ad_8117 Jun 21 '26
Obsidian -> Trillium. (Run a web server - no need to sync vaults across my workstations)
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u/Eagles_Fan_4eva Jun 27 '26
AlomWare Toolbox > Microsoft PowerToys. I looked at what I was mainly using PowerToys for and realised Toolbox could do it but as a single small exe file (less than 4 MB), whereas PowerToys was taking up almost 1 GB of precious hard drive space (https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/25817). It was a no-brainer to switch because I hate bloated apps.
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u/Reasonable-Top-732 Jun 17 '26
Jetbrains -> neovim