When comparing Amplitude Audio SDK vs Wwise, the Slant community recommends Wwise for most people. In the question“What are the best audio engines?” Wwise is ranked 2nd while Amplitude Audio SDK is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose Wwise is:
Android™, iOS, Linux, Mac®, Nintendo 3DS™, PlayStation®3, PlayStation®4, PlayStation®Vita, Windows, Windows Phone, Xbox 360™, Xbox One, Wii™, Wii U™
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Extensible at the core
Amplitude offers a plugin API to allow developers to extends possibilities with the engine by adding custom effects, codecs, pipelines, and more.
Pro Provide Official Plugins for game engines
As today, Amplitude provides official plugins for O3DE and ezEngine. A plugin for Godot will be provided soon.
Pro Multi-platform support
Amplitude runs on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. Android and iOS support is still under development.
Pro Data-driven assets authoring
With Amplitude, assets are written in JSON files. It make them really easy to manage and edit. Most of the time there was not too may code to write after the integration in a game.
Pro Free License
Amplitude is licensed under Apache-2.0. So you can use it for free and commercial products without restrictions.
Pro Cross-platform
Android™, iOS, Linux, Mac®, Nintendo 3DS™, PlayStation®3, PlayStation®4, PlayStation®Vita, Windows, Windows Phone, Xbox 360™, Xbox One, Wii™, Wii U™
Pro Can create a header file for referencing objects by integer ID instead of by string name
...but it only creates a Wwise_IDs.h file for C++. And, Wwise Types pretty much eliminate the need for a similar C# file in Unity.
Pro Plenty of sensitivity in randomized playlists
Fine control of randomized clips with weighted values in the range of 0.001 to 100.
Pro Unity game engine integration fully supported
As compared to FMOD's integration with Unity, Wwise's makes soooooooooo much more sense! From their Unity components, to Wwise Types for simplified access the API, or just straight-up API calls, it all just makes much more sense than FMOD's confusing and incomplete Unity component implementation. Too bad the documentation for this is sorely lacking and the Unity components waste too much UI space by wrapping every field in a frame for no apparent reason.
Pro Studio app provides access to a complex array of controls
Which can also be fairly daunting to use as this forces stuff to be buried in tabs, popup dialogs, and other views. It is hard, for example, to see the big picture of a single event like you can in FMOD. But, it feels like you also have more control over details because of it. Thus, Wwise appears more geared towards hard-core sound engineers.
Pro Excellent tools
Pro Separates sound design/mixing from programming
Pro Unreal game engine integration fully supported
Cons
Con No GUI authoring tool
Amplitude doesn't provide a GUI authoring tool at the moment. But according to the website, it is being actively under development.
Con No autosave feature
No autosave, so expect to lose your work when it crashes.
Con Lack of good documentation for getting started
While there is plenty to read in their docs, there is not much help in for getting started with implementing game code. Particularly, with game engine integrations and best practices for working in different ways (components vs code vs both) with each. The docs in general are weak on crosslinking, screenshots, and example code. Some integration stuff simply isn't documented anywhere and requires trial and error in hopes to figure out. Well, their course materials have some more info but they are pain to try to use as reference material (very long and very basic).
Con Requires Python to be installed to create an object map file for C#
How many languages are needed to write a game??? Python must be installed to convert Wwise_IDs.h to Wwise_IDs.cs. Really?! Shouldn't that script have been written in C# to begin with? Or, any other Unity-compatible language or DLL for that matter. Or, just skip the .h and later conversion and provide an option to generate a .cs file in the original function. How hard could that be? Then again, Wwise Types pretty much eliminate the need for Wwise_IDs.cs if you choose to use them.
Con Wwise Launcher is brain dead
Wwise Launcher is one of those pain-in-the-butt applications that wants to help you use the various features of Wwise but usually just gets in the way requiring more startup clicks than necessary to get things done. It logs you out at least once a day (even if you check "Keep me logged in") and can become uncooperative very quickly if you are not logged in. I have no idea why it is so demanding about being logged in in the first place. If you're working offline then parts of it will just spin forever leaving you unsure how what to do next. Expect to restart it regularly if you move around a lot. On the other hand, it handles things like upgrades and game integrations really well... but these are also actions that are rarely executed and don't need to be in a project-blocking application.
Con Poor contrast in UI themes
Lots of different shades of gray in the UI themes leads to poor contrast which makes the text and UI elements harder to read in both light and dark themes.
Alternative Products
