Ableton Live vs. Podbean

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Ableton Live
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Ableton headquartered in Berlin offers Ableton Live, the company's flagship digital audio workstation and audio editing suite.
$79
Podbean
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Podbean is presented as an easy but powerful platform for podcast hosting and monetization, from the company of the same name in New York. Additionally, the Podbean Pro edition is for business enterprises, supporting internal communications by enabling users to create, publish, manage and measure corporate audio and video podcasts at scale, to meet enterprise podcast needs.
$14
per month
Pricing
Ableton LivePodbean
Editions & Modules
Live 10 Intro
$79
Max for Live - Crossgrade
$79
Live 11 Intro
$99
Max for Live
$159
Live 10 Standard - Students & Teachers
$269
Live 10 Standard
$359
Live 11 Standard
$449
Live 10 Suite - Students & Teachers
$449
Live 10 Suite
$599
Live 11 Suite
$749
Live 10 Intro - Push
$799
Push + Live 10 Standard - Students & Teachers
1,068
Live 10 Standard - Push
1,078
Push + Live 10 Suite - Students & Teachers
1,248
Live 10 Suite - Push
1,278
Unlimited Audio
$14
per month
Unlimited Plus
$39
per month
Business
$129
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Ableton LivePodbean
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Ableton LivePodbean
Considered Both Products
Ableton Live
Chose Ableton Live
I cannot say that the other programs listed aren't capable. They surely are. But for what I do and my workflow environment, Ableton suits my needs better. I know a lot of people that use Pro Tools and Logic Pro. They are both very powerful programs. I have knowledge of how …
Chose Ableton Live
Ableton smokes the competition any day. I believe it is a way better program all around than the rest of the industry leaders. I have used FL Studio as well as GarageBand, and I can safely say that there is no other program that I would rather use for my production needs.
Chose Ableton Live
Ableton Live has just the right feature set for electronic music production. It offers more professional features than GarageBand, while not featuring the level of hardware integration or other high end features that you find in Avid Pro Tools. However, I prefer Ableton Live …
Chose Ableton Live
While I love Cubase and used it for many years (still do for certain projects), I definitely love Ableton better when it comes to writing music. The shortcuts are much easier to learn and make more sense than Cubase's, which means the time you have to spend setting things up is …
Chose Ableton Live
These software are not direct competitors of Ableton, but yes we use them in conjunction with Ableton. Filmora is used for video production and Audacity is used for Audio Editing. So we use all the three software for getting our work done. This combination is highly successful …
Podbean
Chose Podbean
Podbean is a different software model to this software and I believe it runs better. iTunes is a tough competitor however, PodBean has the advantage as it is not strictly for IOS and has a desktop version that is more seamless. I believe this makes it better software for …
Chose Podbean
We looked at hosting it entirely ourselves on our website, but the hosting space adds up and Podbean is purpose-built for this purpose. It's reliable and fits our needs much better than hosting via our website. Podbean also fits better into our workflow, since the website …
Chose Podbean
For a personal podcast, I host on WordPress with a plugin called Seriously Simple Podcasting. This solution is a bare bones solution, good if you know how to manage a WordPress website and are able to submit your podcasts manually to different apps and services. If you can …
Best Alternatives
Ableton LivePodbean
Small Businesses
Descript
Descript
Score 8.3 out of 10
Descript
Descript
Score 8.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Adobe Audition
Adobe Audition
Score 9.0 out of 10
Adobe Audition
Adobe Audition
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Adobe Audition
Adobe Audition
Score 9.0 out of 10
Adobe Audition
Adobe Audition
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Ableton LivePodbean
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Ableton LivePodbean
Likelihood to Recommend
Ableton can be used in all the scenarios where music production is required. Whether it be professional studios or if it is home productions. It can be used almost anywhere as the features of this software can fit almost in any place. It is also used by professional teams in big companies for marketing and presentation music. I cannot think of any scenario where this is not well suited. If you're making music the professional way, Ableton is the ladder to success.
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Great for working and gathering information about the food industry. I use it regularly. I do not use the video function too often as it's not appropriate for my job role however, it's incredibly easy to use and seamless. The picture and sound quality are also very reliable and sharp.
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Pros
  • Fast workflow, can go from idea in mind to actualy music in short time
  • Big community, always easy to find an answer
  • 3rd party bolt-ons like Max4Live
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  • It's easy to navigate and doesn't take long to find what you need.
  • The process for uploading video and audio podcasts is intuitive and hassle-free.
  • Configuration is intuitive and straightforward, which is appreciated.
  • Access to multiple Podcasting streams.
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Cons
  • VST Plugin Management - Once you get 100s of VST plugins, it is a major pain to keep them all organized.
  • Replacing Moved WAVs - When you move the WAV samples, there is the ability to auto-search and replace, but it rarely works. Most often, you have to manually replace the WAVs.
  • Latency - The ability to autocorrect sync issues due to sound card latency is supposedly a feature offered by Ableton Live, but I have not been able to get it to work correctly, and often have to fix the latency issues myself.
  • Freeze Occasionally Doesn't Work - Theoretically, you can freeze any track to bounce it to a WAV, but sometimes these WAVs end up blank. This happens with the Access Virus TI-2, for example.
  • Clicks at Loop Points - Due to quickfades, loops sometimes have clicks in them, particularly if they have a lot of bass frequencies.
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  • Better analytics data. I would like to know what players people are using most.
  • More obvious limitations of number of podcasts allowed in each pricing tier. Saying Business has unlimited number of podcasts is misleading if that is for unlimited private podcasts and only 2 public.
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Support Rating
I haven't had to reach out to support yet, but they're great at keeping me abreast with updates, compatibility issues, new features, and tons of videos on how to use the software. I feel like they're helping me success by giving me tools I can use in my daily work.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Ableton Live has just the right feature set for electronic music production. It offers more professional features than GarageBand, while not featuring the level of hardware integration or other high end features that you find in Avid Pro Tools. However, I prefer Ableton Live over Avid Pro Tools for electronic music and loop-based or sample-based music production. Pro Tools is great when you are in a studio that has the hardware and you are laying down track after track of recorded audio. But Pro Tools does not have any features to help with songwriting, production, composition, or arrangement. Ableton Live is made with the creator in mind so it has features like the Live view, as distinct from Arrangement view, which allow the creator to easily mix-and-match different sounds and arrangements as a way of discovering what works and what doesn't for a song. Pro Tools is better when the song is already written and you just want to record it, but Ableton Live is better when you are still searching for the eventual arrangement of the song and want to experiment with a lot of different options
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For a personal podcast, I host on WordPress with a plugin called Seriously Simple Podcasting. This solution is a bare bones solution, good if you know how to manage a WordPress website and are able to submit your podcasts manually to different apps and services. If you can afford Podbean I would suggest using it because the WordPress route takes a lot more time and technical knowledge. Podbean takes so much of the hassle and work away from the process.
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Return on Investment
  • It's helped me spend less time troubleshooting and more time writing
  • It's allowed me to make my studio mobile, so I can work from anywhere
  • It's known in the industry, so it's easy to collabrate
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  • Great ROI because we don't have to use another service or change our process for posting
  • The only negative impact was on my time when I had to manually post when the WordPress plugin was broken.
  • We have things automated now, so it's a great positive impact
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ScreenShots