I have been out of audio for a long time but this sounds crazy.

Have owned FS1R and DX11, made my own FM synths in reaktor but I would still rate FM7/FM8 the greatest of all FM synths. There has just never been a better interface to program FM. In the same way I would probably rate the FS1R as one of the all time worst FM synths and I do enjoy a synth that is not easy to program for the uniqueness.

Unless it is vaporware now I would just get FM8.

fm8 is still around and i have it but unfortunately on higher dpi screens its quite frustrating to navigate the ui

Is Dexed not good? https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/

Dexed is good but it's primarily a DX7 including all the weird preset algorithm choices and that's not really necessary if you aren't using DX7 presets. It's a DX7 emulator, not really jsut an FM synth for its own sake like Operator is

Probably not pure FM synth, but what about Aalto from Madrona Labs?

Aalto is great. It's more of a west-coast style Buchla complex oscillator clone than a traditional FM synth with multiple operators, but complex oscillators have at least one carrier and one modulator by design.

I use very few software synthesizers but Aalto and Operator are two of my favorites.

there are numerous good FM modules inside VCV Rack (and Cardinal), which have the benefit (or drawback) that you get full control over both upstream modulation and downstream processing. And they exist for all platforms that Rack (& Cardinal) run on, not just "windows and mac".

Hear, hear! I absolutely love FM-OP from Bogaudio. In fact, I'd say I use that more than any other FM softsynth mentioned in this thread.

Yeah I'm kinda surprised that there are so few good FM synth plugins. They must be out there but just hidden. FM8 is all I can really think of

Not a fan of F 'em by Tracktion?

https://www.tracktion.com/products/f-em

In the sense of having a simple UI? Both Dexed and FM8 are excellent FM synths, admittedly with a more cluttered UI.

There are hundreds of 4-op FM synths in plugin format, one of them will surely resemble your preferences.

Try the Korg Opsix vst. I have the hardware, and the vst is the same. Great stuff!

Dexed, FM8, Opsix Native, Tracktion F'em, Rob Papen Blue3, Waves Flow Motion, Tone2 Nemesis.

There's also multimodal synths that can do FM like Bazille or MSoundFactory.