Audio and music production software in 2026

Commercial audio and music production software

1. 1
   FL Studio Image-Line

   FL Studio is the all-in-one DAW used by millions to produce, mix, and master music. From $99 with Lifetime Free Updates. Download the free trial today.

   Complete system Production-ready You produce beats and want a DAW you pay for once with lifetime free updates.

   6.9k readers a month Since 1998 Commercial
2. 2
   Logic Pro Apple Inc.

   Logic Pro is the ultimate music creation experience for Mac and iPad, with powerful features for songwriting, beat-making, editing, and mixing.

   Complete system Production-ready You make music on a Mac and want a full professional DAW for a low one-time price.

   3.3k readers a month Since 1993 Commercial
3. 3
   Ableton Live Ableton

   See the new features, devices, sounds and workflow updates in Ableton Live 12.

   Complete system Production-ready You make electronic music or perform live and want a DAW designed for improvising with loops.

   3.1k readers a month Since 2001 Commercial
4. 4
   Pro Tools Avid Technology

   Record, edit, compose, and mix music, audio, and sound for film and television with Avid Pro Tools, the professional digital audio workstation (DAW).

   Complete system Production-ready You work in professional studios or post houses where Pro Tools sessions are the exchange format.

   2.7k readers a month Since 1989 Commercial
5. 5
   Adobe Audition Adobe Inc.

   Mix, edit, and create audio content in Adobe Audition audio recording software with a comprehensive toolset that includes multitrack, waveform, and spectral display.

   Complete system Production-ready You already pay for Creative Cloud and need to clean up and mix dialogue for video or podcasts.

   520 readers a month Since 2003 Commercial
6. 6
   Descript Descript

   Descript is the AI video and audio editor that makes editing as easy as editing text. Record, transcribe, edit, and publish in one tool. Try it free.

   Complete system Production-ready You produce podcasts or talking-head videos and want to cut them like a text document.

   Commercial

New open-source projects

1. 1
   LYNX-SHARE Ka1-S

   LYNX SHARE — lightweight open-source DAW in C++20/JUCE with the FL Studio workflow: Channel Rack, Piano Roll, Playlist, Mixer and .flp import

   Complete system Experimental You know FL Studio and want to try a free alternative that opens your projects.

   ★ 467 AGPL-3.0 C++ Active, pushed today
2. 2
   Remiqora inikolax

   Free, open-source local AI music studio: ACE-Step 1.5 and YuE2-3B text-to-music, stem separation, an AI arranger that adds parts to your track, a multitrack DAW, MIDI transcription and LoRA training.

   Complete system Experimental You have a strong GPU and want local AI music generation in one interface.

   ★ 207 MIT TypeScript Active, pushed 3 days ago
3. 3
   Nota nota-daw

   Nota — a free DAW for macOS, Windows and Linux. No subscription, no account — just open it and make music.

   Complete system Experimental You want an Ableton-style workflow in a free, open DAW and can live with early software.

   ★ 212 AGPL-3.0 C# Active, pushed today
4. 4
   Ableton-Linux shibco

   Run Ableton 12 and Push on Linux

   Integration Experimental You own Ableton Live and want to move your studio to Linux.

   ★ 825 LGPL-2.1 Shell Active, pushed 8 days ago

Open-source audio and music production software

Complete systems you can adopt 5

1. 1
   LMMS LMMS

   Cross-platform music production software

   Complete system Usable You want a free FL Studio-like DAW for composing electronic music.

   ★ 11k GPL-2.0 C++ Active, pushed today
2. 2
   openDAW andremichelle

   openDAW is a next-generation web-based Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)

   Complete system Experimental Schools or beginners want a free DAW that runs in a browser without installation.

   ★ 2.4k AGPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today
3. 3
   Giada monocasual

   Your Hardcore Loop Machine.

   Complete system Usable DJs and live electronic musicians want a lightweight looper on Linux, Windows or macOS.

   ★ 2.1k GPL-3.0 C++ Active, pushed 4 days ago
4. 4
   DAW gridsound

   GridSound (2.60.0) is a work-in-progress free browser-based digital audio workstation following the Web Audio API 🎛🎹🎵✨ -- If you can, please sponsor us a little on our Patreon ❤️

   Complete system Experimental You want to sketch music in a browser for free.

   ★ 1.9k AGPL-3.0 JavaScript Active, pushed 2 days ago
5. 5
   LYNX-SHARE Ka1-S

   LYNX SHARE — lightweight open-source DAW in C++20/JUCE with the FL Studio workflow: Channel Rack, Piano Roll, Playlist, Mixer and .flp import

   Complete system Experimental You know FL Studio and want to try a free alternative that opens your projects.

   ★ 467 AGPL-3.0 C++ Active, pushed today

Building blocks for your own system 3

1. 1
   Waveform Playlist naomiaro

   Multitrack Web Audio editor and player with canvas waveform preview. Set cues, fades and shift multiple tracks in time. Record audio tracks or provide audio annotations. Export your mix to AudioBuffer or WAV! Add effects from Tone.js. Project inspired by Audacity.

   Building block Usable You need Audacity-like multi-track editing or audio annotation inside a web app.

   ★ 1.7k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed 6 days ago
2. 2
   DawDreamer DBraun

   Digital Audio Workstation with Python; VST instruments/effects, parameter automation, FAUST, JAX, Warp Markers, and JUCE processors

   Building block Usable You generate audio datasets or batch-render plugin sounds for music ML research.

   ★ 1.3k GPL-3.0 C++ Active, pushed 2 days ago
3. 3
   SoundFlow LSXPrime

   A high-performance, modular audio & MIDI engine for .NET 8+. A complete toolkit for the entire audio lifecycle: Playback, Recording, Multi-track Editing, Pro Synthesis (MPE/SF2), Real-time DSP, and Visualization. Includes a unique security suite for AES-256 encryption, acoustic fingerprinting, and watermarking. Featuring SIMD and NativeAOT support.

   Building block Usable You build a .NET application that needs serious audio processing.

   ★ 523 MIT C# Active, pushed 11 days ago

Integrations 1

1. 1
   Ableton-Linux shibco

   Run Ableton 12 and Push on Linux

   Integration Experimental You own Ableton Live and want to move your studio to Linux.

   ★ 825 LGPL-2.1 Shell Active, pushed 8 days ago

Developer tools 1

1. 1
   DawVert DawVert

   DawVert - The DAW ConVERTer

   Developer tool Usable You need to move a music project from one DAW or tracker to another.

   ★ 428 GPL-3.0 Python Active, pushed 8 days ago

All 30 open-source audio production projects

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Open-source licenses

• Strong copyleft: 12. If you distribute the program or anything built on it, you must release the whole source under the same license.
• Permissive: 12. Use it anywhere, including in closed products. You keep the copyright notice; Apache-2.0 also grants patent rights.
• Network copyleft: 5. Like GPL, and running a changed version as a web service counts as distributing it, so its users get the source too.
• Weak copyleft: 1. Changes to the licensed files must be shared, but you can link them into a closed program.

Languages

TypeScript 7, C++ 6, C# 4, Python 3, Rust 3, JavaScript 2, Shell 1, Lua 1 and Swift 1.