I might be pushing my 4 years old macbook pro too hard with 2 IDEs, 1 instance of datagrip, and tons of open browser tabs, all on 4gb of RAM..

My coworker has a 2012 air with i5 and 4gb. I convinced him to get a logic board to extend its life since it's been slowing down lately. He found one for $230 with an i7 and 8gb.

You know you can change memory and HDD on your own MBP. I upgraded to 8gb and SSD and it was totally worth it.

Extra RAM is usually a good investment. I just took a large number of retired Lenovo T410 and upgraded from 4 to 6 megabytes.

They are perfectly usable as recovery machines and are saving a company a lot of money not having to buy new machines or 3rd party recovery seats.

Depending on the Macbook, the RAM can't be upgraded without getting a logic board. Only on the really old ones.

I think if you have a MacBook up to 2012 you can upgrade the ram easily. I did so on my mid-2010 to 8GB from 4GB and replaced the HDD with a SSD. Made it good as new.

Yup, the SSD's are still upgradeable though on the lastest models.