Avoyd Beta Stream

Doug Binks - Juliette Foucaut - 28 Jan 2023      # Avoyd

You may have noticed we've changed our Products page. There is now an Avoyd Beta release stream available to download alongside the Full Avoyd and Avoyd Demo.

Introducing Betas

The Beta stream of Avoyd gives you access to fixes as well as new features without having to wait for us to release a full version. It also gives you an insight into what we're working on at any time and you'll be able to give us feedback on in-progress work. You'll find the list of additions, changes and fixes labelled Beta in the Avoyd Change Log.

Like the Full version, you need to own Avoyd to get the Beta.

Comparison table of the three Avoyd release streams Full, Beta and Demo:

Avoyd Stream	Full	Beta	Demo
Price	Paid	Paid, included with Full	Free
Commercial Use	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	❌ No
Release Schedule	Every 1 to 3 months	Fast: every 1 to 30 days (1*)	Slow: every 3 to 12 months
Features	All	All + New in development	Delayed
Stability	Stable	Prototype	Stable
Documentation	Up to date	New features and changes may be undocumented.	May be out of sync. or no longer apply.

(1* with the occasional longer breaks due to larger features, and as we are only two developers.)

Whilst we perform testing on all releases there will be somewhat less of it with the Betas. Likewise the features and changes may be works in progress and undocumented. We encourage you to backup your work if you use the Betas.

The Demo will Fall Behind

Currently Avoyd and the Avoyd Demo are the same, except the Demo is for personal use only. In future the Avoyd Demo will fall behind. It will be at least one minor version behind the latest full release. The Avoyd Demo remains free.

We're still committed to keeping as much of Avoyd's functionality free as possible. However, looking to the future we need a revenue stream from Avoyd in order to continue to develop it without taking time out to perform other paid work.

Adding In-app Update Notifications

We plan to improve the current update notification in Avoyd so that if you choose to, you'll get in-app reminders about the Full, Beta or Demo streams. The notifications will be configurable in the full version at least.

You can always sign up to the Avoyd newsletter to receive an email when we release a Full version.

We hope the Beta releases prove useful to you, and as always we appreciate your feedback in our forums or on social media. We also plan to use our blog more. With one post a year in the last four years, we've neglected it too much in favour of our News Forum and 3rd party platforms like Twitter, Patreon and Reddit. Subscribe to this devlog's RSS feed!