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Audacity Reviews & Insights

Score9.4 out of 10

113 Reviews and Ratings

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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.

Audacity Reviews

28 Reviews

Audacity for audio podcast produciton

Rating: 10 out of 10

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Audacity does the work. I use it to edit and produce my podcast. Audacity has the features need to efficiently produce my podcast. The UI is clear and easy to use. I am able to import the files easily and export in the file type needed for the podcast. Audacity processing is fast and efficient; and the program is stable and reliable.

Pros

  • displays tracks for ease of editing and ordering
  • imports all necessary file times
  • efficiently processes files for export

Cons

  • easier to grab and re-order tracks, the grab area is small
  • I am constantly zooming in and out to grab a small piece of track; make it easier to grab an audio clip
  • a button to move the focus to the beginning of the tracks

Likelihood to Recommend

Audacity is great for editing and producing my monthly podcast. It is easy to add tracks, edit them and move clips around. Also, Audacity is efficient at exporting files for podcast production. It can not handle video production and does not have a transcript development feature. If you're producing an audio podcast, do it.
JK
John Kostuch
Host in Social Media at CentreSteer Media (1-10 employees)
Vetted Review
Audacity
13 years of experience
View profile

Audacity youll learn it as fast as you output

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Easy and fast editing of audio content for video tutorials and training animations. Raw content is provided and generated for projects of all the company's sectors, and we can easily handle cutting, improving (through effects) and preparing these for production.

Pros

  • Provide easy cutting and merging tools
  • Great and easy to simple effects
  • Export in many useful formats

Cons

  • Customizable multi-panel workspace panels
  • AI transcripted audio, for ease of locating audio chunks
  • Color highlights of the audio work area for special operations (focus, loop, delete, etc.)

Likelihood to Recommend

I have used it from teaching flash workshops in high schools, to professional shorts, movies and corporate content.
Might not be appropriate for music production, but mostly anything under that is good to go.
GZ
Gabriel Zang
Product Specialist in Information Technology at Techdinamics Integrations Inc. (51-200 employees)
Vetted Review
Audacity
15 years of experience
Verified on LinkedIn

Audacity review

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I have used this program to record outgoing messages and ringtones for clients. I have also used it to increase the volume of certain digitally recorded cassette tapes. Sometimes a straight recorded outgoing message can have issues with volume and speed. Audacity makes it easy to adjust speed and volume. Not sure if there is another free program that can do this. Garage Band is more complicated. Also, when creating ringtones you can get very precise easily.

Pros

  • trimming
  • volume adjustments
  • increasing or decreasing speed of recording

Cons

  • clearer editing tools for novice

Likelihood to Recommend

If you want to create a ringtone you can get very precise with the specific 30 second timing and you can see where the sound drops and raises, with a visual peaks and valleys of sound in a song. This is the best thing about this program.
VU
Verified User
Consultant in Information Technology (1-10 employees)
Vetted Review
Audacity
18 years of experience

Very satisfied!

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized

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.
JD
Janet Denison
Publisher at Wordskillz.com (1-10 employees)
Vetted Review
Audacity
3 years of experience
View profile

Archivist experience with Audacity

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized

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.
HF
Holly Fitzpatrick
Kelley School of Business Selection Archivist Assistant in Marketing at Indiana University Bloomington (5001-10,000 employees)
Vetted Review
Audacity
2 years of experience

Basic sound editing and recording in a dead-simple package

Rating: 9 out of 10

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.
JS
Jo Ströhfeldt
Pastor at Doxa Deo Hatfield (1-10 employees)
Vetted Review
Audacity
5 years of experience

Value, Ease of Use and Efficiency for Podcasts

Rating: 7 out of 10
Incentivized

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.
AG
Alex Greenwood
Principal and Owner in Professional Services at AGPR/AlexanderG Public Relations, LLC (1-10 employees)
Vetted Review
Audacity
8 years of experience
View profile

The Only Free Audio Editor You'll Ever Need

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized

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.
RG
Rob Gokee
Composer in Professional Services at Rob Gokee Music (1-10 employees)
Vetted Review
Audacity
12 years of experience
View profile

Great DAW to start any recording

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized

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.
CR
Carey Roberts
Lead Production Technician at The Love Church (51-200 employees)
Vetted Review
Audacity
15 years of experience
View profile

Best open-source audio recording/editing software.

Rating: 6 out of 10
Incentivized

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.
MN
Musab Nismy
Founder in Sales at Hatware (1-10 employees)
Vetted Review
Audacity
3 years of experience