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The Death of LogMeIn Free

  January 29, 2014

By Heshy Friedman

I have been using LogMeIn to remotely log into my office computers for several years now. LogMeIn provided a free and easy way to connect without the hassle of changing any router ports or firewall setting, and it gave me the ability to connect to many different computers. I was, overall, very happy with their free service, and I had always recommended this service to my clients.

While logging in remotely to my office computer one day earlier this month, I received a strange and unwelcome message. The message stated that LogMeIn Free will be discontinued, and the only way to continue using it would be to pay for a premium account. The message stated that I had seven days to upgrade to a premium account, otherwise, I, will no longer have access to their service. The seven day period would begin the next time I remotely logged in to my computer.

I had a week of research to do to find alternatives, which I will share with you. I did consider just upgrading to the LogMeIn Premium service, but it’s not cheap and they don’t give you much. I am upset about how they handled this, and the fact that they blatantly lied. A new LogMeIn account cost $99 a year, but if you are upgrading from an existing account, they will charge an introductory discounted rate of $49. This is still expensive for what it is, especially because the upgrade price discount will only be for one year.

Although the blogosphere and LogMeIn’s discussion forum is full of negative comments on this, the reality is that LogMeIn has been offering a great free service all this time and has a right to shut it at any time. However, many are complaining that they should have given more time for this, and I think this is a valid point. People are busy and don’t have that much time to scramble for alternatives; a month’s notice would have been much more courteous. Shame on LogMeIn for killing their free program with such short notice! Another complaint I have on LogMeIn is that on June 23, 2011, LogMeIn Stated the following on their Facebook page:

We receive a lot of messages thanking us for making LogMeIn Free, well, free. Let’s make this official: there’s no need to thank us. LogMeIn Free is and will always be free. For today, you can just pay us in ‘Likes.’

A blatant lie that is out there for everyone to see! I took a screenshot of this post from their Facebook page:

Although LogMeIn was looking to increase their revenue stream, and the abundance of their Free accounts was not providing that, I believe they handled this very poorly. By making the price so steep, they are essentially turning almost everyone away. If they would have offered a more affordable option which can be paid monthly, I believe a lot more people would have considered upgrading to the paid version. What they are doing now is just turning away almost all of their potential clients by asking for an unreasonably high price.

All LogMeIn users are now scrambling for alternatives. I started putting together a list with the different options, but then found an article on PCWorld that pretty much sums up what I was going to write.

View the PCWorld Article on alternatives to LogMeIn Free.