The difference is that with a perpetual licence you pay once and can use the software forever (perpetually), if your camera is supported. With LR once you stop paying you can no longer edit new photos.
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But, never forget that, with Adobe, if you stop paying, it stops editing. With PL, if you stop paying, you will always have a working product until you need to upgrade your OS beyond a certain point.
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Which is why I moved to PhotoLab when Lightroom went subscription after Adobe said it never would! I felt betrayed and then if I had stayed I would have been locked into a subscription forever 
If you buy a brand new camera model, an old PL version won’t open the RAW files. If you upgrade your OS, PL might start crashing. If you switch computers enough times you’ll have to plead for your license to be reset.
There is no free lunch.
True, but since buying new cameras is optional, and updating OS is very possible to defer (and even so not guaranteed to break a previous version), you will likely be able to use the software long after you stop paying. But yes, not indefinitely.
Upgrading the software (optionally) every 2 years - and possibly during a sale, keeps the costs low and gives you more control of when to pay for new features.
But then you have to ask yourself why you would want to continually upgrade your camera.
I started with digital in around 2001 with a Nikon D100. It was only 6Mpx and I used it as a “snappy” camera alongside my Ebony LF film camera.
In 2006, the D200 came out and, since I always prefer making large prints, and it had 10Mpx - not much larger but better than 6Mpx for snapshots, my main camera for serious work continued to be my beloved Ebony, with a scanned resolution of just over 100Mpx.
But it wasn’t until early 2017 that I yielded to temptation and moved up to the D810, with its 36Mpx sensor. At last, I could make a print up to 75x50cm without interpolation and a lot bigger with.
Finally, I heard a rumour that the 46Mpx D850 was going to be the last great DSLR and, seeing as I had no inclination to move to mirrorless, in 2021, I splashed out and that is still my current camera.
I have still only taken just over 3000 shots with it and see absolutely no need to change it.
Using Topaz Gigapixel after PL, I am able to produce wall sized prints that stand very close inspection. Why on earth would I want to change yet again? I can use the D810, that has only taken 1600 shots, as a very competent backup.
Believe it or not, my interest is not in collecting the latest and greatest cameras, it is making the greatest possible large prints.
I personally do upgrade PL every year, because I usually want the extra tools and features it provides but, if I didn’t find anything worthwhile in a release, I can always skip a year and still get an upgrade price the following year.
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So what we’re all saying is that there are lots of factors in play. That we all have different priorities.
So… there is NO right answer. DxO’s approach is better for some and not for others.
I suppose, having worked in the software industry for many years and seen how some programmers in larger companies get treated as coding monkeys (think an infinite number of monkeys could produce the works of Shakespeare) I find myself far more willing to support a small company that produces excellent software than a multi-national that keeps churning out mediocre software.
From what I can find, Adobe has over 30,000 employees, whereas DxO only has around 100.
Looking at the complexity and difficulty of use that I perceive when trying to use Adobe products, I would much rather stick with the far more intuitive PhotoLab. What’s more, I can get a lot of “photoshop” behaviour, if I were to need it, with my copy of Affinity Photo.
But, as I have said previously, my biggest beef with Adobe is that I would never truly own any version whereas, with DxO and Affinity, I can get off the train and still keep working.
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Not quite. I was rather saying if you stop paying for Lightroom, it no longer works. If you stop paying for Photolab (i.e. upgrades), it continues to work.
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did a google yeah seems dxo topaz lumina all have 100 to 150 employees hard to compete with might of adobe.
Be real interesting what DXO come out with in sept/oct more incremental improvement or a bit of a revamp will find out soon enough
…something that is important to some people. Exactly my point.
10 days ago there were significant discounts on Amazon (Prime week). Similar discounts were to be found for MS 365 and other software you may need/use (anti-virus, vpn, etc). Black Friday week is the other time of the year where similar discounts are available, so it’s always worth looking at this two times of the year.
You don’t need to start using the licence immediately either, you can buy the code now and redeem it now and the licence period starts when your current one expires, or you can redeem it at any time in the future (so, for example, you could let a current subscription lapse, and redeem it two months later when you next needed it).
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For subscription softwares, those discounts are not really significant ; I have been using PL for at least 15 years, so a 30% discount is 2% over time, not decisive.
While I’m a fan of perpetual licenses, I can’t follow the logic here. Ever since I’ve been using Lightroom, I purchase annual licenses around Black Friday or other sales for ~50% off. You can just stack them to extend your subscription into future years and never pay full price.
For example, last year I bought 3x annual Lightroom subscriptions for ~50% off, redeemed them all at once, and now I’m paid until end of 2027. Some time during the next 3 years, I can purchase more and extend in the same way. It sure feels like 50% off 
I probably won’t extend my license, but I could if I wanted to, and wouldn’t pay full price.
Having recently seen a number of videos on YouTube regarding masking in PhotoLab (“It’s more work, but entirely possible” is the gist), I decided to try to force myself to do some re-processing in PhotoLab.
Auto-mask is pretty decent, but takes a bit of convincing sometimes, when there is a lot of contrast in the subject. Particularly contrasty detail. But that aspect aside, it has been abundantly clear that the application performance is simply not up to the job. After a considerable number of brush strokes to select the swan, the swan’s reflection, a combination of the two, and an inverted version of the latter for the water, I found that moving a slider, such as exposure or white balance, was very jumpy. No longer could I finesse a value. I had to move it somewhere, then wait to see what it looked like. Then repeat until I was happy.
Yes, LR’s AI masks frequently need fixing but, no matter how many brush strokes I make, the performance — both the brushing itself and the later slider movement — is never noticeably slow.
Note that my M4 Pro MacBook Pro happily churns through lots of DeepPRIME exports at a fairly quick pace. It’s no slouch! It also has 48 GB of RAM, so is not wanting for resources. This image took less than 4 seconds to render DeepPRIME 3 from 24 Mpix (cropped to 21) down to 4.
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Sounds the same or similar to a ticket I submitted a few months ago. The issue occurred on both automask and luminosity masks. Running a MacBook Pro with the M4 series processor.
DxO was able to address the issue with a “test” version.
Within the hour, I received this email indicating the issue was resolved and that I should update to the newest formal release . Their website appears down, so have not updated yet…
My experience with DxO’s support was very responsive. So Kudos to the DxO team.
On the original photo, a luminosity mask selected significant parts of the plumage. As did the tint mask, because the original water was effectively monochrome. I introduced the blue as part of the edit.
This is a really simple example which perhaps could plausibly be done with those masks, with some care. Many are not. My point is if you do have to use an auto-mask, the performance tanks reasonably quickly, which is the same experience I recall years ago when I first tried and gave up on them.
I’ve done searches for discounts and found multiple sites talking about “rare” 30% discounts. None have mentioned anything as high as 50% and in many cases they only talk about full CC plans. I do see that one can now subscribe only to LR, which was new to me. It used to be only the Photographer Plan or the whole lot. Of course, while I currently pay NZD$29.10 per month, the LR only plan is only slightly cheaper at $23.23 because the Photographer Plan has risen again. Not so long ago I was paying less than $20 for both.
Also, it seems discounts are highly dependent on where you are. One site said it included “discounts for the US and UK.”
While checking when my next 12 month commitment is up (January) I noticed the Photography Plan such as I have is no longer available. I don’t recall seeing any comms from Adobe except when they want to raise the price!
At least the Lightroom-only plan does still include the mobile version which I have been using from time to time on my iPad.
I’ve now re-read and further understand what you’re saying. I just got a new version this evening when I launched PL — 8.7.1