BandLab

If you are a young producer looking for an entry-level, freemium online DAW, BandLab is one of the best options out there. Boasting an impressive range of high-quality sounds, loops, and samples, and featuring an incredibly intuitive interface, BandLab will more than meet your music production needs. It’s also worth noting that the software is accessible through a web browser or a terrific standalone app.

SoundTrap by Spotify

Spotify’s SoundTrap is another great option for producers, featuring a simple, intuitive design, and a wide range of stock samples, beats, and top-notch presets. SoundTrap also features five different options for their subscriptions, each catered to users with specific requirements: Free, Sound Starter, Music Production, Vocals & Songwriting, and Production & Vocals. The first three are all good choices for musicians and are terrific for podcasters, offering useful benefits such as the ability to upload straight to Spotify.

Amped Studio

Amped Studio features a unique benefit to producers. Thanks to its design as a Progressive Web App on Google Chrome, users can access the DAW without internet. This means that producers won’t have to worry about their internet connection, allowing for seamless workflow. Amped Studio also boasts cool features like the ability to turn a hummed melody or beat-boxed drum beat into MIDI notes.

Audiotool

Audiotool is a powerful online DAW catering to users of all different levels. With over 1,000,000 cloud-based samples and loops, it’s a true powerhouse. Another unique appeal of Audiotool is the refreshingly vintage aesthetic of their effects plugins. The collaborative feature is top-quality here, with users communicating in realtime through video, audio, or text chat.

Soundation

Soundation’s intuitive interface might look familiar to fans of Ableton Live. Indeed, it’s workflow is similar, perfect for producers looking for a seamless and efficient user experience. This is one of the more powerful online DAWs available, hosting many of the same features you would use in an expensive desktop DAW.

User Interface and Ease of Use

Amongst the many factors to consider when choosing a DAW, the visual aesthetic and ease of use shouldn’t be underestimated. Keep in mind that these factors are largely subjective. What you consider clear and intuitive will likely depend on what DAWs you are already familiar with.

Plugin and Effect Availability

Doing research into the stock plugins, VSTs, and effects of each DAW is a vital exercise. These can have a massive impact on your music’s overall sound.  For instance, Audiotool is known for its emulations of certain vintage effects and its terrific drum samplers. Elsewhere, Amped Studio is renowned for some excellent distortion and saturation plugins. In addition, Soundation features five terrific synthesizer emulations and some high-quality filter plugins.

These are just a few examples. It’s worth trying out these different DAWs for free and seeing what piques your interest.

Exporting and Sharing Options

Another crucial part of picking the right DAW is knowing about your exporting and sharing options. When exporting your finished music to a file, you can usually export to a lossy, compressed file (MP3, AAC, etc) or you can export to an uncompressed, high-quality file (WAV, AIFF, etc). WAV is an industry-standard for professional-sounding audio. For most online DAWs, exporting uncompressed WAV files is restricted to paying users.

It’s also worth looking into whether these platforms allow you to easily share your work with a community of users or in some cases, distribute your music to streaming services.

Learning Music Production

SoundTrap is perhaps the simplest of the online DAWs, making it perfect for beginners who are trying to learn the basics of music production without requiring the maximum capabilities of the best DAWs. With a simple layout and more than enough in the way of plugins, loops, and presets, it’s an impressive, intuitive platform for simple music production. It also features some useful music theory aids, helping beginner musicians choose their next chord.

Making Beats

Amped Studio is an excellent choice for beatmakers, offering a range of hip-hop oriented features. In particular, their Hum & Beatz feature allows users to beatbox a drum pattern and then convert this into MIDI. You can also use external VSTs within Amped Studio, making it ideal for beat makers who like to use third-party plug-ins and samplers.

Recording Vocals

One of the major upsides of SoundTrap is its integration of the magnificent Antares Autotune pitch correction plug-in. This allows you to clean up your vocals with ease. While most of these DAWs feature some pitch correction software, Antares is a widely-respected tool for producers of all levels.

Editing Podcasts

Soundtrap, despite its limitations, has long been a favourite of podcasters thanks to the ability to release podcasts straight onto Spotify. This saves a huge amount of time and the simple but intuitive workspace allows podcasters to release their work with maximum efficiency. It also caters specifically to podcasters, putting extra effort into the recording, editing, and promotion of your podcasts.

Mastering Tracks

BandLab is one of the only online DAWs that hosts its own mastering software. Though Soundtrap does include a mastering feature, BandLab allows users to choose from a variety of presets, designed for particular styles of music.