Audacity Reviews and Ratings

Rating: 7.9 out of 10

Score

7.9 out of 10

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Audacity are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Robust Audio Editing: Users have consistently praised Audacity for its robust capabilities and wide variety of controls, with many stating that it meets their audio editing needs. The program allows users to splice audio segments together seamlessly, ensuring a smooth editing experience. Additionally, the availability of basic editing features such as cuts and fades is appreciated by users who are looking to make simple edits.

Ease of Use: Many reviewers have highlighted how easy it is to navigate and use Audacity's user interface. They find it simple and intuitive, even for those with minimal experience in audio editing. The program's workflow is considered easy and straightforward, allowing users to quickly complete tasks without feeling overwhelmed. Furthermore, the learning curve for Audacity is small, making it accessible to new users who want to get started with audio editing right away.

Free and Cost-effective Solution: The fact that Audacity is free has been widely appreciated by users looking for a budget-friendly option. Its open-source nature makes it accessible to anyone without having to spend money on expensive software. Users also value the program's compatibility with both Mac and PC platforms, allowing a wide range of individuals to access its features at no cost.

Reviews

28 Reviews

Very satisfied!

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

June 25, 2023

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Audacity for almost every video I record. In addition, since I'm promoting literacy, I also create an audio recording to accompany almost every web page and all my course pages. This way, my clients can listen as they read, and their reading skills can improve as they are learning how to learn.

Pros

Ease of recording.
Simple steps to increase the volume of the recording.
Simple to save and export the audio file.

Cons

It's not always easy to replace audio sections.
I don't use most of the options available, so finding what I do need can be a little difficult.

Likelihood to Recommend

I've never had any wish to try any alternatives to Audacity, so this is a difficult question to answer. Audacity serves my purposes, and the cost is more than reasonable.

Janet Denison

Publisher at Wordskillz.com (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

View profile

Archivist experience with Audacity

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

June 23, 2023

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Audacity for audio recording, editing, normalizing audio levels, and more. It's especially handy when I need to sync prerecorded audio segments to a presentation so it can be viewed more than once by attendees at their own pace. The program offers quite a bit of functionality for a free software.

Pros

Splicing audio segments together
Recording & re-recording directly in the program
Editing sound levels so segments aren't dramatically louder or quieter than another

Cons

Adding more instructions: it's a simple program but users may need an external guide to get started
Automatic filter for background noise
Speech to text captioning

Likelihood to Recommend

Audacity is well-suited for any basic audio recording and editing needs. If you have a small budget, only need a program for a small, specific project, or don't need too many extra tools, Audacity is the perfect program for you. It helps me prerecord presentations before posting them online, so I'm not giving the same presentation over and over again.

Holly Fitzpatrick

Kelley School of Business Selection Archivist Assistant in Marketing at Indiana University Bloomington (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Basic sound editing and recording in a dead-simple package

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

November 3, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I want to be able to take a meeting recording, audio memo, or song idea; then quickly edit and export it. Audacity does this flawlessly and doubles as a simple recording interface.

Pros

Simple editing of waveforms without much prior knowledge of audio manipulation.
The UI is very simple, but also helpfully sparse. This cuts down on the sense of feeling overwhelmed by the task.
It does incredibly well with different audio formats and is able to work with all major audio sources.

Cons

Although the UI is very simple, it's not great to look at. Making the program more exciting visually would be a great plus.
The functionality has never been lacking for what it is, but has also not seen major additions in a long time.
The support base of the community is truly impressive, but is also very intimidating to wade through. Having better standardized help avenues would be a benefit to new users.

Likelihood to Recommend

Audacity has always been my go-to program for basic recording and editing of sound bites, voice memos, song ideas, and meeting recordings. It has a super simple UI and all the basic features. If you are looking to compete with high-end audio editors like Adobe Audition, the feature list will be disappointing and the UI frustrating.

Jo Ströhfeldt

Pastor at Doxa Deo Hatfield (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

Value, Ease of Use and Efficiency for Podcasts

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

April 26, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Audacity to edit and record two podcasts. It is a major help in efficiency and affordability.

Pros

Edit Audio for podcasts or commercials.
Record Audio for podcasts or commercials.
Convert Audio for podcasts or commercials.

Cons

Sometimes Audacity will update and create an issue for users, but those are generally resolved quickly.
The learning curve may be steep for newbies.
It occasionally hangs up my computer and I have to reboot.

Likelihood to Recommend

If you are a hobbyist or small- to mid-sized podcaster, this is a great editing and recording solution.

Alex Greenwood

Principal and Owner in Professional Services at AGPR/AlexanderG Public Relations, LLC (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

View profile

The Only Free Audio Editor You'll Ever Need

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

August 23, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

As a film, TV & Commercial composer, I spend my live inside DAWs (Digital Audio Workstation) - I started my career on Pro Tools, moved to Cubase, then Abelton. One DAW I consistently come back to is also one that costs nothing - Audacity. As robust as the other DAWs are, there are often things that Audicity can do faster, and small footprint makes it easy to jump in and out of.

Pros

Splitting broadcast WAV files
Editing audio files quickly
Fast loading

Cons

More robust mixing
Better plugin support

Likelihood to Recommend

If you've got a WAV or AIFF file that needs editing or tweaking, for me, it's faster to drop it into Audacity and make the changes than do it in my DAW. Also, if you've got a WAV file that needs splitting (multiple tracks in one file), most paid DAW's won't do this for you - Audacity does it free and fast.

Rob Gokee

Composer in Professional Services at Rob Gokee Music (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

12 years of experience

View profile

Great DAW to start any recording

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

July 16, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use the live audio from [Audacity] to do a live to 2-track stereo recording with audacity from our Behringer X32. After service, we'll use the effects to compress and normalize the audio which will then be uploaded across multiple campuses. Services will then be uploaded online for other members to listen to after the fact or used for coaching/improvement.

Pros

Easy stereo recording
Simple interface for those with minimal experience
Easy workflow

Cons

Improved GUI
Create version for Mac
Better VST integration

Likelihood to Recommend

For just a quick down and dirty audio recording from computer source, Audacity is a no-frills solution that any user can get up and running with quickly without the intimidating functions seen in most standard DAWs. This would be a great tool to start with to record church services, or basic live performances where someone wouldn't want to use a full DAW like Ableton Live or Studio One.

Carey Roberts

Lead Production Technician at The Love Church (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

15 years of experience

View profile

Best open-source audio recording/editing software.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Incentivized

May 19, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Audacity to record audio for our YouTube channel. Audacity addresses many problems such as eliminating the cost to buy recording software. Audacity is completely free and open-source, there are many other recording software [programs] that are free but I think that audacity is a simple-to-use and feature-packed software.

The recordings are clear and audio can also be edited in audacity.

We use Audacity to record audio, eliminate background noise, and also add reverb and other effects that come built in to Audacity.

Pros

Simple user interface for anyone to use.
Open-source, so it's completely free.
Comes with a huge list of features, [and] it also has the option to add plugins.
Doesn't require a large amount of RAM and can be used on almost any computer.

Cons

The user interface theme has only two options, light and dark. It would be better if it was more customizable.
Sometimes there is a lag or break when opening the software.
There is no option to listen to the audio live with effects while you are recording.

Likelihood to Recommend

Audacity is great for pretty much anyone, it can be used for many tasks ranging from professional audio recording to recording just for fun.

It's more or less beginner-friendly, at the very beginning there might be some difficulty in getting to know where everything is but there isn't too much to see so getting used to the software won't be hard either.

I would recommend audacity to anyone who is starting out with audio editing and recording, but if you are doing this professionally the better choice would be to go for a paid software like Adobe Audition.

Musab Nismy

Founder in Sales at Hatware (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

Having the Audacity to compete for free

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

April 29, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I've used Audacity for a number of years to support our students in developing their skills in audio editing podcasts. It's a fantastic tool that offers pretty much all the features you find in the leading competitor software. It works perfectly in the learning environment and provides easy access to students. Its interface is simple and intuitive. Students take to it like a duck to water and it offers them the opportunity to learn the essentials of audio editing.

Pros

Clean straightforward editing/recoding of audio
Multitrack compilation and recording
Effects and tools--a wide range of tools to clean up and improve quality

Cons

Its native format is FLAC
Can offer a wider range of file imports
More advanced editing/effects

Likelihood to Recommend

Excellent for a learning environment with students, large teams, projects that are low budget. When your team has experience working with Adobe Creative Cloud or other Adobe software such as Premier, it makes sense to use the Adobe equivalent. Additionally, for a professional team working on a large range of productions with different file formats, I believe Audacity may fall behind or slow the process down.

Samuel Lyons

Founder in Marketing at Fuse13 (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

10 years of experience

View profile

A lot of value for the price

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

April 14, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I have used Audacity for quick audio edits for radio commercials and voice overs for video.

Pros

Quick audio cuts.
Easy transitions.

Cons

Can't update edits once they are made.
Not easy to do major edits like removing background noise.

Likelihood to Recommend

It is easy to use for those who haven't edited audio before. It's not overwhelming with features. It's also free which is a good way to start learning about audio editing. Not appropriate for major edits or something with lots of layers of audio files.

Verified User

Employee in Marketing (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

12 years of experience

Excellent product for simple audio editing needs

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

March 20, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Audacity as a quick and simple tool to edit audio files for use on our website, to add to simple videos, to make mashups of my music and vocal clips and to do fade-ins and fade-outs when putting groups of songs together. I also use it to quickly make loops of my music for uploading to royalty-free sites. When I'm not on my Mac Audacity is my go-to (free and simple) program to edit audio tracks on PC.

Pros

It's simple and intuitive.
I can quickly and easily see where I need to cut off or extend tracks.
It's easy to raise or lower volume and to add silence to areas of a track.

Likelihood to Recommend

Audacity is great when you just need something simple and easy to use for editing audio tracks. If you only have very basic needs (cutting off the end of a too-long track, inserting silence, raising or lowering the overall volume, fading in or out, combining tracks--even making simple loops) and don't need or want to pay for a program with greater functionality, Audacity is perfect as it is free and very simple to use.

Verified User

Account Manager (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

12 years of experience

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Reviews and Ratings

Best open-source audio recording/editing software.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Incentivized

May 19, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The recordings are clear and audio can also be edited in audacity.

We use Audacity to record audio, eliminate background noise, and also add reverb and other effects that come built in to Audacity.

Pros

Simple user interface for anyone to use.
Open-source, so it's completely free.
Comes with a huge list of features, [and] it also has the option to add plugins.
Doesn't require a large amount of RAM and can be used on almost any computer.

Cons

The user interface theme has only two options, light and dark. It would be better if it was more customizable.
Sometimes there is a lag or break when opening the software.
There is no option to listen to the audio live with effects while you are recording.

Likelihood to Recommend

Audacity is great for pretty much anyone, it can be used for many tasks ranging from professional audio recording to recording just for fun.

Musab Nismy

Founder in Sales at Hatware (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience