Hi there, Other than the Marketplace, Where do you guys usually do your Shopping for MSFS 2020 Item’s Like Aircraft, Scenery and 3rd party add-ons and Utilities? Any information is greatly appreciated. TIA
My preferred stores would be Orbx and Contrail.
I am not a big fan of the in-game store, and I try to avoid websites where you have to manually install the addons yourself. The two mentioned above each come with a great application to keep the sceneries updated. For some sceneries they come with configuration options, where you’re able to remove statics from a scenery.
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Direct from the developer whenever possible.
If not direct then Aerosoft, Flight1, Just Flight, Orbyx, and Simmarket are all reasonably good.
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Mostly JustFlight, Flightsim.com, Aerosoft.com and on Orbx. On occasion also simmarket, if I can’t get around it.
In game marketplace only for Carenado and occasional Asobo/MS planes, but only because I have no choice there. Otherwise their update cycles are simply unacceptable. Why should I wait for an important update or hotfix for weeks which I can get immediately from the developer?
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flightsim.to and orbx for me.
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Always on the devs site (if available).
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But i have only one payware for MSFS 
(Kodiak 100)
don"t want to spend again thousands euros like for FSX/P3D.
For sceneries, i’m happy with what can be found for free at flightsim.to
For other aircraft…i’m waiting for good aircrafts (only GA, liners boring me)
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JustFlight for planes and OrbX for scenery, mainly!
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Flightsim.to - and only freeware
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SimMarket and JustFlight. I avoid the MS store at all costs.
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Simmarket for me! I never had problems…
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I think the problem of download things outside the marketplace is that we need to keep updating manually at every SU, to keep it compatible
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will check with you again in a year or two 
@OP
For me, I have only bought from Orbx (just one scenery atm) because of the installer already mentioned, and from the in-game marketplace (the ultralight plane)
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I imagine the same is true for buying items off the in-game store?
yeah, but updates come later on the market, too much delay from MS to validate.
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Direct from the developer and if not available, Orbx or Aerosoft. I avoid the Market Place like the plague lol
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If MS/Asobo improve their in-game marketplace they can gain a lot of extra income by the looks of it.
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The only two real advantages I can think of that the in-game store delivers compared to third party alternatives is the fact that you can update content while in the game. Probably not the best idea to tamper with game files while the game is running… The other advantage for players on Steam, is that they can use Steam wallet funds.
But I cannot think of an advantage that other stores don’t deliver. Rant below is written from my own experience, which is mostly with Orbx and Contrail.
You want quick updates? Buy straight from developers. Even partner stores like Orbx update faster than MSFS.
You want ease of installation? The in-game store offers this, but the content manager fails to update packages in my experience. Thus you have to uninstall the package and reinstall it. Other stores offer this as wel with apps like Orbx Central, Contrail and Aerosoft One. With these, the installation is as simple as a click of a button.
Maybe you want customisability? I’m not sure what other stores offer this feature, but I know Orbx Direct and Contrail have a configuration menu for some of their sceneries, where the developers support it. This is lacking in the in-game system.
Access to manuals? Once again, offered by the apps from Orbx and Contrail, lacking in the in-game store. I did hear something about manuals in the latest Q&A. Fixed soon perhaps?
The two apps I’ve been mentioning allow you to install the products in a folder outside of the Community folder. They then link the addons with a shortcut to the Community folder. Using an app like the Addons Linker you can then disable them, without having to uninstall them. Which I believe is a feature offered by the in-game system? I haven’t tested this one however.
In short, completely agree that the in-game store is in dire need of some love. In the meantime, I’ll stick to third-party sellers.
I normally buy from Simmarket, because they are very fast to get updates uploaded. Direct from dev when at all possible (and only IF the developer’s site actually works well. Just Flight for their stuff, Aerosoft for their stuff (usually.) Orbx when at all possible because they are just a great company in my experience.
I hear very often that people don’t like keeping up with updates. My experience:
- Most addons really don’t update all that often
- I get email alerts when things update (though occasionally Simmarket has a hiccup…)
- I follow developers I like on social media (in fact it’s all I use social media for these days!)
- I’m in most developers Discords if they have one
What I do regardless of the above is maintain a simple spreadsheet listing the addons I’ve bought, where I bought them, order numbers and license keys (if applicable) and price paid. It sounds like a lot of work but it’s multipurpose since it also keeps track of my addon spending which can go wildly out of control if I don’t look at it 
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For me, ORBX is best. I like automatic updates and addon manager. This is the way. If addon is not on ORBX, then JustFlight, Simmarket in this order. If not anywhere, then developer site. I like the idea to support dev with more money, but it’s been hit and miss with updates and addon tracking. Some developers does not even have any change log for the products and apart from email, which could be missed, there is no way to find out new version is out. Also download link is often buried in the email and not available in their shop at all. Last resort is marketplace, because of clunky interface, updates taking too long (because of encryption I guess), delays for updates and new planes (I will not wait a month for new plane, when it’s already available on other sites) and native inability to disable addons (this could be circumvented with Addon Linker fortunately).
rant part:
All ways to buy addons other than ORBX are obsolete and should be updated to modern standards. Because of reasons above I need to keep every addon in excel with installed versions, update date etc. Some resellers should wake up, we are in 2022. Even freeware flightsim.to has much superior software distribution model and user notification.
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