Reason by Reason Studios
Hacker ApprovedRanked 7 of 10 digital audio workstations by recommenders
Long-running music production software that people rely on in studio and live work, though critics say its interface gets in the way.
Long-running music production software that people rely on in studio and live work, though critics say its interface gets in the way.
18 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 12
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 67%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 12 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Reliable for production and live use
“they are industrial strength tools that people rely on in production”
Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “Personal software factories are a waste of time” “running very low latency Reason to live gigs with my band”
Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “PC processors entered the Gigahertz era today in the year 2000 with AMD's Athlon” Enjoyable to play with for years
“As a kid I just loved playing around in Reason (1 or 2?) and making strange sounds and just flipping the racks around”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “"This Is Not the Computer for You"” “these apps hit a sweet spot that I could camp out on for decades”
Comment from 1 Sep 2026 in “Run macOS Software on Linux” Warm sound out of the box
“It had such a warm, characteristic sound out of the box.”
Comment from 4 Jun 2026 in “Ableton Extensions SDK” “so it's surprisingly effective”
Comment from 30 Mar 2026 in “Reason – break screen addiction using AI”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Interface gets in the way
“taking the piss out of the UX of most of the software in the field”
Comment from 3 Sep 2026 in “Audacity 4.0” “its UI innovations just get in my way”
Comment from 29 Dec 2025 in “Linux DAW: Help Linux musicians to quickly and easily find the tools they need” Dated, not modern for programmers
“none of them are really willing to modernize in ways that would attract your average programmer.”
Comment from 8 Nov 2025 in “Why I love OCaml (2023)” “Reason still looks like an ML-style language rather than something from the C family of things”
Comment from 9 Nov 2025 in “Why I love OCaml (2023)”
Other digital audio workstations people recommend
The four most recommended other digital audio workstations, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reaper by Cockos | 58 | 5 | 92% | 11 | 15 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| Ableton Live | 54 | 20 | 73% | 11 | 15 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| Bitwig Studio | 35 | 3 | 92% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Logic Pro | 29 | 12 | 71% | 11 | 14 yrs5 owners | Approved |
| Reason by Reason StudiosThis page | 12 | 6 | 67% | 8 | — | Approved |
What people said
17 of the 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“they are industrial strength tools that people rely on in production”
“taking the piss out of the UX of most of the software in the field”
“these apps hit a sweet spot that I could camp out on for decades”
“Reason is the last hold out, truly committed to civil liberties and libertarianism”
“locks me back into the same cycles of update purchases Ableton & Reason once did”
“it wasn't worth it overall so I went back to plain ocaml pretty quickly”
“It had such a warm, characteristic sound out of the box.”
“Reason Studios (originally created by Propellerheads) is on the upswing”
“those are my go-to sources when anything political has happened”
“so it's surprisingly effective”
“As a kid I just loved playing around in Reason (1 or 2?) and making strange sounds and just flipping the racks around”
“running very low latency Reason to live gigs with my band”
“its UI innovations just get in my way”
“This is a really poor article that has no research behind it”
“I do miss my old DAWs (Ableton/Reason)”
“Reason still looks like an ML-style language rather than something from the C family of things”
“none of them are really willing to modernize in ways that would attract your average programmer.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.