Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Reaper VS FL Studio

Compare Reaper VS FL Studio and see what are their differences

Reaper logo Reaper

Reaper is a focused digital audio workstation (DAW) developed by Cockos. In the creation of the software, the digital audio technology company intended to make audio editing accessible to the masses.

FL Studio logo FL Studio

Image-Line's FL Studio, now on it's 12th version, is a well-known music production suite and the most popular beat processor on the market, due no doubt to its longevity. Read more about FL Studio.
  • Reaper Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-06
  • FL Studio Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-24

Reaper features and specs

  • Affordable
    Reaper offers a full-featured digital audio workstation at a fraction of the price of many competitors, with a very reasonable one-time licensing fee.
  • Customizable
    Reaper is highly flexible and customizable, allowing users to script their own features and modify the interface to suit their specific workflow needs.
  • Lightweight
    Reaper is known for its low resource usage, meaning it can run efficiently on both older and less powerful computer systems without sacrificing performance.
  • Frequent Updates
    The developers of Reaper frequently release updates, ensuring the software remains current and packed with new features and bug fixes.
  • Strong Community Support
    Reaper benefits from a strong, active user community that provides tutorials, scripts, plugins, and other resources to extend its functionality.

Possible disadvantages of Reaper

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Beginners may find Reaper challenging to learn due to its extensive set of features and customization options, which can be overwhelming at first.
  • Less Industry Standard
    While powerful, Reaper is not as widely recognized and used in professional studios compared to industry standards like Pro Tools and Logic Pro, which could be a drawback for collaborative projects.
  • Limited Native Plugins
    Reaper comes with fewer high-quality native plugins compared to some other DAWs, which might require users to rely more on third-party plugins.
  • Complex Customization
    While customization is a strength, it can also be a downside for users who prefer a more straightforward, out-of-the-box experience, as the initial setup and tweaking can be time-consuming.
  • Interface Design
    The default interface design of Reaper is often considered less polished or modern compared to other DAWs, which might affect the user experience for some.

FL Studio features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    FL Studio offers an intuitive and easy-to-navigate interface, making it accessible for beginners and efficient for experienced users.
  • Lifetime Free Updates
    Purchasing any version of FL Studio grants users lifetime free updates, ensuring long-term value and access to the latest features and improvements.
  • Versatile Plugin Compatibility
    FL Studio is compatible with a wide range of plugins and VSTs, allowing users to expand their sound library and capabilities easily.
  • Strong Community and Support
    With a large and active user community, as well as official support channels, users can find help, tutorials, and resources readily.
  • Powerful Production Tools
    FL Studio comes with a comprehensive set of production tools, including advanced MIDI support, automation, and a variety of instrument and effect plugins.

Possible disadvantages of FL Studio

  • Steep Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    While the basic features are easy to learn, mastering the advanced tools and functions in FL Studio can take significant time and effort.
  • Complex Workflow for Non-Linear Arrangement
    The pattern-based workflow can be less intuitive for users who prefer a linear arrangement style, potentially slowing down the production process for some.
  • Resource Intensive
    FL Studio can be quite demanding on system resources, which may require high-end hardware for optimal performance, especially with larger projects.
  • Limited Stock Effects
    Although there are many built-in effects, some users feel that the stock effects are not on par with third-party alternatives and might necessitate additional purchases.
  • Windows-Centric Design
    While a Mac version is available, FL Studio's design and performance are optimized for Windows, potentially leading to a less stable experience on macOS.

Reaper videos

Reaper DAW review - best free daw software for music production?

More videos:

  • Review - Why Reaper? | pros and cons
  • Review - Why I love Reaper with Glenn Fricker - Warren Huart: Produce Like A Pro

FL Studio videos

FL Studio 20 Full Review

More videos:

  • Review - Which Version of FL Studio Should I Get?
  • Review - FIRST LOOK AND HONEST REVIEW ON FL STUDIO 20

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Reaper and FL Studio)
Audio & Music
55 55%
45% 45
Audio
55 55%
45% 45
Audio Recording
59 59%
41% 41
Music
40 40%
60% 60

User comments

Share your experience with using Reaper and FL Studio. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Reaper and FL Studio

Reaper Reviews

Top 18 Free Music Making Software for Beginners [2023]
Launched by Cockos in 2006, Reaper has grown into a robust, feature-rich DAW, offering full audio and MIDI recording, sound editing, mixing, and mastering functionalities.
5 PRO TOOLS ALTERNATIVES FOR RECORDING AND MIXING AUDIO
Reaper is a low-cost digital audio workstation with many features. It is available for Windows and Mac and can record, mix, and master audio. It has many features, including multichannel recording, surround sound support and a powerful effects engine. Reaper is a good option for home recording and mixing, and has many features that make it an alternative to Pro Tools.
9 Adobe Audition Alternatives That Do More Than Cleaning
Not as recognized as rivals like Ableton, Pro Tools, and FL Studio. If your employer or client requires you to have access to these tools and you’re only using Reaper, that could be a problem.
Best FL Studio Alternatives In 2022
Reaper puts its stamp in the conversation as it offers users an incredibly active community as well as everything you need in a DAW. Speed is one of the selling points with Reaper as it loads up extremely fast compared to certain DAWs. This is mainly due to its lightweight size, with its downloader being less than 20MB. In making Reaper, the software devs also did a...
Top 12 Audacity Alternatives You Could Use
Lastly, you can also check out Reaper, which features multi-track audio editing, processing, and more. Plus, it supports a wide range of hardware and plugins, and also comes baked with some pretty neat features such as the ability to record and edit musical notations with support for key signatures, multiple clefs, and more. What’s more, Reaper also supports scripting, so...
Source: beebom.com

FL Studio Reviews

10 Best GarageBand Alternatives for Android
The list of best alternatives to GarageBand will be incomplete if we don’t mention FL Studio. Though this app isn’t free, it is one of the best digital audio workstation apps that can get so close to GarageBand. It allows you to create, mix, sequence, and render audio projects from your phone. You get a long list of effects ranging from drums and bass to synth and keyboards...
Top 18 Free Music Making Software for Beginners [2023]
FL Studio is a fully-featured music production software used by many professional producers. The DAW offers a wide range of music-making functionalities in its free trial. However, if you save your project during the free trial, you cannot access them until you upgrade to a paid plan.
Expand Your Arsenal of Music Creation Tools With BandLab Alternatives
FL Studio is another powerful DAW that allows users to create professional quality music from their computers quickly and easily. It has an extensive library of samples and effects and support for virtual instruments and MIDI controllers so you can get creative with your productions immediately.
Source: bandlabwin.com
5 PRO TOOLS ALTERNATIVES FOR RECORDING AND MIXING AUDIO
FL Studio is a versatile DAW that has been used to produce music for both popular and underground artists alike. If you are interested in making EDM, hip hop or other electronic music, FL Studio is likely the best DAW for you. Ardour is another great option if you are looking to improve your recording and mixing skills. It provides an extensive range of features to help you...
9 Adobe Audition Alternatives That Do More Than Cleaning
A favorite DAW among professional musicians, FL Studio is best for house, techno, and electronic music. Look no further if you want a one-stop solution to record, mix, master, and edit your beats.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Reaper seems to be a lot more popular than FL Studio. While we know about 80 links to Reaper, we've tracked only 6 mentions of FL Studio. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Reaper mentions (80)

  • Extensible Control of Reaper via OSC and Scripts
    REAPER is a powerful Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) with enormous customization possibilities. Its scripting support, external control capabilities, support for many DAW plugin formats, and compatibility with MacOS and Windows make it an obvious choice for building all sorts of integrations and automation. At Sonarworks, we use REAPER as a plugin host as part of our DAW plugin test automation framework. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • Ask HN: Is There a Blender for Music?
    Almost free. https://reaper.fm It's cheap enough for almost anyone to buy and you can play around with the free version. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Best DAW for putting E-drum tracks on PC
    I'm a big fan of Reaper (reaper.fm). It's technically not free, but $60 is totally worth it, plus you can trial it full featured, indefinitely. Source: over 1 year ago
  • What Is the Future of the DAW?
    If you use the Linux port, you may want to use Yabridge to load Windows VSTs in a transparent way. http://reaper.fm/ https://github.com/robbert-vdh/yabridge. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Where do I start designing my own audio for my games?
    My recommendation would be Reaper from reaper.fm Reaper is used in the video game industry due to it's customization, routing, batch processing and scripting capabilities. It's very customizable and has small CPU footprint. Source: almost 2 years ago
View more

FL Studio mentions (6)

  • Computer software
    You can try FL Studio for free, by downloading the trial from their website (https://image-line.com) I think its a forever trial, and you have access to all the stock plugins, its just restricted in various ways (you can't open saved projects, for instance) but if your just trying DAW's on for size, that won't matter. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Trance Production Bootcamp
    I don't know about Ableton, but both FL Studio and Renoise offer high-functioning demos: ( image-line.com and https://www.renoise.com/ ). Source: over 2 years ago
  • where do i get FL studio?
    Where can I get a FL studio free trial? I saw something called image-line offering FL studio downloads and looked legit. Is this where I download it? Making sure I dont download malware. Source: over 3 years ago
  • How can I get sample packs?
    Log into your account on image-line.com, click your name in the top right and select "My Licenses", look for them under the "Loops" header. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Trickle down my pantaloons
    FL studio, it's a Digital Audio Workstation Https://image-line.com. Source: over 3 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Reaper and FL Studio, you can also consider the following products

Audacity - Audacity is a free and open-source audio production software suite that includes a surprising array of editing tools and recording systems.

LMMS - Make music with a free, cross-platform tool

Ardour - Record, edit, and mix on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

GarageBand - GarageBand is a fully equipped music creation studio for Mac

Cubase - Cubase is one of the world’s most powerful music creation software packages. From first idea to finished recording, Cubase helps you to make outstanding music.

Ableton Live - Ableton makes Push and Live, hardware and software for music production, creation and performance. Ableton´s products are made to inspire creative music-making.