Every Scratch Itch app started as a small, persistent annoyance on our own computers — the kind you put up with for years because no one had bothered to fix it. So we did, and then we polished the fix until it was worth sharing.
Programmers have a phrase for software written to solve the author's own problem: it scratches an itch. That is the only kind of software we make. Nothing here began with a market survey; each app began with someone at the keyboard muttering “why doesn't it just…”
Hence the backscratcher. It is the least glamorous tool in the house, it does exactly one thing, and once you own one you wonder how you managed without it. That is the standard we hold every app to.
The same four things, whether it is free, paid, or open source.
An app here does one thing. It does not grow a dashboard, a companion service, or a settings screen that needs its own search box. When the job is done, the app is finished, and finished software is a feature.
A Mac app is written for the Mac, a Windows app for Windows, a Linux tray app for Linux. Nothing is a web page in a frame. Where an app ships on more than one platform, the platforms get the same features and the same fixes.
No accounts, no analytics, no telemetry, no crash reporting, no third‑party SDKs. The apps make two kinds of connection to us, a daily update check and, for paid apps, a license check, and you can watch both with a firewall. The privacy policy spells it out.
Every binary is signed with a real developer identity on both macOS and Windows, so the operating system's own checks pass without a workaround. Apps install themselves to the standard place and keep themselves current, asking first.
Scratch Itch Software is the software label of Paradigm Consulting Co LLC, a small consultancy that has spent a long time keeping other people's computers working. The apps are the tools we reached for and could not find. Most of them were in daily use on our own machines for months before they had a product page.
The utilities live at Apps; the Savage Worlds trackers for Foundry Virtual Tabletop, an itch of a different kind, live at Foundry VTT. Source for the open‑source work is on GitHub.
Found a bug, or an itch of your own you think we should scratch? Write to [email protected]. A person reads it.
Writing about one of the apps? Use these rather than a screenshot of the site. Please keep the mark's colours and proportions as they are, and don't set it inside another shape.
The square tile used for the favicon, app listings, and anywhere the mark needs to sit in a small box.
The keys and backscratcher with no tile, for dark backgrounds or your own layout.
Navy
#14294D
Handle
#1F3F73
Sky
#7FB0E8
Keycap
#EEF3F9
The name is written Scratch Itch Software, three words, and shortened to Scratch Itch. The mark is © Paradigm Consulting Co LLC; you may use it to refer to us and our apps, and not to suggest we endorse something we haven't.
