One model works with phones, haven’t tried that one though.

Yeah except the testing. I fixed the hvac and tried to do adaptations, had to pay for a full year subscription again.

I guess it depends on how much you mess around with your car.

Not for that, no. Reading codes from all modules and all live data monitoring are free. You should be fine without a subscription

I have OBDeleven and have used VCDS a couple of times.

OBDeleven does give detailed diagnostics but any coding, testing or adaptations are locked behind a not so cheap subscription.

I honestly regret buying it, much rather pay a bit more for vcds and not have to do the subscription thing