5 ms·

GitKraken Pricing Clarification

21 points by petepete 10y ago

cyberferret 10y ago
I downloaded and signed up for Git Kraken about a year ago. Good tool, that I use from time to time alongside the command line for Git. I especially like their branch visualisation. I am a little concerned though, because I thought that I had a 'free for life' licence as per their original promotional campaign. Does this now mean that future upgrades will remove functionality or lock down the software if I don't upgrade to the Pro version? I am a one man software house (so I fit the first requirement for an 'always free version') but I have been in business for over 2 decades now, which negates the second part. If this is the case, then I have other choice but to move back to SourceTree for a free GUI client for Git. I am not that tied to Git Kraken that it precludes me from moving back to pure command line or SourceTree. There is also no 'lock in' for software that is basically a wrapper around a command line system that doesn't really add anything extra to the functionality.
- petepete 10y ago
  My understanding is that the terms and conditions you agreed to initially still stand, but if you upgrade you'll have to agree to a new set.
  - rout39574 10y ago
    Automatic updates are essentially routine now, to get "important security updates" if for no other reason. In that setting, I think your line of reasoning is nearly irrelevant. "Never upgrade again, and never be able to install on another machine" doesn't have much functional similarity to "Lifetime license for the software"
rout39574 10y ago
I feel particularly burned by the GitKraken price inversion, because I'd advocated it as a good free tool to help the windows-bound see git in an idiom they found natural. As a free tool it seemed a brilliant marketing ploy, a loss leader to their family of products, an opportunity to convince a potential customer of their design chops. It even made it worth loading their web page. (full-screen background animations? Really?) I feel baited, switched, and played. Oh, well.
- cbuq 10y ago
  I feel exactly the same way. I was really excited to see a free cross platform Git GUI. I was really excited to see an alternative to (the every release slower) SourceTree. I was evaluating it at work and liked it's design and ability to handle my 20+ repos. Then one day they say I can't use it for free anymore. Good thing I never actually advocated the rest of my team to switch... This gives me reason to distrust any future "free" projects for Axosoft
- gizmo 10y ago
  It's free for personal use and very inexpensive for commercial use. Comments like yours baffle me. I don't understand how either hobbyists or professionals are hurt by the current pricing. There is no lock-in or anything like that, you still have the option to go back to the command line interface. No harm done.
  - syntheticnature 10y ago
    There's a bit of this going on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_effect_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_effect_(psychology) -- this is presented as an effective loss. That stated, if someone was in the position where for work they can download any free tools they need, but ones needing paid licenses require hoops to be jumped through, I can see that being an issue.
  - rout39574 10y ago
    So, I work in a University environment, where software purchase of all sorts is tightly budget constrained. The difference between "free" and "gotta ask my Director for a budget line" is huge, especially for what is essentially a promotional acquisition. I was advocating it as a free window for the VC-unwashed into this strange and fabulous thing called 'Git'. When it became no-longer-free, I felt that my advocacy had been transmuted into shilling. My claim was turned into an untruth. I'm content to be judged oversensitive, and I wouldn't have brought it up, but I was happy to whine when the story came by. :)
- sansid346 10y ago
  Their home page is terrible. Full screen background video is over, you can barely read the text, and I personally can't stand any webpage that eats up that much of my CPU even in the background. The home page amuses me too because it's still emphasizing that they're "free", when that's clearly not going to be true for the vast majority of their users, I bet. I don't think this company has any clue at all what they're doing, they just want to make a quick buck.
brudgers 10y ago
I can't get upset about the company figuring out a viable pricing model and to me the effect of the change in terms on users is a byproduct of taking a dependency on Gitkraken versus the tradeoffs for a dependency on an alternative. From a business standpoint, I think the pricing model should probably just be to charge everyone. It avoids the moral hazard of monetizing the free binary blob using the Oracle JVM on Windows model, eliminates non-paying users, and the distraction of pursuing the free-sample dope peddler's model as a part of the pipeline. For a product like Gitkraken, the dope peddler model seems unlikely to generate a lot of good viable leads in the funnel. To convert a non-commercial user to a commercial user, the user has to switch to a commercial context and be in a position to strongly influence use and purchase decisions and be a bit evangelical about Gitkraken. To me, a commercial/non-commercial licensing model is a bit at odds with creating that level of good will. In other words, dual licensing closed source code along commercial/non-commercial lines seems to work against the psychological zeitgeist in the programming world.

21 points by petepete 10y ago

I downloaded and signed up for Git Kraken about a year ago. Good tool, that I use from time to time alongside the command line for Git. I especially like their branch visualisation. I am a little concerned though, because I thought that I had a 'free for life' licence as per their original promotional campaign. Does this now mean that future upgrades will remove functionality or lock down the software if I don't upgrade to the Pro version? I am a one man software house (so I fit the first requirement for an 'always free version') but I have been in business for over 2 decades now, which negates the second part. If this is the case, then I have other choice but to move back to SourceTree for a free GUI client for Git. I am not that tied to Git Kraken that it precludes me from moving back to pure command line or SourceTree. There is also no 'lock in' for software that is basically a wrapper around a command line system that doesn't really add anything extra to the functionality.

petepete 10y ago
My understanding is that the terms and conditions you agreed to initially still stand, but if you upgrade you'll have to agree to a new set.
- rout39574 10y ago
  Automatic updates are essentially routine now, to get "important security updates" if for no other reason. In that setting, I think your line of reasoning is nearly irrelevant. "Never upgrade again, and never be able to install on another machine" doesn't have much functional similarity to "Lifetime license for the software"

rout39574 10y ago

I feel particularly burned by the GitKraken price inversion, because I'd advocated it as a good free tool to help the windows-bound see git in an idiom they found natural. As a free tool it seemed a brilliant marketing ploy, a loss leader to their family of products, an opportunity to convince a potential customer of their design chops. It even made it worth loading their web page. (full-screen background animations? Really?) I feel baited, switched, and played. Oh, well.

cbuq 10y ago
I feel exactly the same way. I was really excited to see a free cross platform Git GUI. I was really excited to see an alternative to (the every release slower) SourceTree. I was evaluating it at work and liked it's design and ability to handle my 20+ repos. Then one day they say I can't use it for free anymore. Good thing I never actually advocated the rest of my team to switch... This gives me reason to distrust any future "free" projects for Axosoft
gizmo 10y ago
It's free for personal use and very inexpensive for commercial use. Comments like yours baffle me. I don't understand how either hobbyists or professionals are hurt by the current pricing. There is no lock-in or anything like that, you still have the option to go back to the command line interface. No harm done.
- syntheticnature 10y ago
  There's a bit of this going on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_effect_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_effect_(psychology) -- this is presented as an effective loss. That stated, if someone was in the position where for work they can download any free tools they need, but ones needing paid licenses require hoops to be jumped through, I can see that being an issue.
- rout39574 10y ago
  So, I work in a University environment, where software purchase of all sorts is tightly budget constrained. The difference between "free" and "gotta ask my Director for a budget line" is huge, especially for what is essentially a promotional acquisition. I was advocating it as a free window for the VC-unwashed into this strange and fabulous thing called 'Git'. When it became no-longer-free, I felt that my advocacy had been transmuted into shilling. My claim was turned into an untruth. I'm content to be judged oversensitive, and I wouldn't have brought it up, but I was happy to whine when the story came by. :)
sansid346 10y ago
Their home page is terrible. Full screen background video is over, you can barely read the text, and I personally can't stand any webpage that eats up that much of my CPU even in the background. The home page amuses me too because it's still emphasizing that they're "free", when that's clearly not going to be true for the vast majority of their users, I bet. I don't think this company has any clue at all what they're doing, they just want to make a quick buck.

brudgers 10y ago

I can't get upset about the company figuring out a viable pricing model and to me the effect of the change in terms on users is a byproduct of taking a dependency on Gitkraken versus the tradeoffs for a dependency on an alternative. From a business standpoint, I think the pricing model should probably just be to charge everyone. It avoids the moral hazard of monetizing the free binary blob using the Oracle JVM on Windows model, eliminates non-paying users, and the distraction of pursuing the free-sample dope peddler's model as a part of the pipeline. For a product like Gitkraken, the dope peddler model seems unlikely to generate a lot of good viable leads in the funnel. To convert a non-commercial user to a commercial user, the user has to switch to a commercial context and be in a position to strongly influence use and purchase decisions and be a bit evangelical about Gitkraken. To me, a commercial/non-commercial licensing model is a bit at odds with creating that level of good will. In other words, dual licensing closed source code along commercial/non-commercial lines seems to work against the psychological zeitgeist in the programming world.