Registry cleaners are almost always required for those who own Windows PC’s, if you fail to clean the PC’s registry occasionally, then it’s like having a car and not maintaining it, while it might not hurt you now, it will come back to bite you sometime in the future.

However, in your quest to find the best registry cleaning program out there, you’re presented with two different types: free and paid. There are obvious reasons why somebody would choose a free registry cleaner, but are the benefits for the paid programs worth the minimal one-time investment?

That’s what we’re going to explore today – an honest assessment of the differences between free registry cleaners and paid registry cleaning software.

Advantages of Free Registry Cleaners:

1. They do not cost anything

2. They’re available to everyone and if you wanted you could go get one right now.

3. The user community will provide support if the creator of the software is unable to.

4. You can install free software on as many computers as you have without any issues

Free Registry Cleaners – The Bad

1. These feature little to no support.

2. The software may be out-of-date or become out-of-date due to lack of updates

3. The feature list may be minimal, and as some features are imperative in order for a registry cleaning software to be safe – the free software could actually be dangerous

4. Largely unknown but free of charge cleaners may contain malware or even viruses, which is something that you won’t find in the standard inexpensive registry cleaners.

5. The creator may not offer support or even updates due to the lack of income generated by the software.

Paid registry cleaner pros:

1. The paid software comes with better support in almost all cases.

2. The programs that you pay for will probably not contain malware, spyware, or bloatware.

3. They generally include free future updates, and the chances of receiving updates as you upgrade your computer system over the years is better than with free software.

4. Usually they come standard with a lot of different perks that aren’t in the versions that are offered free of charge. Though sometimes they’re just for convenience, you might find some that are quite handy and even a few that allow for the creation of system restore points to keep your machine safe.

5. Programs that you pay for are usually supported on other operating systems. A good example may be the way that some only function properly on certain operating systems like XP and Vista, but if you pay for the programs they might actually be backward compatible with some of the older operating systems such as 98 and NT, and even ones that haven’t been released yet like the Windows 7 Release Candidate.

6.Most paid registry cleaners will offer a demo that you can download from their website which will let you preview it’s features and see if it’s right for you before you decide to buy it.

Paid registry cleaning software cons:

1. These aren’t free at all, and you’ll have to shell out some cash for them.

2. Not all of the things the program developer promises can actually be delivered on, and that’s because some of them have no ethics. This doesn’t happen often, but be vigilant just in case.

3. You’ll quickly find out that not all registry cleaners are equal, because a few might provide a lot of features that are to do with security and there are a few that actually offer the exact same functions as a free version, which makes it a little silly to pay for it.

4. A few programs will limit the number of computers that you can install the software on. Usually this doesn’t happen but that doesn’t mean that you don’t need to watch out for it.

Overall, while free registry cleaning software does have some notable benefits, we feel that you are going to get a better overall value, and better security, by using a paid registry cleaning program.

Of course there are going to be expenses, but if you want to keep your computer in good shape, this is definitely worth paying for!