Renoise
The most recommended of 4 music trackers
People recommend it as an affordable, customisable tracker-style DAW for electronic music that works well. Some find it feature-packed to the point of being overwhelming.
People recommend it as an affordable, customisable tracker-style DAW for electronic music that works well. Some find it feature-packed to the point of being overwhelming.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 90%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 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
Affordable for a DAW
“it's rather customisable, reasonably priced and just works great as a daw for electronic music.”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Linux DAW: Help Linux musicians to quickly and easily find the tools they need” “Shout out to Renoise for being affordable and you get a whole versions worth of updates”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Games using anti-cheats and their compatibility with GNU/Linux or Wine/Proton” “its really cheap for a DAW and amazing tracker”
Comment from 3 Aug 2026 in “Fasttracker II clone in C using SDL 2” Excellent tracker workflow for tracker users
“ended up with Renoise because I'm a tracker guy after all long term”
Comment from 14 Jul 2026 on Hacker News “its really cheap for a DAW and amazing tracker”
Comment from 3 Aug 2026 in “Fasttracker II clone in C using SDL 2”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Compromises versus built-in VST samplers
“there's usually some compromise like using the tracker/vst's built-in sampler instead an integrated instrument”
Comment from 3 Aug 2026 in “Fasttracker II clone in C using SDL 2” Feature-packed, overwhelming for some
“a bit too feature packed for some people”
Comment from 3 Aug 2026 in “Fasttracker II clone in C using SDL 2”
Other music trackers people recommend
The three most recommended other music trackers, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RenoiseThis page | 9 | 1 | 90% | 5 | — | — |
| FastTracker II | 8 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| Orpheus | 7 | 2 | 78% | 7 | 1 yr3 owners | — |
| ScreamTracker | 5 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
11 of the 13 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“there's usually some compromise like using the tracker/vst's built-in sampler instead an integrated instrument”
“a bit too feature packed for some people”
“its really cheap for a DAW and amazing tracker”
“Renoise is pretty cool but I do miss FT2”
“ended up with Renoise because I'm a tracker guy after all long term”
“Now I just use Renoise & VCV Rack”
“the spectrogram isn't very promising with all sorts of noise, intermodulation and aliasing issues”
“it's rather customisable, reasonably priced and just works great as a daw for electronic music.”
“Shout out to Renoise for being affordable and you get a whole versions worth of updates”
“Not everyone can just re-base their setup on linux (for me Renoise & VCV Rack)”
“so traditionally minded that kind of slop shit will never make it into an update”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.