The only reason not to use them is basically money. As you said, they are as good as anything else when used collectively. When you want a DBX160, you don't have to pick from the ten someone else may have installed because every one of those 10 are "maybe as good" as UA's or any of the other 10 plugins. There is no guesswork layer to deal with, no Plugin Doctoring to be done. You decide you want an 1176 compressor, and then you move on. Even if there's a few variants, it's a very limited number and it remains obvious which does what best.

The CPU argument is "UA Connect uses CPU!", which is true of course, because all applications use resources while running. Same with iLok. But what people always fail to mention is how little it actually uses, and how well they run because they are not varying degrees of "properly coded and optimized" like random stuff people download from the internet. So instead of a 20mb Pultec, you end up with a 200mb Pultec. Those UA Connect resources that are "too heavy for my 100+ channel count projects" are gone in an instant using something from Pulsar. Until a few weeks ago I was running them on a 16 year old Mac Pro with no additional weight compared to any other plugins, and the UA ones were actually some of the lightest I was using.

People provide all these excuses nobody ever even asked for. " The don't work offline", etc etc. The only valid reason to not use them is that they are not cracked (which I do not believe for a minute), and not wanting to pay for them. The rest just is a sideshow on here.

 

Also they do work without UA Connect (that's how I use them).

 

Last edited: Jun 13, 2026 at 5:28 PM

That's probably the closest to the mark. They work and are of a high quality as good as any other.
If someone said they extensively tested them for six months and compared against many other similar plugins (naming them), I'd be more inclined to believe it may be closer to accurate, rather than refusing to acknowledge it may be decent because they do not want to pay for them. This means they cannot possibly know other than a trial which will only be Internet based without an iLok dongle that will time out and also doesn't come with some of the presets until the full version is purchased. So yeah, I agree....pffftttt....

 

now i know everyone says i dont want ilok stuff
a while ago I bought a few Sonnox plugins and shortly after that a number of uad plugins, and since then my pc has been acting weird actually after I installed that uad app to install the plugins there are also all kinds of weird services running in the background including pace license bonjour uad ilok and who knows what else and about the uad plugins they arent much better than plugins from other good developers and that damn authorization notification 10 times a day you are not online i activated them for offline use anyway so i don't understand why that damn app keeps spamming with that message

 

just delete UA connect. I only install it if i need to update or install a new plug, all the plugins still work

 

I didn't "leave it out", the list is me speculating various reasons the original manufacturer would choose to work with a particular plugin developer over another. Not a list of what the manufacturer would do once they have decided. But I agree, I think some people don't like them because they haven't tried them, or just to be contrarian even.

Side note, more manufacturers should do like Fearn, and release two versions of your plugin with two different devs lol.

 

Which service or program is making requests 10 times a day? Check the startup folder; you can disable annoying programs there.

 

Last edited: Jun 14, 2026 at 2:16 PM

You ever use Roland Cloud? It phones home once a second if you let it...

But yes, disabling those phone homes is easy and mitigates a lot of things.

But as clone said, and I agree, they are of quality (UAD), and most people rant on due more to cost (which is dropping like a stone compared to 10+ years ago, hell I got 54 of them for ~120 usd last year, and have gotten all their freebies and bought an occasional one on sale etc, and I definitely feel I've gotten value from it.

I have issues with UAD from 20 years with some licensing issues etc, but I've learned to let that go, and whatever.. I've essentially only paid a few bucks for most of their plugs and instruments that are available natively, as I'm not interested in their hardware in regards to a/d etc at the moment.

 

ok i wasn't aware of it i thought if you uninstall the aud app your license would also be lost
if i delete the ilok app bonjour en pace service then my activated plugins wil not work

the uad app

 

I had UAD Connect until recently as well, but it never prompted me for anything, so I’ve just uninstalled it now.

 

then maybe your pc is always online mine isn't only for activating ilok en uad or backdoors

 

I zipped up UA connect and deleted the app, i'll unzip it when i need to install something.

I won't be buying anything else from them anyway and updates are a waste of time.