Open-source audio and music production software in 2026
30 open-source projects, ranked by GitHub stars and how recently each was worked on. LMMS leads with 11k stars, ahead of openDAW. 25 had code pushed in the last three months. Most common licenses: GPL-3.0 (11), MIT (10) and AGPL-3.0 (5). Commercial audio and music production software are listed separately.
New this season
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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
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
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
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
All open-source audio and music production software, ranked
Complete systems you can adopt 17
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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
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
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
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
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 -
6
Efflux-tracker igorski
Browser based music making application driving synthesizers, samplers and effects using both a tracker and piano roll/loop based interface. Supports MIDI control and provides both local and cloud based project storage.
Complete system Usable You like tracker-style composition and want it in a browser.
★ 262 MIT TypeScript Active, pushed 4 days ago -
7
Magda-core Conceptual-Machines
An open ecosystem for music production.
Complete system Experimental You want to experiment with an AI-driven DAW using your own API keys.
★ 254 GPL-3.0 C++ Active, pushed today -
8
theDAW gantasmo
Full-featured DAW, DJ, and VJ app interoperable w/Ableton, Reaper, Resolume & more. Stable Audio 3, Magenta RT2, Suno API, Chimera track fusion, Demucs stems, MIDI generate/notate, img > spectrogram > music, drawing > music, VST3 & .gan plugins, automix & key-lock, GLSL shaders, volumetric video, Quest 3 XR interface, MIDI auto-map, RAG assistant
Complete system Experimental You want to try many AI music features locally on a capable GPU.
★ 228 MIT TypeScript Active, pushed 28 days ago -
9
Apollo Studio mat1jaczyyy
Apollo Studio is a standalone editor and live playback engine for RGB Launchpad light effects.
Complete system Usable You perform Launchpad light shows and want more colour control than Ableton offers.
★ 226 BSD-3-Clause C# Active, pushed 2 months ago -
10
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 -
11
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 -
12
Splicedd ascpixi
🔊 A custom frontend for the Splice sample library
Complete system Usable Rarely; use the official Splice app if you subscribe.
★ 179 GPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed 30 days ago -
13
Maolan maolan
Maolan DAW
Complete system Experimental You want a lightweight recording DAW, especially on Linux or BSD.
★ 171 BSD-2-Clause Rust Active, pushed today -
14
Generic DAW generic-daw
An early-in-development, open source, cross-platform digital audio workstation (DAW) built in Rust.
Complete system Experimental You want to follow or contribute to a Rust DAW in its early stage.
★ 170 GPL-3.0 Rust Active, pushed 2 days ago -
15
Meadowlark MeadowlarkDAW
A (currently incomplete) open-source Digital Audio Workstation
Complete system Experimental Only if you want to follow or contribute to an early DAW project.
★ 1.5k AGPL-3.0 Quiet, pushed 14 months ago -
16
Stargate stargatedaw
Innovation-first digital audio workstation (DAW), instrument and effect plugins, wave editor
Complete system Usable You want a self-contained free DAW with bundled plugins on Linux, Windows or macOS.
★ 885 GPL-3.0 Python Quiet, pushed 2 years ago -
17
Vaporizer2 VASTDynamics
Vaporizer2 hybrid wavetable additive / subtractive VST / AU / AAX synthesizer / sampler workstation plugin
Complete system Usable You want a free, deep wavetable synth inside your DAW.
★ 598 GPL-3.0 C++ Quiet, pushed 2 years ago
Building blocks for your own system 6
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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
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
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 -
4
Audio UI ouestlabs
Audio controls for React: knobs, faders, meters, waveforms, timelines, sequencers and piano rolls, as headless primitives on npm or shadcn/ui components.
Building block Usable You are building a web synth, mixer or audio tool in React and need ready controls.
★ 198 MIT TypeScript Active, pushed today -
5
Wad rserota
Web Audio DAW. Use the Web Audio API for dynamic sound synthesis. It's like jQuery for your ears.
Building block Usable You add sound effects or simple synthesis to a web app or game.
★ 2k MIT JavaScript Quiet, pushed 12 months ago -
6
Tuneflow-py tuneflow
🧠+🎧 Build your music algorithms and AI models with the next-gen DAW 🔥
Building block Experimental Only if you build for TuneFlow specifically.
★ 903 MIT Python Quiet, pushed 3 years ago
Integrations 4
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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 -
2
Helgobox helgoboss
Helgobox: ReaLearn & Playtime
Integration Production-ready You use REAPER with hardware controllers or want clip launching like Ableton's Session view.
★ 279 GPL-3.0 Rust Active, pushed today -
3
DAWPresence Myuuiii
A Discord Rich Presence app for several DAWs like FL Studio and Ableton
Integration Usable You want your Discord status to show your current DAW project.
★ 172 GPL-3.0 C# Active, pushed 15 days ago -
4
Logic Pro MCP MongLong0214
Local MCP server for stateful, fail-closed Logic Pro control and live project readback.
Integration Usable You produce in Logic Pro and want an AI assistant to handle setup and MIDI tasks.
★ 170 MIT Swift Active, pushed today
Developer tools 1
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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
Lists, courses and other material 2
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1
HyMPS FORARTfe
HyMPS will be a platform-indipendent software suite for advanced audio/video contents production.
List, course or other material Usable You are looking for open-source audio or video tools to evaluate.
★ 334 GPL-3.0 Active, pushed 8 days ago -
2
Tools renoise
Scripting tools written by the Renoise team
List, course or other material Experimental You are learning to write Renoise tools and want reference code.
★ 303 MIT Lua Active, pushed 2 months ago
Compared head to head
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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.
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