I think IDA's lack of significant competition until now is nearly a textbook example of how charging a lot for a tool is no indication that the funds will go toward improving the quality.
What's been significantly improved in IDA over the last 10-15 years? Certainly not the x86 decompiler, which costs something like five times as much as IDA itself. The interface is still super-clunky and missing functionality like keyboard shortcuts for frequently-used functions.
I'm ecstatic that there's finally a realistic alternative.
Certainly the x86 decompiler improved! It hadn't existed. We also got graph view, a Python interface, a native Linux port using Qt, and 64-bit binaries.
IDA comes with amazing technical support. I've emailed complaints, then gotten a freshly-compiled build with a bug fix within a couple days. Funds are thus improving quality in ways that customers request.
What's been significantly improved in IDA over the last 10-15 years? Certainly not the x86 decompiler, which costs something like five times as much as IDA itself. The interface is still super-clunky and missing functionality like keyboard shortcuts for frequently-used functions.
I'm ecstatic that there's finally a realistic alternative.