{"slug": "bitwig", "name": "Bitwig", "category": "media", "category_name": "Media and creative", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 6, "warners": 0, "score": 4.257, "rising": 2.67, "first": "2026-01-28", "latest": "2026-09-22", "why": "bitwig, renoise and reaper all support linux for those who want or need commercial audio applications on linux", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 2, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 3, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "bitwig, renoise and reaper all support linux for those who want or need commercial audio applications on linux", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.bitwig.com", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Bitwig", "Bitwig Studio"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 796846723, "item_id": 49802920, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49802920", "by": "davidee", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Ardour and Bitwig will suffice", "excerpt": "It's not just iOS. Final Cut Pro on MacOS now regularly advertises iPadOS Final Cut Pro (which is a paid SaaS tool). Professional applications (arguments about Final Cut Pro X not being all that professional notwithstanding) that advertise like that are almost non-existent in the pro audio and video industry; an Apple pro app advertising, would have been heresy a few years ago. And yeah, it drives me crazy. It's one ", "context": "", "use_case": "audio recording", "switched_from": "Logic Pro", "story": "Apple has added persistent 'ads' to iOS, and it's driving users crazy"}, {"id": 793218448, "item_id": 49576153, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49576153", "by": "embedding-shape", "date": "2026-09-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "love how well it runs on Linux", "excerpt": "Thanks a bunch for the ideas if nothing less :) I've played around with Bitwig a bunch in the past, love how well it runs on Linux, and it's mostly similar to Ableton so would probably be easy to move, if I decided to do so. I'm mostly on Ableton because everyone else around me is on Ableton too, and we're sending projects between each other and sometimes sit together with each other and jam and such, and I basically", "context": "", "use_case": "music production on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "O&O ShutUp10 \u2013 The antispy tool for Windows 10 and 11"}, {"id": 748854609, "item_id": 46803413, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46803413", "by": "shams93", "date": "2026-01-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "bitwig, renoise and reaper all support linux for those who want or need commercial audio applications on linux", "excerpt": "This is a nice resource. Personally I use linux vst plugin on bespoke synth. But bitwig, renoise and reaper all support linux for those who want or need commercial audio applications on linux. With pipewire and new kernel changes everything is coming together for linux to perform much better than windows + asio.", "context": "", "use_case": "commercial audio on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Native Linux VST plugin directory"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "belthesar", "context": "music producer, left Windows", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49565240", "date": "2026-09-04"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["music production on linux", "audio recording", "daw on wayland", "commercial audio on linux", "music production"], "compared": [{"slug": "ableton-live", "name": "Ableton Live", "co": 3, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "logic-pro", "name": "Logic Pro", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "reaper", "name": "Reaper", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "wine", "name": "Wine", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "pipewire", "name": "PipeWire", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "ardour", "name": "Ardour", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49562895", "title": "O&O ShutUp10 \u2013 The antispy tool for Windows 10 and 11", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49801939", "title": "Apple has added persistent 'ads' to iOS, and it's driving users crazy", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47448328", "title": "Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46800737", "title": "Native Linux VST plugin directory", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46795864", "title": "Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 3}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 796846723, "item_id": 49802920, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49802920", "by": "davidee", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Ardour and Bitwig will suffice", "excerpt": "It's not just iOS. Final Cut Pro on MacOS now regularly advertises iPadOS Final Cut Pro (which is a paid SaaS tool). Professional applications (arguments about Final Cut Pro X not being all that professional notwithstanding) that advertise like that are almost non-existent in the pro audio and video industry; an Apple pro app advertising, would have been heresy a few years ago. And yeah, it drives me crazy. It's one ", "context": "", "use_case": "audio recording", "switched_from": "Logic Pro", "story": "Apple has added persistent 'ads' to iOS, and it's driving users crazy"}, {"id": 793218448, "item_id": 49576153, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49576153", "by": "embedding-shape", "date": "2026-09-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "love how well it runs on Linux", "excerpt": "Thanks a bunch for the ideas if nothing less :) I've played around with Bitwig a bunch in the past, love how well it runs on Linux, and it's mostly similar to Ableton so would probably be easy to move, if I decided to do so. I'm mostly on Ableton because everyone else around me is on Ableton too, and we're sending projects between each other and sometimes sit together with each other and jam and such, and I basically", "context": "", "use_case": "music production on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "O&O ShutUp10 \u2013 The antispy tool for Windows 10 and 11"}, {"id": 793043840, "item_id": 49565240, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49565240", "by": "belthesar", "date": "2026-09-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "I know this doesn't address all your concerns, but I switched from Ableton Live to Bitwig Studio for unrelated reasons to my leaving Windows behind, and I was thoroughly pleased with how easy the transition was between the two DAWs (I guess it shouldn't be too much of a surprise given how many ex-Ableton devs work on Bitwig), and how well the Linux build of Bitwig worked. Bitwig on Linux, with Pipewire as the audio e", "context": "music producer, left Windows", "use_case": "music production on Linux", "switched_from": "Ableton Live", "story": "O&O ShutUp10 \u2013 The antispy tool for Windows 10 and 11"}, {"id": 759190897, "item_id": 47449431, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47449431", "by": "arikrahman", "date": "2026-03-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've had an interesting experience with creating a wayland compatability layer with Bitwig.", "excerpt": "I've had an interesting experience with creating a wayland compatability layer with Bitwig. Especially as I used Niri as the tiling window manager, it is even harder to use as a base as it less supportive of X11 compared to other WMs like hyprland. This may be Niche, but DAWs are very rare to support linux, especially this stack. I would say it might be a stretch to say the company behind Bitwig is punishing Wayland ", "context": "", "use_case": "DAW on Wayland", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years"}, {"id": 748854609, "item_id": 46803413, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46803413", "by": "shams93", "date": "2026-01-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "bitwig, renoise and reaper all support linux for those who want or need commercial audio applications on linux", "excerpt": "This is a nice resource. Personally I use linux vst plugin on bespoke synth. But bitwig, renoise and reaper all support linux for those who want or need commercial audio applications on linux. With pipewire and new kernel changes everything is coming together for linux to perform much better than windows + asio.", "context": "", "use_case": "commercial audio on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Native Linux VST plugin directory"}, {"id": 748778432, "item_id": 46798652, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46798652", "by": "curtisblaine", "date": "2026-01-28", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "he's switched to Bitwig", "excerpt": "He's a musician, he's switched to Bitwig. Ok, but what about VSTs? I have a collection of instruments I can't leave behind, many are NI, so I'm currently forced to use Windows or Mac.", "context": "", "use_case": "music production", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux"}]}