Today’s Question: Is it still possible to buy the “forever” version of Lightroom without a subscription? I can’t seem to find it on the Adobe website.
Tim’s Quick Answer: No. Both Lightroom Classic and Lightroom Cloud now require an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, with no perpetual license available any longer.
More Detail: The last version of Lightroom Classic that was available with a perpetual license was Lightroom 6. It has been a couple of years since Adobe updated this version of Lightroom. A subscription is now required to use Lightroom Classic. The cloud-based version of Lightroom has always required a subscription.
More to the point, Adobe has recently made efforts to shift toward a subscription-only model for Lightroom. Initially it was just a bit more difficult to find the perpetual license for Lightroom Classic on the Adobe website.
More recently, Adobe has simply stopped offering the perpetual license for Lightroom. You may be able to find a DVD copy of Lightroom 6 that would enable you to install and run the software without a subscription, but that is surely getting increasingly difficult. For example, Amazon no longer offers the DVD version of Lightroom 6.
At this point, if you want to only use software available with a perpetual license, your only Adobe solution would be Photoshop Elements. Otherwise you would need to look at other software from different companies.
If you do want to stick with Lightroom as your workflow solution, you can review the various Adobe Creative Cloud plans available by following this link: