FL Studio vs Cakewalk by Bandlab

With the producer or signature bundle, updates are free forever.

No complex activation shenanigans. No dongle and such.

The FL Studio DAW utilizes drag and drop, and can generally be learned quickly without any prior knowledge. There are also a lot of resources to help begginers and experienced users learn.

You don't need to install/configure a third party bridge.

Piano roll is a FL Studio's instrument step sequencer. It is considered to be among the most intuitive and flexible tools for quickly creating patterns and manipulating all aspects of each note. A single left click inserts a note, while a right click deletes it. It's possible to mute notes, splice them, stretch them, add shuffle, etc quickly.
The Piano Roll caters for those new to Music Theory as well, containing an array of chords from which to choose, be it a Major, Minor, Minor 5th, Minor 9th, what have you.

The interface adapts to the screen size it's used on.

Forget copy protection USB-dongles and phone-home activation. Just import a reg key file and your license is activated.

Edison is a great way to record and edit samples, sound effects and is a very easy way to create sample packs and sound libraries.

Supports resampling (non stretch) which is something some DAWs don't support.

All the stock plugins look really nice and really show users what is being done, it's a great way to learn mixing theory for a beginner. This approach makes FL Studio easy to learn compared to other DAWs.

Accepts VST/VSTi (v2,v3) Wav, Aiff, Rex, Acid, Apple Loop, Ogg, Mp3 as well as almost every video format including Mov and Mp4.

FL Studio has a very unique sampler which allows all kinds of sounds to be experimented with, be it a siren, a water drop, or more commonly, the infamous "Progressive House" Kick. The Sampler also allows the user to retune a sample to any key he/she desires.

You have basic and advanced plugins right out the box.

When Image Line releases an update, it's safe to assume that there are major improvements in there.

With tools in the piano roll like the "Riff Machine", and the "Randomize" tool, you can literally let the computer automate the production if you want. In addition to plugins like "Gross Beat", Slicex, DirectWave, the ideas can be limitless.

Some DAWs are good for live shows, some DAWs are good for production, but the FL Studio DAW has carved its niche in the studio recording arena.

Compared to other DAWs, FL's UI moves at full monitor refresh rates while others are somehow laggy.

Just as the internal engine bit depth, there's no loss in quality.

So you can use it inside another DAW. There's no other DAW capable of doing that.

No other DAW has that.

Because most DAWs don't scale well yet.

The Playlist mode comes with various tools for cutting out sections of a sample, midi arrangement, or otherwise. One can also clone, mute, solo out, and stretch a sample by any degree, although the sample's key will change.

Its linking engine and controller plugins are very flexible and useful all across the software. For mixing and also for performance mode.

Patcher is similar to Max for Live in Ableton and The Grid in Bitwig and allows you to build your own complex generator and effect chains.

The workflow for creating beats in FL Studio is among the fastest which make mixing and mastering a breeze inserting plug-ins and routing on the mixer.

You can make your own scratches with the "Fruity Scratcher" or "Wave traveller".

You can open several video players.

Version 12 of FL Studio includes a new Generic ASIO driver that's capable of achieving same low latency performance as the native Windows version. Instructions on how to set up the DAW to run on Linux via Wine can be found here.

Buy once, and you're allowed to use it on every computer you own.

Live can, but working with more LPs is a pain.

E.g. Harmor, Flex, Sakura, Sawer, Sytrus, Poizone...

Great software for creating rhythms.

E.g. GrossBeat, Newtime (tuning), Patcher (own complex generators and effect chains), Maximus, Soundgoodizer...

Game Editor . lets you make cool sound-triggered animations in no time

HAHA Soundgoodizer goes brrrrrr

It has an integrated Channel Strip on every track/bus with excellent and easy to use Audio FX: EQ, Comp, Reverbs, Saturation, Console Emulators etc.In addition to saving presets of the entire ProChannel chain (all modules), you can also save and load presets of individual modules. The per module preset controls are located on the left side of each module header bar.

It is basically SONAR for free after they shut down.

There are a variety of tools available, including the fantastic reverb plugin from Overloud, Breverb2.

The program itself is only 64 bits but it runs 32 and 64 bits plugin. If you still have a great plugin that never got to 64 bits this comes in handy.

No track and busses limitation.

This feature makes working with Celemony Melodyne and other ARA compatible plug-ins a breeze.

Cakewalk comes with a basic set of VST instruments: A general MIDI synth, drums, e-piano, bass and a string section.

Cakewalk comes with friendly defaults and it has a similar workflow to analog studio gear.

Easily create a final comp of all your recorded takes with simple drag and select gestures using the smart tool.

Good for people with a small-screened laptop.

The Arranger track is an arrangement tool that provides several workflow benefits .For example, instantly swap the positions of the first and second chorus for all tracks, or copy the first verse in order to double its duration.Experiment with different song structures in a non-destructive and non-linear manner. You can Create arbitrary song sections anywhere on the project timeline and then stitch them together for seamless playback, sections provide an additional way to make time-based project selections and edits. You can also create an unlimited number of arrangements per project, which can all be exported simultaneously.

The Cakewalk By Bandlab DAW comes with a new and improved user interface with an additional focus on being customizable.

You can now download and install future updates directly from Cakewalk instead of using BandLab Assistant.

Cakewalk by Bandlab recently added Articulation Maps If you work with sample libraries and virtual instruments, articulation maps are sure to improve your MIDI and articulation / keyswitch workflow Articulation maps provide a much easier way to change articulation, without having to manually edit events MIDI on the track.

The Step Sequencer makes it easy to compose patterns using a grid, where each cell (step) represents a note. You create patterns by clicking the cells in the grid to turn notes on or off, or by using step recording.

You can now activate Cakewalk directly from within the app, without requiring BandLab Assistant. Cakewalk must be activate once every 6 months.

Cakewalk Theme Editor allows you to easily customize the look of Cakewalk by editing existing UI themes or creating your own UI themes.
You can change colors directly and you can even customize images when used in combination with an external image editor such as Adobe Photoshop.

Mix Recall allows you to save and recall multiple mixes for the same project, without having to save multiple copies of the project file.
A mix can be saved as a Mix Scene within the project, and each project can store multiple Mix Scenes. A Mix Scene contains all track, bus, hardware output, ProChannel and plug-in static and automation mix settings.

Without stuttering even without ASIO hardware because of recent overhaul of the audio engine