In the EU now PL3 Elite is EUR 149, and Capture One is EUR 428 so, yes, almost three times more expensive. You do need to add ViewPoint and FilmPack to get equivalent functionality though, so make that EUR 189 currently for the DxO Photo Suite that has all three, which is a great deal.
This is with the current discounts on PL, and not so much on Capture One. I paid EUR 125 for Capture One Pro 12 for Sony and then EUR 120 for the upgrade to full Capture One Pro, so EUR 245 in total, which is actually less than I paid for Photolab + FilmPack + ViewPoint, although that’s due to having bought the three separately and FilmPack being half the price of when I bought it two-ish years ago. I didn’t think I wanted FilmPack until I discovered that I had no channel mixer without it. IIRC, it would have been around the current EUR 189 for the Suite had I known.
Unfortunately, you can’t buy anything at asking price anymore; there’s always a better deal if you time it right. With Capture One, I installed the free Express version for Sony, it offered 50% off for the Pro version, and full Pro from there made it a pretty good deal.
Yup. I’m not interested in Nik, so I haven’t purchased it, but getting another full license is the way to go if you don’t want to give up your current Photolab license.
You do also need additional license for FilmPack/ViewPoint as well though (if you use those), in which case the cost ends up being more than the Capture One upgrade (currently EUR 127 for the Capture One Pro 20 pre-order), although in practice I don’t think you’ll run into problems running with the same activation keys since DxO doesn’t seem to count activations of FilmPack/ViewPoint the same way they do with Photolab, today at least. It’ll work, just like running your old Photolab still works even when it’s not licensed, but if you want proper licenses then you have to pay.
It’s just the inability to redeploy the old version of Photolab as I wish that I dislike with DxO’s upgrade model.
Yes, with the limitations that have also been discussed, that you’re limited to existing installations of the old version. (And that it’s not formally licensed at all.)
I’m not championing Capture One ahead of Photolab - I have both, I like both - but the licensing is different, and the cost isn’t that different if you want to retain the license for the old version after an upgrade. (Depending on which variant of Photolab you need.)