Simply put, Audacity and Garageband can both be used for the same purpose, it’s just that Garageband leans more toward music creation whereas Audacity leans toward audio manipulation and editing. The main difference between the two is exemplified by the fact Audacity doesn’t have VSTs and Garageband does. What sets them apart is their primary purpose.īecause Audacity is a digital audio editor, and not a digital audio workstation like GarageBand, its purpose is to manipulate pre-recorded audio whereas GarageBand is used to create music. Note that Apple provides a free copy of GarageBand on all their macOS and iOS products (my tutorial on the best one) via the App Store whereas for the free version of Audacity, you’ll have to download it. Although, this isn’t the biggest difference between the two software.

They both have a wide range of plugins, support materials, and regular updates however, they’re significantly different from each other in a number of key ways.

The two most common free sound production software out there are Audacity and GarageBand.

Audacity tips for beginners