Best for
Best for electronic producers and sound designers who perform from clips and build their own instruments and modulation.
Audio Editing & Mastering Comparison
Bitwig Studio vs. Tracktion Waveform
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for musicians and producers who want a full DAW without a subscription, including on Linux.
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | Bitwig Studio | Tracktion Waveform |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | lower value $99 Bitwig Studio Essentials, one-time purchase including 12 months of free updates. Producer $199, Bitwig Studio $399. | Free; Waveform Pro $249 Waveform Pro is a one-time payment; the upgrade from Waveform 13 is $149. Bundles with instruments and sound libraries cost $349, $599 and $999, and feature expansions for Waveform Free start at $30 each. |
| Free trial | 30-day free trial without limitations | Free 30-day trial of Waveform Pro; Waveform Free costs nothing |
| Output | Recorded, arranged, mixed and performed music, exported as 16-, 24- or 32-bit audio including multi-track export | Recorded, produced, edited and mixed music |
| Languages | Full localisation in five languages and multilingual support in seven: Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Spanish | Not stated |
| Hosting | Desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux | Desktop app for macOS 13 or later, 64-bit Windows 10 and 11, and Linux (tested on Ubuntu 24.04) |
| What it does | Digital audio workstation for recording, arranging, live performance and sound design, with a linear Arranger timeline and a nonlinear Clip Launcher | Digital audio workstation for recording, producing, editing and mixing music, with MIDI composition tools and an optional video expansion |
| Multitrack or two-track | Unlimited audio, instrument and hybrid tracks and scenes in every edition, with audio comping in the Arranger and Clip Launcher in Producer and Bitwig Studio | Multitrack audio and MIDI; Tracktion describes Waveform Free as a fully featured, completely unlimited free DAW |
| Noise removal and repair | Spectral Suite in the full edition splits audio into transient, frequency, loudness and harmonic parts for separate processing, alongside De-Esser and Gate devices | A built-in Gate turns the signal down when it falls below a threshold; noise and clicks at the edges of a clip are dealt with by trimming and short edge fades |
| Mastering and loudness | Bundled audio effects include Peak Limiter, Compressor+ and Dynamics, with EQ+ in the full Bitwig Studio edition | Master Mix in Waveform Pro combines EQ, three-band crossover compression, dynamics, gain and DC filtering at the end of the chain, next to a brick-wall Limiter and a Level Meter with Peak and RMS modes. On export the mix can be normalised to its peak or scaled to a target RMS level, with dithering on by default |
| Formats and resolution | 32-bit floating point processing at up to 192 kHz; imports WAV, AIFF, MP3, AAC, WMA, FLAC, OGG Vorbis and MIDI, exports 16-, 24- and 32-bit audio, and imports and exports DAWproject | Records WAV by default, or AIFF, FLAC or Ogg, at 16, 24 or 32 bits depending on the format and at the sample rates the audio interface offers. Mixdowns export to WAV, MP3 at up to 320 kbps and other file types, and whole projects move in and out as DAWproject files |
| Where it runs | Desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux with ASIO, Core Audio and JACK, hosting VST and CLAP plug-ins with crash protection, plus multi-touch and up to three screens | Desktop app for macOS 13 or later on Intel or Apple Silicon, 64-bit Windows 10 and 11, and Linux, tested on Ubuntu 24.04. Hosts VST, VST3 and AU plug-ins and runs them sandboxed, so a crashing plug-in does not close Waveform |
| Licence and pricing model | One-time purchase in three editions, Essentials $99, Producer $199 and Bitwig Studio $399, each with 12 months of free updates; upgrading between editions carries no extra costs | Waveform Free at no cost, with paid feature expansions from $30 each. Waveform Pro is a one-time purchase at $249, or $149 as an upgrade from Waveform 13, and is also sold in three larger bundles |
| Also included | In the full edition: 188 instruments, audio and note effects, 43 modulators, The Grid modular environment, a sampler with five play modes and the full sound library, plus MIDI, CV and MPE hardware integration | In Waveform Pro: 38 audio effects, 10 MIDI effects, 11 utility plug-ins and 10 instruments, plus Auto-Tune, Melodyne Essential and Elastique Pro, and the Pro Video, Recording Engineer, MIDI Producer, Synth Pack, DJ Mix Tools, Launcher and Multi Channel expansions |
| API | No hosted API. Controller scripts in JavaScript and controller extensions in Java use Bitwig Studio's controller API, documented in the Dashboard under Help > Documentation | No hosted API. A JavaScript API configures controllers, and the Waveform Assistant can run JavaScript macros; the Tracktion Engine behind Waveform is offered to developers as an open-source toolkit |
| AI features | No | stated Yes |
| Deployment | On-premise | On-premise |
| Support | Email helpdesk | Not stated |
| Onboarding | Documentation and knowledge base | more entries Documentation and knowledge base, Video tutorials |
| Integrations | Not stated | Ableton Link, OpenAI, Anthropic |
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The short version
Key Differences
- Starting price Bitwig Studio $99 Tracktion Waveform Free; Waveform Pro $249
- Free trial Bitwig Studio 30-day free trial without limitations Tracktion Waveform Free 30-day trial of Waveform Pro; Waveform Free costs nothing
- Hosting Bitwig Studio Desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux Tracktion Waveform Desktop app for macOS 13 or later, 64-bit Windows 10 and 11, and Linux (tested on Ubuntu 24.04)
- AI features Bitwig Studio No Tracktion Waveform Yes
- Output Bitwig Studio Recorded, arranged, mixed and performed music, exported as 16-, 24- or 32-bit audio including multi-track export Tracktion Waveform Recorded, produced, edited and mixed music
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
Bitwig Studio
Strengths
- Runs natively on Linux as well as Windows and macOS
- Unlimited tracks and plug-ins even in the $99 Essentials edition
- The Grid builds custom instruments and effects inside the DAW
- DAWproject import and export moves sessions to other supported DAWs
Limitations
- Essentials is limited to a single screen and 4/8 audio I/O busses
- The Grid, the Spectral Suite and the full modulator set require the $399 edition
Tracktion Waveform
Strengths
- Waveform Free is a no-cost version of the same DAW
- Runs on Linux, where the Pro features unlock automatically
- Pro includes Auto-Tune, Melodyne Essential and Elastique Pro
- Third-party plug-ins run sandboxed, so a crash does not close the host
Limitations
- The Waveform Assistant needs your own OpenAI or Anthropic API key
- Video in Waveform Free needs the paid Pro Video expansion
- Moving from Waveform 13 to 14 is a paid upgrade
Plans
Pricing
Bitwig Studio
- Bitwig Studio Essentials $99 One-time purchase with 12 months of free updates. 51 instruments and effects, 10 modulators, single screen.
- Bitwig Studio Producer $199 One-time purchase with 12 months of free updates. 105 instruments and effects, 18 modulators, audio comping, up to three screens.
- Bitwig Studio $399 One-time purchase with 12 months of free updates. 188 instruments and effects, 43 modulators, The Grid and Bitwig Circle membership.
Tracktion Waveform
- Waveform Free $0 Free DAW with VST, VST3 and AU plug-in support. Feature expansions from $30 each.
- Waveform Pro $249 One-time. $149 as an upgrade from Waveform 13.
- Recommended Bundle $349 One-time. Waveform Pro plus F.'em, Dan Dean Essential Bass, the Testa Imagina drum loop library and RetroMod FAT and LoFreq Modern. $299 as an upgrade.
- Studio Content Bundle $599 One-time. The Recommended Bundle plus further instruments, among them the RetroMod Collection, MOK Waverazor and Abyss 2. $549 as an upgrade.
- Everything Bundle $999 One-time. The Studio Content Bundle plus the remaining Tracktion plug-ins and all sound packs available at purchase.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
Bitwig Studio
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
Tracktion Waveform
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
How we check reviews
Reviews are not published yet. The form on a tool's page works and reaches us, but nothing from it appears on this site, so no score here is based on a review. The rules below are the ones that will apply once reviews go live.
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Where this comes from
Where this comes from
Bitwig Studio https://www.bitwig.com/ · checked against the official source on 2026-10-14
Tracktion Waveform https://www.tracktion.com/products/waveform-pro · checked against the official source on 2026-10-20
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.