2023 DAW User Survey - The Results
Our 2023 DAW user survey got an amazing response, with over 6500 audio professionals completing the poll. Find out what DAWs are being used most.
The Survey
The Experts Community is largely made up of professionals working in music and post-production. 71% of our audience derive either all or some of their income from working in audio.
6601 completed the poll, they were invited to select all DAWs they use in their audio work. The answers were divided between music and post-production users. Respondents come from 107 countries. The countries with the most respondents were;
United States of America
United Kingdom
Canada
Germany
Australia
France
Italy
Spain
Netherlands
Sweden
Brazil
Denmark
What About Pro Tools?
A reasonable question to ask is, given the history of the blog, being Pro Tools Expert, that the results will be skewed in favour of Pro Tools. It’s a fair point. However, our own research has shown that this website is read by a much broader group, hence the change of name to Production Expert some years ago.
Music Production Results
Pro Tools takes the top spot, with nearly a third of all respondents saying they use Pro Tools all or some of the time. Apple Logic Pro takes second place, with nearly one in five using it all or some of the time. Given its relatively short life span, when compared to other DAWs, PreSonus Studio One takes third spot.
Reaper is often considered by some as an outlier. However, our survey shows that it holds its own against what are considered to be more mainstream DAWs. This speaks to the depth of the features and the responsiveness of the developer to community requests. It certainly shows that it shouldn’t be dismissed as a DAW for geeks.
Some DAWs showing low usage include Reason and Universal Audio LUNA. Reason now offers a rack plugin version, which means it can be used within a DAW without having to use the full-blown DAW. This may account for the lower use of the DAW version. We are surprised to see the low adoption of UAD LUNA, given the effort made by Universal Audio to try and get traction. Some factors will affect this, including it being tied to UA hardware and also being Mac only. On the flip side, it is a free application, which should tempt more users over. We have a large Universal Audio user community, and LUNA has an impressive feature set, but it seems many of them have chosen not to use LUNA. It would seem that despite Avid’s unpopular pricing models, efforts to move Pro Tools users (their primary target) to LUNA aren’t making much of a dent.
In fact, the ‘other’ category of our survey garnered 4%. From the comments, this could include Pyramix, Samplitude, Hindenburg, and others.
Post Production Results
Again, as with music production, Pro Tools takes the top spot, with two-thirds saying they use it. It underlines just how much of a stronghold Avid has in the post-production world.
However, the second spot is taken by REAPER, which may surprise some. However, REAPER has a great feature set and supports Dolby Atmos using the Dolby Atmos Renderer. Its low price of entry and perpetual licence may be attractive to some compared to Pro Tools cost and subscription model.
Steinberg Nuendo continues to hold some ground, with the relative newcomer Fairlight, which is part of the DaVinci Resolve NLE suite, already showing 7% adoption in our survey. The fast adoption may be because of the total NLE, grading, mixing, and workflow offered in the Resolve package; there is also a free option, which makes Fairlight another attractive alternative.
When it comes to Others, in the Post Productions results, this category was much further up the ranking with 12%. Based on the comments, this could include Pryamix, Adobe Audition and Audacity.
The Best DAW?
As we stated in the original survey article, this isn’t a poll on the ‘best DAW’; the best DAW is the one that works for you. However, what it does show is despite how unpopular or popular a DAW may appear to be, especially in forums or social media discussions, when push comes to shove, people vote with their feet. Or, of course, aren’t likely to either visit or comment on those kinds of discussions in the first place.
Inertia plays a big part in DAW usage and adoption. The need to learn a new application, however tempting a feature set or pricing model may appear, is often beaten by our unwillingness, or simply the impractical notion, for a professional to learn something new.
Another thing to consider is, that for many professionals, the HDX workflow found in Pro Tools is either a necessity or desirable, this is especially the case in the post world. For music producers, Logic’s feature set and tight integration with Apple hardware is very attractive. What the Logic Pro numbers also show is that even when a DAW is limited by the OS, in other words, Logic Pro is Mac only, that doesn’t always limit adoption.