The best audio editing software across platforms in 2025

In order to create a podcast, cut the pauses out of a webinar recording, or add effects to a video soundtrack, you’ll need audio editing software. It lets you record audio, trim a file down to size, convert to web-friendly formats, and clean up an old recording.

And there’s no shortage of audio editors to choose from. Which you pick depends on what you’re hoping to achieve, your budget, and your overall skill level. There are robust desktop editors for mixing multiple tracks, powerful open source freebies, and convenient web-based editors to choose from.

After considering more than 50 apps and doing in-depth testing on dozens of contenders, these are my picks for the best audio editors.

The 7 best audio editors

What makes the best audio editor?

The best audio editors are designed purely with audio editing in mind. Many digital audio workstations (DAWs) include audio editing features as part of a far larger feature set that can make them bulkier and more expensive. I’ve chosen to focus on dedicated audio editors, so you won’t find software like GarageBand, Ableton Live, or AVID Pro Tools on this list.

Some of these picks bring something unique to the table, but there was a basic set of criteria each app had to have to be considered for the list.

• Basic editing features that make editing audio quick, straightforward, and pleasant. This includes standard waveform editing, multitrack editing, and a wide range of supported file types. You should be able to use any of these apps to trim an audio file down to size, clip out silence, or merge two files together. (These kinds of simple waveform edits are often referred to as destructive editing, where edits you make to the file overwrite the original when you click Save.)

• Plugins and one-click operations for applying automatic or modifiable effects and any AI-driven tools that make editing easier. These features are designed to make it easy to recover imperfect recordings, adjust equalizer settings, add reverb or echo, or edit audio in unique ways, such as AI-driven transcription-based editing.

• Overall ease of use, including interface design, support documents, and any active support communities. I also noted whether the app offers a tour of its features when you first start using it.

• Value for money. With so many free audio editors available, it’s important that premium apps provide a good sense of value with best-in-class features, unique tools, and other features that don’t usually come for free. Though free apps inherently offer great value, only the best were chosen for inclusion in the final list.

• Any additional integrations, perks, and extras someone looking to edit audio might find useful. This could be cloud storage integration, sharing and publishing tools, a sound effects archive, easy access to additional plugins or themes, or anything in between.

To test the apps, I performed a set of basic edits on a selection of sample files including voice recordings, hastily-taken memos, and some music and sound effects. I tried applying effects to improve the audio, like normalization and noise reduction, and then tried exporting the files. I also put any unique features through their paces. After tinkering with dozens of apps, these are my favorites.

The best audio editing software at a glance

Best audio editor for powerful features at a price

Adobe Audition (macOS, Windows)

Adobe Audition pros:

Adobe Audition cons:

Adobe Audition is a powerhouse audio editor that continues to push industry standards forward, with a pricing model to match. The app is updated every year, sometimes with new features and expanded compatibility with the latest versions of macOS and Windows. In the most recent update, Adobe focused on performance and bug fixes, which isn’t necessarily a drawback considering the exhaustive list of features that already exist.

Audition can function both as a single-track audio editor or as a multitrack mixer for recording and layering sounds. It’s a fully-fledged digital audio workstation with support for recording multiple sources at once as well as external plugins (VST, VST3, and AU). Adobe also added best-in-class audio restoration tools, allowing you to grab a sample of “noise” in your recording, then remove that unwanted range of sound from the entire file. You can even use adaptive noise reduction (which intelligently detects undesirable sound for you) and automatic or spot healing to remove pops and clicks.

You can save your frequently-used actions, so they’re always a click away under the Favorites menu. The History panel lets you jump back in time and undo your changes, non-destructively. Change Audition’s interface to suit your current task, with layouts for audio-to-video editing, radio production, and dual-monitor setups. There are even templates to speed up multitrack editing of projects, including radio voiceovers, podcasts, or surround-sound video production. Audition supports video tracks (in addition to mono, stereo, and 5.1) with the ability to see the reference video as you edit.

All these features make Adobe Audition a highly capable, if expensive, audio editor. Using Audition feels like you have every tool you could possibly need to edit audio at your fingertips. Though complex in nature, Adobe’s set of video tutorials introduce many of the features in an easy-to-digest manner. And if you go all-in on an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, you can send audio clips from the Premiere Pro video editor straight to Adobe Audition for editing and processing.

Adobe Audition price: $22.99/month (billed annually) for a single app plan; $34.49/month (billed monthly) for a month-to-month subscription that you can cancel at any time.

Best free audio editor for multitrack editing

Audacity (macOS, Windows, Linux)

Audacity pros:

Audacity cons:

Audacity is the most capable free audio editor money can’t buy. It includes a full set of editing and mastering tools, including destructive waveform editing and multitrack mixing. Despite utilizing an open source development model and costing nothing to use, Audacity contains many features commonly associated with paid products.

The editor places a large library of effects at your disposal, including a compressor, noise reduction, and an automatic repair tool. There’s also support for external audio effects and plugins in VST, AU (on Mac), LADSPA, and LV2 format. You also can download loads of plugins from the Audacity Plugins database. And owing to its open source roots, Audacity supports the import and export of a wide range of formats, like Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, and M4A. There’s even a spectrogram view that you can toggle on if you need it.

Audacity’s interface is basic, but the app has had a bit of a facelift and now feels more modern than it once did. You can’t record multiple audio sources at once or perform non-destructive edits. Given that it comes without a price tag, I can forgive the limitations. Audacity is good enough for the vast majority of users who just want a simple tool to edit or enhance their audio, particularly for projects where you need to combine multiple tracks.

Audacity price: Free

Best free single-track waveform editor

ocenaudio (macOS, Windows, Linux)

ocenaudio pros:

• A better interface than Audacity for editing a single waveform

• Your choice of waveform views, including a spectrograph

ocenaudio cons:

Audacity is the king of free multitrack editors, but if all you need is to edit a single file or make a simple recording, give ocenaudio a shot. It’s a more pleasant environment to be in when you need to cut up audio, trim out silence, or even blend two or more recordings into one using the Paste Special mixing option in the Edit menu.

The app includes a standard waveform view, a spectrograph, and the option to use both at the same time. Along the top edge of the edit panel, you’ll find some handy shortcuts for switching between views, quickly applying effects like normalize and reverse, plus a range of “visual” tools.

These visual tools allow you to preview and manipulate effects like fades before you add them to your project. You can also quickly access a gain feature by highlighting a section of your file and turning the on-screen dial. Though the selection of effects isn’t as robust as Audacity, there’s a healthy range of tools plus support for plugins, like VSTs and (on Apple hardware) AUs.

Unlike Audacity, this free audio editor is closed source, but it’s still actively maintained. A lot of editing tasks (like applying effects and importing audio) take place in the background, and overall performance is a highlight. The biggest limitation that I noticed was an inability to open more than one file at a time.

ocenaudio price: Free

The best budget alternative to Adobe Audition

Acoustica Standard Edition (macOS, Windows)

Acoustica pros:

Acoustica cons:

Acoustica Standard Edition offers more than your average free audio editor in a package that won’t break the bank. It’s a high-resolution audio editor, with support for 32-bit audio and sample rates of up to 384 kHz. You can use Acoustica for single-track waveform editing or multitrack mixing where you can loop, stretch, and fade clips on a timeline.

Basic effects include a limiter, an equalizer, and a suite of audio restoration tools for removing hiss, pop, and hum from recordings. Acoustica also includes support for external plugins in VST, VST3, and AU format (on macOS). Each of these can be chained together, saved, and deployed with a click across multiple sessions and files. Build your effects in the Processing Chain box on the main interface by clicking the + button to add equalizers, limiters, plugins, and more. Acoustica is also compliant with common broadcast standards, making it easy for working with video soundtracks.

Acoustica’s neat row of useful icons, dark color scheme, and tab-based interface for working on multiple files should prevent you from feeling overwhelmed by the extensive feature set. New in version 7.5 is speech recognition for captioning and transcribing, a feature that is often reserved for more expensive subscription-based tools. If you find yourself craving more “professional” features, the Premium Edition of Acoustica offers even better audio restoration tools, multi-channel 7.1 surround sound support, and spectral editing.

Acoustica Price: $59.90 for the Standard Edition; $199.90 for the Premium Edition

Best premium audio editor for Windows users

Soundop (Windows)

Soundop pros:

• Excellent performance in both single and multitrack view

• Smooth multitrack workflow for recording, mixing, and editing

• Cost-effective when compared with Adobe Audition (with an option to buy)

Soundop cons:

Soundop is a premium audio editor with support for both single and multitrack projects. This highly capable editor can pretty much do it all from the comfort of a customizable interface that you can set up however you like. Though not as immediately user-friendly as some of its rivals, there’s plenty here to dig into once you’ve mastered the basics of audio editing.

The multitrack workflow is particularly compelling. Record multiple sources into separate tracks by nominating an input, arming the track for recording, and hitting record. If you’re recording a podcast with multiple microphones, or routing system audio like a VoIP call, Soundop is a solid choice. With your audio saved to separate tracks, double-click on a recording to start editing. Once you’re done, you can drop back into multitrack view to carry on mixing.

There are separate Tools, Effects, and Processors menus for enhancing and transforming audio. Quickly normalize a track, boost its volume, or apply noise reduction. The non-destructive editor also includes a neat history feature that allows you to roll back changes you’ve made. The app performs admirably and remains snappy even when handling many tracks.

The interface can feel a little overwhelming if you’re new to the world of audio editing, and Soundop certainly isn’t cheap (though it compares favorably to Adobe’s pricing), but I was left impressed by this Windows-only tool.

Soundop price: $2.99/month (billed annually), $14.99/month (billed monthly), or $199 outright for a perpetual license.

The best audio editor for editing recordings like a text document

Audiate (Windows, macOS)

Audiate pros:

• Transcription-based editing lets you edit audio like a text document

• Access the waveform and edit audio files the old-fashioned way, if you want to

Audiate cons:

• Designed for spoken word, not ideal for editing sound effects or music

• Expensive subscription model

Audiate is a different kind of audio editor, and one of the best examples of its kind that I’ve tested. You can record directly into the app or open recordings within Audiate, then transcribe them to text. From there, it’s a case of editing your (spoken word) as you would a text document, while Audiate takes care of the nitty-gritty of editing the waveform. The transcription tools work remarkably well, though in the event that Audiate gets a word wrong, you can correct the text.

Alongside a new breed of AI-powered editing, Audiate includes standard waveform audio editing, so you can still get your hands dirty if you want to. The app is a non-destructive editor, with some neat editing shortcuts like “Insert silence before” and “Insert silence after” to break up your text.

On top of this, you can edit a clip’s properties to add effects that include audio quality, like noise reduction, volume leveling, and removal tools for plosives, clipping, and unwanted reverb. The sheer speed at which you can fly through a transcript, removing sections, pauses, and words with only your hands on the keyboard is refreshing.

The app is approachable, and the ability to walk out of your edit with a written transcript is a nice bonus. With that in mind, Audiate is a pricey tool and probably not worth it unless you see a productivity boost from this sort of editing.

Audiate price: $199.99/year

The best browser-based audio editor

AudioMass (Web)

AudioMass pros:

• Free and easy browser-based online editing

• Record right into your browser, apply effects, and export your sounds

AudioMass cons:

AudioMass is a completely free audio editor that works entirely in your web browser. Use it to record audio using your device microphone, edit uploaded audio files from your computer, or point it at a URL to open a file from the internet. This single-track waveform editor uses a simple interface that will be familiar to anyone who has used apps like Audacity in the past.

On top of being able to trim, cut, move, and duplicate audio, AudioMass includes a range of effects that you can apply, including noise reduction for voice recordings, several equalizer effects, a compressor and normalizer, delays, reverbs, and distortion. There are even frequency and spectrum visualizers that pop up in a new window.

One of the best things about AudioMass, outside of it being completely free, is that there are no barriers to entry. Access the web page, and the editor is right there, ready for you to use. You don’t need to register or log in before you can get going. You can even store an offline version of the editor using the Help > Store Offline Version option in the menu, if you want (though I’d recommend ocenaudio or Audacity if you’re going the offline route).

Unfortunately, there’s little in the way of help documentation included with AudioMass. But the toolset is simple and limited enough that it’s hard to get lost if you’re even vaguely familiar with editing audio.

AudioMass price: Free

What about apps like Riverside?

Over the past few years, there’s been an explosion in apps designed to help podcasters record and produce content. This includes apps like Riverside, Podcastle, and ZenCastr, which offer mostly web-based solutions for recording, editing, and publishing podcasts.

Though these tools have some editing features under the hood—some of which even use AI-powered transcription editing—ultimately, they’re not the kinds of audio editors I was looking at. If all you want to do is edit audio, it’s not the way to go, since the tools you’re looking for are hidden beneath a layer of features aimed at content production.

Having said that, these are powerful platforms for creating video or audio interviews, podcasts, or even radio content. They can vastly simplify remote recording, increase the overall quality of your production, and even improve the editing workflow, so they’re worth checking out if you need an all-in-one production solution.

What is the best audio editor?

Free editors like Audacity, ocenaudio, and AudioMass are good starting points for most people. If you’re finding the free options a little limiting, it’s time to consider paid options like Adobe Audition, which remains the “Photoshop of audio editing” in terms of its robust feature-set. Other premium products provide unique benefits, like Audiate’s transcription-based editing, Soundop’s multitrack workflow, and Acoustica’s propensity for tab-based editing. 

In reality, the best tools for the job are almost always premium products, with fairly expensive price tags. But you might not need all of that power, so start out free with an app like Audacity and make use of the included free trials before you buy anything. Plus, if all you need to do is quickly trim a file down to size, there’s no quicker alternative than a browser-based editor like AudioMass.

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This article was originally published in January 2019. The most recent update was in December 2024.