Alternatives to GarageBand
Apple's free music creation studio for recording, playing and mixing songs and podcasts on a Mac. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
GarageBand
Apple's free music creation studio for recording, playing and mixing songs and podcasts on a Mac.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as GarageBand.
Logic Pro
Apple's music production app for Mac and iPad for recording, beat-making, editing and mixing.
Logic Pro is Apple's paid step up on Mac and iPad, adding tools for mixing and mastering and a larger instrument library.
Ableton Live
Performance-oriented DAW built around clip launching for electronic music.
Ableton Live is paid, runs on Windows and macOS, and is built around clip launching for electronic music and performance.
FL Studio
Beat-making focused DAW known for its lifetime free update policy.
FL Studio is paid with lifetime free updates, runs on Windows and macOS, and uses a pattern-based beat-making workflow.
REAPER
Full digital audio workstation for multitrack recording, editing, mixing and MIDI.
REAPER is commercial with an unlimited evaluation period, runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and is deeply customisable through scripts.
Ardour
A full digital audio workstation for recording, editing and mixing, with no subscription and no dongle.
Ardour is open source on Windows, macOS and Linux with unlimited tracks, but has fewer bundled instruments and loops and a steeper learning curve.
Tracktion Waveform Free
Free full-featured DAW with no track limit for music production.
Tracktion Waveform Free is free with no track limit and runs on Windows and Linux too, but with fewer built-in instruments.
LMMS
A free digital audio workstation with a piano roll, beat sequencer and a pile of built-in synths.
LMMS is free and open source across platforms with built-in synths, but it cannot record audio, so vocals need another program.
Audacity
A multi-track audio editor and recorder that has been the free default for twenty-five years.
Audacity is free, open source and cross-platform for recording podcasts and voice, but it is a destructive editor rather than a music DAW.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Hydrogen
Program drum patterns with a desktop sequencer and drum machine.
MuseScore Studio
Free sheet music notation software that plays back what you write and prints it properly.
Suno
A web-based AI music generator that turns a text prompt or your own lyrics into full songs.
Surge XT
An open-source hybrid synthesizer available as a plugin and a standalone app.
Vital
A wavetable synthesizer plugin that uses spectral warping to reshape waveforms by acting on their harmonics.
Adobe Podcast
Adobe's browser-based tool for recording, transcribing, editing and cleaning up spoken audio.
