GarageBand is one of the best digital audio workstations (DAW) in the market, but it’s only available for Apple devices. That means you can only use it on Macs, iPhones, and iPads, but not on Windows, Linux, or Android. So if you are looking for a GarageBand alternative to use on your Windows 10 PC, you have come to the right place. Today, we will tell you about the 12 best free and paid digital audio workstations (DAW) that are great GarageBand alternatives for Windows users.

We have already written about the best GarageBand alternatives for Android, so check that out if you are looking for music production software to use on your mobile phone or tablet. On the other hand, if you are looking for audio editors, check out a curated list of the best audio editing software for Windows, Mac, and Linux. As for this article, here we will tell you about the best GarageBand alternatives (top free and affordable DAWs) for Windows PCs. So without any further delay, let’s get cracking.

  • Cakewalk
  • LMMS
  • FL Studio
  • Reaper
  • Magix MusicMaker
  • MPC Beats
  • Ohm Studio
  • Audiotool
  • Mixcraft
  • Cubase
  • Adobe Audition
  • Audacity
  • Notable Mentions: Ableton Live, WavePad, and More

1. Cakewalk

One of the best free digital audio workstations around, Cakewalk is the ideal alternative to GarageBand on Windows. It is partially based on technology developed by Roland under its “Sonar” software brand and comes with Sonar’s 64-bit mix engine that helps deliver clean, dynamic, accurate mixes. Rebranded from Sonar to Cakewalk following its acquisition by BandLab, the software offers unlimited audio, MIDI, instrument, loop, and auxiliary tracks in every project.

Designed to emulate the layout of an analog console, Cakewalk allows users to build and upgrade their channel strip with an expandable library of ProChannel modules. It ranges from convolution reverb, resonant filtering, dynamic compression, and powerful EQ to tape and console emulation, peak limiting, and tube saturation. It also offers VST3 support, full compatibility with touchscreen devices, and ARA functionality for seamless integration of powerful and modern editing tools. You can also use the software to export and publish your songs directly to YouTube, SoundCloud, Facebook, and more.

2. LMMS: Best Open-source GarageBand Alternative

One of the best GarageBand alternatives on Windows, LMMS is cross-platform free and open-source software (FOSS) with a wide range of built-in samples and instruments. Available on Windows, Mac, and Linux, it offers a powerful music production solution with numerous mixing and mastering tools. With LMMS, you can sequence, compose, mix and automate songs in one simple interface. It also lets you note playback via MIDI or typing keyboard. There’s also support for full user-defined track-based automation and computer-controlled automation sources.

  • Pros: Open-source, Cross-platform availability, Built-in samples, effects and plugins, Visual mapping tool for sequencing, Active community support on the forums
  • Cons: No support for live recording
  • Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux
  • Download: Free

3. FL Studio

Audio production on Windows was once synonymous with FL Studio. While the scene has changed somewhat with the availability of other high-quality DAWs on the platform, FL Studio remains one of the best, most advanced, and popular software in the segment. Unlike Cakewalk or LMMS, it isn’t free but still makes for one of the preferred GarageBand alternatives on Windows. It comes with a full-featured trial that allows you to edit and save projects and export them to audio formats like MP3 and WAV.

4. Reaper

Another great GarageBand alternative for Windows, Reaper, is a complete digital audio production application. It offers a complete multi-track audio and MIDI recording, editing, processing, mixing, and mastering toolset. It supports a vast range of hardware, digital formats, and plugins and can be comprehensively extended, scripted, and modified. Other features include 64-bit internal audio processing and support for thousands of third-party plugin effects and virtual instruments, including VST, VST3, LV2, AU, DX, and JS.

5. Magix MusicMaker

Another great free DAW, MusicMaker from Magix, makes for one of the best Garageband alternatives on Windows. The software offers a massive collection of high-quality beats, tunes, and vocals to help you get started. You can also combine sounds and loops per drag & drop, play a whole library of software instruments and apply professional effects. It also supports live recordings, unlike some other free options on this list.

6. MPC Beats

MPC Beats is a free full-featured beat-making DAW with drum programming, sampling, and audio recording. Built on Akai’s famed MPC music production hardware, this is another great GarageBand alternatives on Windows. It is a powerful software for beat-making with VST and AU plugin support. The software offers various genre templates, like Trap, Dance, Pop, and more. It offers 2GB worth of free content, including samples, loops, and built-in virtual instrument plugins to help craft your sound. It also comes with MPC Beats expansion pack editions from leading musicians and music producers, such as Araab Muzik, Motif Alumni, and more.

MPC Beats offers plug-and-play compatibility with various USB controllers, including MPK Mini, M-Audio Oxygen, Alesis V-Mini, and more. It also offers more than 80 audio FX plugins, including compressors, echo/ delay/ reverb, EQ, software synthesizers, and more. They will help you wrap, manipulate and transform audio with ease. You can even record instruments or vocals with two stereo audio tracks to add live elements to your music.

7. Ohm Studio

Ohm Studio advertises itself as the “first real-time, pro-grade collaborative digital audio workstation.” It leverages the power of the cloud to let multiple people work together on a music project in real-time from the comfort of their home or studio. A great tool to have during the pandemic, Ohm Studio enables each member of a team or band to record their raw tracks separately and have them available on the cloud for every member of the project. While the software offers cutting-edge features, it also makes things easy for beginners with a simple interface and built-in tutorials.

With its vast feature set and cross-platform compatibility, Ohm Studio is an amazing GarageBand alternative on Windows and other platforms, especially for cloud-based real-time collaborations.

8. Audiotool

Yet another online collaborative music production software, Audiotool, offers a decent set of music creation tools, including 50,000 device presets and 250,000 samples via its community library. Like Ohm Studio, it is not a true alternative to traditional entry-level DAWs like GarageBand but offers enough grunt for music creation on the go. The software stores all track assets on Audiotool servers, enabling collaborators to access them from anywhere in the world.

9. Mixcraft

Mixcraft is one of the best GarageBand alternatives on Windows for folks wanting to mix music with many different samples and loops. Moreover, it also offers an editing interface similar to that of GarageBand. Mixcraft offers over 7,500 professionally produced loops, music beds, sound effects, and percussion samples in many different genres.

It also has a fast sound engine, impressive pitch-shifting and time-stretching technology, and massive support for third-party plug-ins, audio interfaces, and hardware controllers. Mixcraft’s suite of effects and instruments include samplers, authentic emulations of classic synthesizers, electric pianos, rock organs, and ToneBoosters reverbs, compressors, filters, equalizers, and other effects.

10. Cubase

One of the best DAWs for music professionals around the world, Cubase is a great GarageBand alternative on Windows if you are ready to loosen your purse strings. The Cubase audio engine features 64-bit floating-point resolution at a 192 kHz sample rate. It also includes true surround capability, with each track and channel offering up to six discreet channels for 5.1 surround mixes.

The software also offers a bewildering array of features, including audio warp-quantize, advanced channel strip modules, chord pads to help compose music quickly, comping to create the perfect track from multiple takes, etc.

11. Adobe Audition

The penultimate software on our list, Adobe Audition, is also a capable GarageBand alternative for Windows, especially if you already subscribe to Adobe’s CS bundle. Of course, it isn’t free. But like Cubase, it offers you a full range of features, including a multitrack, non-destructive mix/ edit environment, as well as a destructive-approach waveform editing view.

The software helps you record, edit, and apply effects to audio clips as well as record and adjust multitrack sessions. It also comes with a great built-in noise-reduction tool, as well as a Dynamics Processing effect called ‘music ducking’ that automatically lowers the audio level of one track when there’s a voice-over track present.

12. Audacity

Last but not least, we have the one and only Audacity. Wildly popular with amateur musicians and starters in the music business, the free and open-source program is one of the best GarageBand alternatives on Windows for beginners. While it is largely used as an audio editor, it is still capable of recording, editing, and producing audio files, making it a DAW by the strictest of definitions.

Audacity is an easy-to-use all-purpose multi-track audio editor and recorder, with live audio recording capabilities through a microphone or mixer. It can also digitize recordings from other media as well as import, edit and combine sound files.

Notable Mentions: Other Free and Premium Apps Like GarageBand for Windows

Another feature-rich free software in this category is WavePad (website). Like Audacity, it is a capable and full-featured audio editor that offers some basic production capabilities, especially when used in conjunction with its stablemate, MixPad. That said, it is still more of an audio editor that passes for an entry-level DAW that’s free and easy to use for beginners.

The list above largely includes free audio production software for folks looking at GarageBand alternatives on Windows. However, we have also included a few paid apps in case you are ready to dive deeper into the music production world. Some of the other notable paid DAWs are the industry-standard Pro Tools from Avid (website), as well as Studio One (website), Ableton Live (website), etc.