Audacity Reviews

Summary: Audacity is a great, lightweight audio editor with some advanced functionality. It's free and easy to use.

Positive: - very easy learning curve
- had all the features you'd need from a basic audio editor
- works on Windows and Linux
- supports VSTs and custom routing
- free

Negative: - interface is very dated and ugly
- requires custom plugin to export to mp3

Summary: I have been a user for years now and although my use case has simply been converting audio file formats or removing noise from recordings most of the times, i am aware of the potential of Audacity.

Positive: Free to use.
Simple interface.
Lots of options for audio recording and editing.
Lightweight - low memory consumption.
Available across Linux , macOS and Windows.

Negative: The interface could be improved - it looks like an early 2000's software.

Summary: This is a great audio recorder and editor application. I have used it for years and for free I would say it beets many pay applications I've used. Thanks developers! :)

Positive: I've used Audacity for years and it has become my go to application when I need to record, edit, or in any other way change an audio recording. There is many feature and filters which gives this more power then many other pay products. For sure this is worth checking out.

Negative: I'm not a huge audio person so I only can say it worked for what I needed it for. I haven't found any cons as of yet.

Summary: Overall, I highly recommend Audacity to everyone looking for a way to record or edit audio. I mostly use it to record small snippets when I'm working with narrators for my audio books, but I know some of my narrators also use it for producing the final product that needs to be high quality for ACX.

Positive: Really easy to use for basic recording. But also with a ton of features to make your recordings perfect.

Negative: Even though I've used Audacity for a while, I still don't really know how to use half the things it does, so it could be overwhelming for some.

Summary: Audacity is the audio editing software that are perfect for those who are just starting when it comes to audio recording/producing. It can be a good starting ground because of the software's simplicity. However, given the software is 'basic', there are certain features that are lacking if you're going to go to the advanced audio production. This can basically be used for simple home/school projects.

Positive: • UI isn't complicated
• Has some built in audio editing features
• Easy-to-configure input and output settings
• Supports VST and Nyquist plugins

Negative: • Requires plugins before using some specific audio formats (mp3, m4a, etc.)
• Can't have an audio monitor
• Lacks certain features

Summary: Audacity through v3.1 is a fine product and serves my needs well. The (currently) two later versions are too frustrating for me. I will continue to use v3.1 until these other issues are addressed. If they are not addressed, I will stick with the old version that adequately meets my needs. And... I will recommend others do the same.

Positive: Audacity is sufficiently capable to do what I need to do for recording and processing a daily radio broadcast. The features I need are not so overshadowed with complications that they are difficult to use.

Negative: Beginning with v3.2 the linux version took a real performance hit. The time to process things like normalize, compressor, noise reduction, and Export to mp3 run substantially slower.
Also with v3.2 when the track exceeds the width of the window, there is no slider at the bottom until the window is resized. The slider should automatically appear when needed. It has not been fixed with v.3.3
The worst thing is changes to the UI. I have used Audacity for many years and am very accustomed to the location of buttons on the forms. Starting with v3.2 buttons on many of the Effects forms have been both renamed and moved from the bottom of the form to the top. Grrrr! It is one thing to rename a button from OK to Apply. But when the button location is moved, that is a real no-no. It slows me down, is frustrating, and serves no useful purpose.