Who has the worst plugin manager/install experience?

[Fornicras]

IK Multimedia is the worst. So bad that I stopped using their plugins.

[enCiphered]

Plugin Alliance’s installation manager looks decent on the surface, but functionally it’s a disaster. There is no way to update individual plugins when an update is released, you’re forced to reinstall the entire plugin, not just the update. With the sheer number of plugins they offer, you have no visibility into which ones were updated or even that an update exists. It’s chaotic, opaque and completely worthless.

[sjm]

Native Access used to blue screen my computer, so it easily wins for having been completely unusable to me for years. It's still deficient in so many ways, even if I don't get the BSOD any more. The automatic wiping of installers on the assumption that nothing could ever go wrong (lots goes wrong with NA); its inability to download and install in bulk, failing the installation at some point but still downloading every installer, then deleting them after failure; its inability to correctly display what has been updated, showing the same update for months; no easy way to bulk migrate all your libraries to a new SSD, instead requiring you to manually repair each one; the obtuse interface that makes it easy to forget to configure your settings on first install coupled with the need to re-download evertyhing once you realise the paths are wrong...

And I probably missed a whole bunch of other stuff that annoys me/is user-unfriendly/doesn't work.

PA is bad with no info on what has updates, but at least it is quick to select all your products and install them. I don't get the rationale behind either of these models forcing the unnecessary download of installers though. The amount of infrastructure NI needs to maintain to handle all these massive, unnecessary downloads must be immense. That's so weird for a company run by bean counters.

[kuromir]

I just jumped into Komplete Ultimate with an S49 Mk3 — got a pretty good bundle deal, which definitely helped justify the plunge — so reading threads like this does give me a bit of anxiety

That said, it does seem like a lot of the worst Native Access stories come from earlier versions and edge-case setups. I’m on macOS and so far NA has been… not great UX-wise, but stable enough if you set paths once and don’t move things around later.

I totally agree the installer model is clunky and opaque though — especially compared to something like Bitwig’s updater. Hopefully NI continues cleaning this up, because the content itself is excellent.

Curious whether people still hit these issues on recent NA versions, or if most of the pain is legacy?

[Scoops]

I only have limited experience, but the worst is NI!

I don't seem to have the problems with IK that others have
Spitfire, Fabfilter, and East West are all easy and painless

Having a hardwired gig broadband helps

Cheers

[kuromir]

Thanks — that lines up with what I’m seeing so far as well.

NI definitely seems to be the outlier in terms of installer complexity, especially once you factor in the size and number of libraries. I’ve had similarly smooth experiences with FabFilter and Spitfire — much simpler models overall.

Good point about the connection too; I’m on wired gigabit as well, which probably avoids a whole class of issues people run into. I’m mostly hoping that once everything’s installed and stable, Native Access can be safely ignored most of the time.

[dexrow]

I would grab the ik plugins if the installer could use d drive... seems like I do not have enough memory on c to install anything.... not thrilled with anything that requires c drive.

[Najimad]

IK Multimedia, my worst experience

[mikeyo]

No problem with Waves here. It’s dead simple.

The worst offenders are the ones that install every plugin in their library - looking at you, UAD.

I'm looking at you too UAD

[Jo Wa]

Steinberg is the worst. Arturia is pretty good.

[Michael L]

BONES, I am sure.

[aMUSEd]

The Cherry Audio one is hopeless, every time I try and use it, it stalls at around 14% - tried deleting cache, or downloading one by one, makes no difference. Even left it running overnight - when I got up it was still stuck on 14%

It also tells me I need to update when the version numbers it is showing for the updates are identical to what is already installed

[aMUSEd]

PA is bad with no info on what has updates

PA does now check which ones need updating so is no longer the worst (that goes to Cherry Audio 'Sync' now)

[DrOcsid]

Acustica's plugin manager is kind of dire. Doing anything in it feels sluggish and you can only download one thing at a time; there's no queue.

Native Access turned installing Komplete into a full day experience because it wouldn't stop pausing the downloads forcing me to manually intervene to resume them over and over again.

[aMUSEd]

OK the UJAM one is starting to P me off too - it starts up every time I start a host that rescans the plugins or load the Usynth, Delay or Finisher (strangely not Reverb 2) - tried deleting it but then I get a bunch of popups complaining that it can't find it when I load those plugins - very tempted just to delete the lot of them