Plugin installer apps are appearing everywhere. These small apps that are used by developers to install plugins are meant to help, but do they? We investigate.
Install Another App!
In the last few years, there’s been a push by several software developers towards plugin installer apps. If you’ve not encountered one, then they are small apps that are meant to make the job of installing and authorising plugins easy.
You open the app, set it going, and it’s meant to check all your plugins from that brand, install any missing plugins, update any out-of-date ones and authorise any that require a licence.
It all sounds like a great idea in practice, but is it?
The Advantage Of Installer Apps
When they work well, a plugin installer app can prevent you from installing the wrong or out-of-date software. As already mentioned, they can automate the process of updating and authorising the plugins.
For some people, this can be a real help and remove some of the headaches of plugin purchasing and maintenance.
However, it’s worth noting that these apps are not just designed to make your life easier. The most common support issues developers have to deal with are installation and licencing problems. Anything they can do to reduce these support enquiries makes them happy. The enquiries can range from people using the wrong email address on their licence account, mistyping their iLok ID, downloading the software for the wrong platform, or the wrong version.
Installer apps can reduce some of the most common support enquiries; even for a small developer, this can be a great help. For larger developers, this can save them a lot of money!
The Disadvantage Of Installer Apps
While installer apps have their upsides, there are downsides too. Sometimes they are a sledgehammer to crack a nut. In other words, if all you need to do is install one plugin from their catalogue, the use of an app is overkill. The install size of some of them can be up to 300MB, which, whilst not huge when compared to the size of modern storage on computers, they are sometimes bigger than the plugin being installed.
Secondly, they can be convoluted and make the job of installing plugins harder than it need be; we’ll be giving examples later on in this article.
Thirdly, some are designed to be as much a sales mechanism as they are an installer. In the worst case scenarios, they install the entire plugin collection made by the developer, this is highly unnecessary.
The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
We did say we would give some examples of both good and bad plugin installers; first, the good.
One example of a good installer app is the Toontrack Product Manager. Given the size of the libraries being installed, the application size, just 27.2MB, is tiny. The installer offers the opportunity to install, update, and register any software not yet registered. The interface is clean and simple. One great feature is that once a download is complete and installed, you are given the option to delete the installer. This removes unnecessary software taking up hard drive space.
A special mention to the Plugin Alliance Installation Manager, if for nothing else for its tiny size, weighing in at just 2.8MB. Whilst it’s not the most attractive UX, it does the job, and perhaps it’s small because it does the job without any bells and whistles.
It’s also worth mentioning Waves Central as one of the good ones. It’s pretty straightforward and doesn’t force you to install stuff you don’t want or need.
Now the bad. Any time there’s a new free plugin from IK Multimedia, there’s a discussion in the team about if we want to deal with the headache of both testing the installation and then the pushback from the community. The problem? We’ve done Mensa tests that are easier. It doesn’t matter how often we install a new plugin using this software it always seems to send us down dead ends and confuse us. Bottom line this installer needs a rethink, especially when installing new software; it doesn’t have to be this hard! We know of many people who avoid the free IK plugins because of the headache.
Avid Link has its moments, but to be fair, it has improved over the last year and to give Avid credit, they do allow downloads using the conventional method. In other words, you don’t need to use Avid Link to use their software.
The Ugly. This award must go to Universal Audio’s UAD platform for one simple reason. Their insistence that every plugin in the UAD collection is installed every time an update occurs. There’s simply no reason for this, you have to log in to use the software, so it’s possible to know what software you own. What happens is irrespective of the amount of UAD plugins you own, one or one hundred, they all end up installed on your hard drive. There are workarounds posted on the web showing you how to uninstall the ones you don’t own, but really?
Oddly enough, UA Connect, the interface for UAD Spark subscription, is a dream. It’s small, installs and updates your plugins and lets you download the things you need and not the stuff you don’t. How strange that the same company makes both installers. It does feel like their two teams not talking to each other.
Summary
Plugin installers, when done well can be a real help and take away some of the pain of installation, licencing and maintenance. However, when done badly, they can be more trouble than they are worth, especially when you are forced to use them. It’s a mixed bag, some are the best thing ever, but some are BS!
What do you think? Let us know in the comments.