NeoFinder for photo catalogs

I don't know that I want my catalog married to my editor, but the options are limited. Photo Mechanic Plus is powerful but has become too expensive. Capture One's catalog features aren't good enough. Lightroom Classic is good, but it forever ties my catalog to my editor.

I just learned about NeoFinder and it's pretty good (so far).

NeoFinder quickly imports entire drives or single folders as catalogs. I'm testing it using one year of photos per catalog. Searches can run across one or many catalogs at once, so this fixes my old issue with searching when creating a new Lightroom catalog each year.

I've also imported a few years of video files. Catalogs can be organized into virtual folders so it's easy to isolate the video catalogs from the photos. 

Metadata is easily added and is saved right to the files that support it, or as XMP sidecar files for those that don't. This means I can load up a file in another tool and the metadata remains intact.

NeoFinder isn't talked about much, at least in my circles. This is a shame, because it solves certain problems quite well. And it's a one-time fee of $39 for a perpetual license. No subscription.