Alternatives to Tracktion Waveform Free
Free full-featured DAW with no track limit for music production. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Tracktion Waveform Free
Free full-featured DAW with no track limit for music production.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Tracktion Waveform Free.
REAPER
Full digital audio workstation for multitrack recording, editing, mixing and MIDI.
REAPER is paid after an unlimited evaluation, runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and is small, fast and customisable through themes, scripts and extensions.
Ableton Live
Performance-oriented DAW built around clip launching for electronic music.
Ableton Live is paid with tiered editions, Windows and Mac only, and centres on Session View clip launching for electronic music and live performance.
FL Studio
Beat-making focused DAW known for its lifetime free update policy.
FL Studio is paid, Windows and Mac only, with a pattern-based beat-making workflow and lifetime free updates after a single purchase.
Ardour
A full digital audio workstation for recording, editing and mixing, with no subscription and no dongle.
Ardour is open source under GPL-2.0 across Windows, macOS and Linux, with unlimited tracks and control surface support, though official binaries are pay-what-you-want.
Logic Pro
Apple's music production app for Mac and iPad for recording, beat-making, editing and mixing.
Logic Pro is a paid Apple-only DAW for Mac and iPad with a large built-in instrument library, dropping Windows and Linux support.
Cakewalk Sonar
Windows DAW with a free tier, successor to the discontinued Cakewalk by BandLab.
Cakewalk Sonar is Windows only with a free tier, while its full feature set requires a paid membership, unlike Waveform Free's no-track-limit free version.
LMMS
A free digital audio workstation with a piano roll, beat sequencer and a pile of built-in synths.
LMMS is open source with a piano roll, beat sequencer and bundled synths, but it cannot record audio, so vocals and live instruments need another program.
GarageBand
Apple's free music creation studio for recording, playing and mixing songs and podcasts on a Mac.
GarageBand is free for macOS and iOS only, with a large loop library and virtual drummers but fewer mixing and editing tools than a full DAW.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Tracktion Waveform Free as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
Qtractor
An open-source audio and MIDI multitrack sequencer for Linux built on Qt, JACK and ALSA.
Tracktion Waveform Free is a closed-source but free DAW with no track limit and native Linux support alongside Windows and macOS.
Reason
Modular rack-style DAW with classic virtual synths and samplers.
Tracktion Waveform Free is a free DAW with no track limit and Linux support, though with fewer built-in instruments than paid suites.
Tenacity
A fork of Audacity created after the 2021 telemetry row, built to record and edit audio with nothing phoning home.
Tracktion Waveform Free is a free but closed-source DAW with no track limit and native Linux support, oriented to music production rather than simple editing.
Zrythm
An open-source digital audio workstation with extensive automation, chord tools and broad plugin support.
Tracktion Waveform Free is a free but closed-source DAW with no track limit and native Linux support, offering fewer built-in instruments than the paid Waveform Pro.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Audacity
A multi-track audio editor and recorder that has been the free default for twenty-five years.
Hydrogen
Program drum patterns with a desktop sequencer and drum machine.
Vital
A wavetable synthesizer plugin that uses spectral warping to reshape waveforms by acting on their harmonics.
Surge XT
An open-source hybrid synthesizer available as a plugin and a standalone app.
