{"id":49794,"date":"2025-10-27T15:27:41","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T19:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=49794"},"modified":"2025-10-30T19:08:56","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T23:08:56","slug":"nisus-probably-moribund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/27\/nisus-probably-moribund\/","title":{"rendered":"Nisus Probably Moribund"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Kissell<\/a>:<\/p>\n

For more than a year, we’ve heard scattered complaints: problems with Nisus Software’s website, particularly the user discussion forum; slow or absent responses to support requests; assorted bugs; and other issues. But earlier this week, on 22 October 2025, the reports changed to: “Did you know the Nisus website is completely down, and that Nisus Writer is no longer in the Mac App Store? Does this mean they’re out of business?”<\/p>

On the one hand: The site is back online as I write this. The app still works. I’m writing the first draft of this article in Nisus Writer Pro on a Mac running macOS 26 Tahoe, and it’s fine. You can still download it and buy a license. At least one person is actively involved in the company, to some extent. It’s (mostly) alive!<\/p>

On the other hand: All available evidence suggests that development and support for Nisus Writer have ceased, and barring some new information, its future is doubtful. It’s (mostly) dead!<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Martin Wierschin, Dave Larson, and Mark Hurvitz (each of whom was the public face of Nisus Software at one point) are no longer at the company. Jolanta is in her late 80s, and Jerzy is older than Jolanta. As best I can determine, Jerzy is not actively involved with the business anymore, and Jolanta’s involvement appears to be minimal. I don’t think there are any other employees left at Nisus Software.<\/p>\n

The latest update to the app was on 12 November 2024, and it appears the last time a Nisus employee posted on their discussion forum was also in November 2024.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s an odd situation, with no public activity in nearly a year and the apps removed from the Mac App Store but still available for purchase from the Web site.<\/p>\n

And a sad one. Nisus Writer was the coolest demo I saw at my first Macworld Expo in 1992 or so, and it remained a great app through all of Apple’s transitions: PowerPC, Mac OS X, Cocoa, Intel, 64-bit, Apple Silicon, etc. But over time it became my favorite app that I no longer actually use<\/a>. And I suspect that usage declined for others as well. iOS and Markdown brought a revival of apps that use plain text. And most people who need rich text don’t need the power of Nisus Writer. The more basic use cases got squeezed by Pages, Microsoft Word, and Google Docs, which are free and\/or ubiquitous. But for those who need it, there’s no clear replacement<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n

True, there’s no shortage of other Mac word processors. I’m sure that for many people, any number of them would be perfectly adequate. However, if you’re the sort of person who needs the tools that only Nisus Writer provides, none of that matters. Although I can’t speak for anyone else, I can definitely speak for Take Control Books, and we would be unable to do what we need to do in any of those other apps. Users who have built up libraries of complex macros in Nisus Writer, or who require find-and-replace based on style-sensitive regular expressions (to take just two examples) would be seriously hampered by another app.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n

Here are some forum threads discussing the state of things:<\/p>\n\n