Alternatives to Zrythm
An open-source digital audio workstation with extensive automation, chord tools and broad plugin support. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Zrythm
An open-source digital audio workstation with extensive automation, chord tools and broad plugin support.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Zrythm.
Ardour
A full digital audio workstation for recording, editing and mixing, with no subscription and no dongle.
Ardour is a mature open-source DAW for Windows, macOS and Linux with unlimited tracks and control surface support, though official prebuilt binaries are paid.
REAPER
Full digital audio workstation for multitrack recording, editing, mixing and MIDI.
REAPER is a small, fast commercial DAW for Windows, macOS and Linux, customisable through scripts and extensions, with an unlimited evaluation before the licence must be bought.
Bitwig Studio
A commercial digital audio workstation with a clip launcher, timeline and modular sound design tools.
Bitwig Studio is paid, closed-source software for Windows, macOS and Linux, adding a clip launcher, modular Grid sound design and sandboxed plug-ins.
Tracktion Waveform Free
Free full-featured DAW with no track limit for music production.
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.
LMMS
A free digital audio workstation with a piano roll, beat sequencer and a pile of built-in synths.
LMMS is a free, open-source workstation with a piano roll, beat sequencer and over fifteen instruments, but it cannot record audio, so vocals need another program.
Qtractor
An open-source audio and MIDI multitrack sequencer for Linux built on Qt, JACK and ALSA.
Qtractor is an open-source audio and MIDI multitrack sequencer with a tape-recorder style workflow, but it runs on Linux only and depends on JACK and ALSA.
Cubase
Steinberg's commercial digital audio workstation for recording, editing, mixing and producing music.
Cubase is Steinberg's paid, closed-source DAW for Windows and macOS, a long-established environment for recording, editing and mixing audio and MIDI.
Ableton Live
Performance-oriented DAW built around clip launching for electronic music.
Ableton Live is a paid, closed-source DAW for Windows and macOS built around Session View clip launching, with tiered editions that gate features.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Zrythm as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
Rosegarden
A Linux MIDI sequencer and music notation editor with basic digital audio support.
Zrythm is an open-source cross-platform DAW with chord tools and broad plugin support, though version 2 is still in alpha and it lacks Rosegarden's notation editor.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Carla
A modular audio plugin host that loads LV2, VST2, VST3, AU, LADSPA and DSSI plugins.
Hydrogen
Program drum patterns with a desktop sequencer and drum machine.
Surge XT
An open-source hybrid synthesizer available as a plugin and a standalone app.
JACK Audio Connection Kit
Connect audio and MIDI applications through an audio server.
Renoise
A multi-platform digital audio workstation that composes music with a tracker-style pattern editor.
