Audacity vs SOUND FORGE

Adobe Audition

AVS Audio Editor

Pro Tools

REAPER

WavePad

ACID Pro

Compare Audacity and SOUND FORGE based on features, pricing, verified reviews, integrations & more on GetApp. Find out which software is best for your business in 2026.

Adobe Audition is a comprehensive audio workstation that allows students, teachers, and businesses to create, mix, edit, and restore audio clips. Available separately or as part of Adobe Creative Cloud, the tool includes audio editing tools designed to enhance music, podcasts, and other projects.

REAPER is an audio editing software that is designed for businesses in several industry fields, including education, non-profit, game development, broadcasting, sound design, and more. Organizations can handle processes related to overdubbing, graphical patchbay emulation, and musical articulations.

AVS Audio Editor is a cloud-based audio editing software that allows users to record, edit, cut, trim, join, mix all key audio formats. Enhance audio quality and easily create amazing mixes with special effects.


Audacity is an open-source and on-premise audio editing software designed to help musicians manipulate soundtracks using keyboard shortcuts, analyze sound frequencies, and export, edit or import audio files in various formats on a unified platform.

Audio Capture

Audio Editor

Audio Manipulation

Audio Mixing

Audio Recording

Batch Processing

Configurable Workflow

Content Library

Data Import/Export

Drag & Drop

Instrument Management

Interactive Content

Issue Management

Media Library

Multiple Format Support

On-Demand Recording

Preview Functionality

Project Management

Project Tracking

Project Workflow

Synchronous Editing

User Management

Audacity

Linux

Web-based

Windows

FREELANCER

With great support to do it yourself. I highly recommend this product because of the great sound quality.

Patient Care Technician

One of the best free recording software. It has a nice user-friendly interface, which makes it easy to use even for people who have never edited before.

Freelancer

With everything going on right now, everyone is trying to save money and this program works well and adds value to my recordings. I use it personally and love that it is always improving.

Filmmaker

It's one of the most useful computer programs ever created, and it forces more expensive software by the likes of Adobe and Apple to prove their worth.

Owner

For those starting a podcast, use this first. You can legitimately make your production quality as good as a studio with Audacity.

Senior Engineer

The price is great (free!), you won't find better free software for basic editing of sound for any application, removing white noise, etc.

Coach

I like that it is so easy to use to record and create great sounding audios in a short amount of time.

The ability to edit with extreme precision to capture outtakes and re-assemble them into a fluid final cut was amazing.

Music producer/Artist/Event Planner

There are some EQ and filter tools that works great too. In my opinion, it's a perfect companion to make some tweaks, cut and fix small details on an audio while you work on another software.

Audacity is a free and easy to use audio recording software, I will recommend this for anyone who wants to edit an audio recording.

Manager

In the case of separation,  more of a single track enclosed recording ware, where all the unwanted background noises are pre-eliminated or rather a sound aggregate for the video guy.

Senior Manager: Digital Learning Solutions

I also needed to watch a few YouTube videos. I'm happy that they finally integrated the MP3 encoder.

Content Creator

The UI in Audacity is unattractive, and may seem complicated to beginners. Audacity is not the best choice for recording music, due to its inability to record at most two tracks.

Administrator

It's limited compared to a DAW and we can't change audio on a video.

Creator/Producer

It allows for really high-level audio editing and manipulation, and is free. Even though there’s no real customer support, you can find out how to do most things via a vast online wiki.

Language teacher

I use it now for my current job as a language teacher, in order to create my own podcasts or audio files to integrate in my videos or exercises for my students.

General Engineer

Audacity is widely used and has a large community of support.

It is not good for noise separation, as demanded by a sound professional. It rather works well for aggregates, and cannot separate a single sound data to multiple elaborate sounds.

Audacity screenshot: Audacity audio editing

Audacity screenshot: Audacity on Linux OS

Audacity screenshot: Audacity MIDI playback

Freelancers

Large Enterprises

Mid Size Business

Non Profit

Public Administrations

Small Business

Pro Tools is an audio editing software that helps musicians, students, teachers, and audio professionals record, edit, mix, and produce unique audio content. The solution enables artists to compile various takes of a recording, fix tracks' timing, and match audio beats in real-time.

WavePad helps music producers edit audio and music files using Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android devices. The application enables users to record, cut, copy, delete, and paste parts of audio files and add echo, noise reduction, amplification, reverb, reverse, and other effects via a unified portal.

ACID Pro is a cloud-based audio editing software designed to help businesses manage and edit various audio samples to streamline music production processes. Using the Beatmapper tool, supervisors can determine tempos and time signatures of external audio files and label them according to requirements.


SOUND FORGE by MAGIX is a professional audio editing platform for recording, editing and mastering audio. The software enables hi-res audio recording, one touch and timestamp recording, audio file conversion and normalization, customizable user interfaces, and more.

Collaboration Tools

Mastering

Monitoring

Plug-in Integration

Real-Time Monitoring

SOUND FORGE

Senior Transmission Engineer

It supports VST plugins that is a strong point. I have done a lot of my early radio projects on Sound Forge and I thank the company for its great support.

Creative head

The quality of edits and previews is top notch, and it also works according to your system configuration which is a great feature.

Assessor

I've been working with Sound Forge for about 15 years, I keep my profession as an audio editor thanks to Sound Forge. I can do my work with great efficiency and quality.

I work in a commercial radio station and I'm confident to say that Sound Forge has been a great help over the years.

There's another thing that I kinda hate about Sound Forge and that's the speed to load large files. It lags and takes a lot of time to process.

Support Engineer

It has a great library of audio effect. Overall, it has a great value for money.

public relations coordinator

Easy to use and super intuitive. Also it has different tools and filters that you can combine with other programs.

Musician

Great experience every time. I can pull it up and edit quickly, everything is very easy to use.

Unit manager / composer

Compatibility between old versions and new versions was sometimes frustrating.

And it has aged well I must say. The interface is intuitive and you can pretty much work your way around on your own, by using the extensive help section for each tool.

Its noise gate technology tends to distort the recording rather than filter out the noise.

Tattoo Artist

For Audio I will stay forever with the SOUND FORGE! because, of the stability, confident and GUI.

Creative

For me, the smoothness of operation, its intuitive UI and remarkably reasonable price, make Sound Forge hard to resist. I'm addicted and look forward to many happy hours exploring what it can do.

Can be somewhat difficult to set up to record audio that is playing back on your PC.

Audacity vs SOUND FORGE Comparison (2026)

Audacity

SOUND FORGE

Overview

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

User reviews

Key features

Integrations

Alternatives