topic Re: Global libraries: are they going to be pay-per-use? in Licensing

Global libraries: are they going to be pay-per-use?

_c_ — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:43:32 GMT

Does the concept of global libraries open the door also here to pay-per-use?

It seems that Nemetschek is heading in this direction:

In Solibri, developers now have to pay for the most expensive subscription to develop extensions, and terminal automation (Autorun) is pay-per-use. There is no more Anywhere (the gratis version). This is actually a downgrade from the previous version.
In Vectorworks, developers now also have to pay a licence for each language (!) to develop, and it is not possible even to run extensions that have been developed in the past for personal use, the application quits stating something along the line: denounce this dangerous third-party product (!!!).

It seems that Nemetschek is positioning itself as a store where you have to pay a substantial annual subscription fee just be able to pay endlessly for things that were previously free.

Please tell me that Archicad is not doing this.

Re: Global libraries: are they going to be pay-per-use?

Jp1138 — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 16:38:52 GMT

Well, think the worst and you won't be far wrong 😅

Doesn´t seem like a smart move to limit development somehow, but I can see anything happening after last years changes...

Betreff: Global libraries: are they going to be pay-per-use?

_c_ — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 01:29:29 GMT

Well, then it's simple. Since our budget for these tokens, subscriptions and whatnot is quite limited, most of them will have to be discarded.
While we decide which to keep and which to discard, we will obviously take our sense of trust into account, such as not being treated like a cash cow and choose products where we have some returned value and doesn't try to strip us at each step.

It's bold of Nemetschek to do this since the main competitor doesn't, and it's really easy to switch to other products.
In the office, we instantly quit using Solibri. Much to my sorrow, but I had to agree. The idea of making you pay more for an upgrade, just to bind you into paying per usage, is just plain repulsive. And we are in the process of switching all our remaining Vectorworks licences into R.

Re: Global libraries: are they going to be pay-per-use?

Mathias Jonathan — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:24:58 GMT

Honestly, it's entirely possible that this has already been decided at Nemetcheck level and that Graphisoft isn't aware of it. The problem is that this kind of scenario is very, very plausible.

Re: Global libraries: are they going to be pay-per-use?

runxel — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 09:49:18 GMT

Total foot gun.

If that happens, good night! At some point, the self-inflicted damage is just too much. ☠️