I am guilty of ignoring font management on my computers for quite some time now. That leads to frequent issues, fewer font options and therefore lower creativity. Admittedly I find myself going with Montserrat nine out of teen times. Montserrat is a Google font designed by Julieta Ulanovsky, Sol Matas, Juan Pablo del Peral, Jacques Le Bailly – thank guys your work is awesome.
Well font management have never been my favorite, but I have invested both time and money into it over the years. From my design school I learned to manage fonts using FontExplorer, but when I finished school and started as a freelancer I to choose on my own. At the time I found Suitcase Fusion from Extensis to be a good match.
In 2016, I brought Suitcase Fusion 7 for $119.95 and in 2018 I went for an upgrade to version 8 of Suitcase Fusion, price $59.95
Bad news for me: Suitcase Fusion 8 is retired
As of December 3, 2019, Suitcase Fusion 8 is no longer eligible for Support. Information about Suitcase Fusion on this page is for reference purposes only and does not imply the availability of ongoing support.
https://www.extensis.com/support/suitcase-fusion-8/
The message above is displayed on Extensis website along with a wake massage trying to convince me to upgrade to their new subscription model. Subscription – thanks but no thanks.
Suitcase Fusion subscription is not for me
I am not a big fan of subscriptions, I think a few is okay, but if you just subscribe to all the tools you come across and might find handy from time to time, you will soon find yourself withe monthly recurring payments way above the value that they can give you in return. I have broken an 18-year-old relationship with Adobe. It’s working out fine, and I have been clean for over a year now, only using Figma (free), Affinity (one time payment), Visual Studio (free) and Google Docs (free). I always aim to stay cost-efficient and flexible. The software companies have not switched to the subscription model to please their customers, let’s all agree on that.
Note that the Suitcase Fusion Subscription have a fair price in my opinion, $84.00 per year, billed annually – not that bad, but it all adds up, and therefore I’m out. Remember that if you want to use it after that first year has passed the price is suddenly doubled.
So what options are there if you want to avoid the subscription model?
Top 5 options when choosing font software
Over the years I have followed the niche market for font software.
Typeface 2
FontBase
Suitcase Fusion
FontExplorer
Comparison
A simple comparison to give you a better overview.
| FontExplorer® X Pro | 50% | ||||
| Extensis Suitcase Fusion | |||||
| FontBase | |||||
| RightFont | |||||
| Typeface |
Font Software, FontBase is the best free option
I want to use my font management software where ever I want when I want and how I want. By that I mean that I have multiple PC’s running macOS and Windows and I consider expanding into Linux for desktop use as well. I do most of my design work on Mac
FantBase pricing options are wired
The ‘Forever’ option with a one time payment is just crazy expensive when compared to the yearly. You are asked to pay $180 up front! That is equivalent to paying for the yearly plan for more than 6 years and 2 months. I don’t want a subscription, but when the lifetime option is so expensive I just end up going withe to free version which is not bad at all.