Plain Text. Paper, Less.

Plain Text. Paper, Less.

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Plain Text. Paper, Less.
Plain Text. Paper, Less.
These 7 Setapp Tools Alone Make the Subscription Worth It
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These 7 Setapp Tools Alone Make the Subscription Worth It

Some have free alternatives, but free isn't always better

Nov 18, 2022
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Plain Text. Paper, Less.
Plain Text. Paper, Less.
These 7 Setapp Tools Alone Make the Subscription Worth It
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Girl playing in a playground
Photo by Carrie Zimmer on Scopio. Used under license.

What is Setapp, and why would any self-respecting, open source supporter want to use it? Especially one prone to shiny app induced procrastination?

Setapp is one monthly subscription for 200+ Mac apps of varying usefulness and quality. This open source supporter/shiny app sucker uses it because seven of them on their own are enough to have the subscription make financial sense. The rest are nice-to-haves that feed my appetite for new toys, and are, quite often, surprisingly useful.

It took two years, several lists, and a cost/benefit analysis spreadsheet for me to finally front up the cash for Setapp. When you look at what made my list of top apps, bear in mind that I’m a designer, writer, and plain text enthusiast who likes to frolic in productivity playgrounds.

The Top 7

These seven tools would cost me nearly $190 on their own, without considering those in the following section. A Setapp subscription at the time of writing is $9.99 a month for a single user, or $12.49 a month to add an iOS device.

💰 = I’ve bought or subscribed to this app in the past

1. Hookmark 💰 — Links files, webpages, and PDFs

Standalone price: $29.99 (Standard)/$69.99 (Pro) for 12 months of updates 
I’m officially in love with Hookmark! Here’s 7 minutes on why. 
In short, Hookmark lets me use a plain text app like Obsidian as a project launcher. I can open documents in any app right from my project page, and can create shareable, non-brittle links to specific text or images in long, boring PDF documents.

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