Times are tough. We feel it here in Mellel, so we understand it's not easy for indie developers, including Nisus, which is apparently not doing well at the moment.

Nisus are (were?) a competitor, but we always had a soft spot for them.

In the 90's I used to be a Nisus user and I liked it a lot. It's true that as a Hebrew speaker, I had very little choice - nobody supported Hebrew well (or at all) except Nisus and Claris Works, but Nisus was also a very solid application.

Mac OS X rendered the classic Nisus (and many other apps) obsolete, and the complete lack of any Hebrew support on Mac OS X seemed like an opportunity, which I grabbed, and with my brother Ori started to develop what was to become Mellel.

It took a while for Nisus to introduce their version for macOS, and by that time we had made a lot of progress and were quite a bit ahead, but they caught up rapidly and, in some areas, went further. It is fair to say we drew some inspiration from the classic Nisus and, I think it is also fair to say, they draw some inspiration from us.

Mellel and Nisus share have quite a bit in common: we're both what you might call a "traditional" word-processor, are geared towards academic and scientific writing, and we're both small players in a world of giants, trying to compete as a paid product against products that are often licensed by institutions or given away for free.

Another thing we shared is a considerable chunk of customers who used both applications. It is always nice to know there's room for everybody.

We're not sure what's going to happen with Nisus and we hope they recover - we can all flourish together. In any case, we would like to offer Nisus users the chance to get Mellel at a discounted price — $51.75.

You can purchase a discounted Nisus -> Mellel cross-grade license here: http://sites.fastspring.com/mellel/product/nisuscrossgrade