Audio recording software: the complete guide

"What should I record with?" has an annoying answer: it depends entirely on what you are recording. A five-minute voice note and a four-microphone band rehearsal are not the same problem, and the software that solves one badly bungles the other. This guide splits the field into categories, shows what each is good at, and ends with a comparison table of the eight programs we have reviewed in depth.

If you only need something quickly, the browser recorder on the home page handles a surprising share of everyday jobs with nothing installed at all. Everything below is for when it does not.

Start here: match the job to the tool

Find your row, then read the review it points to. Most people stop here.

The six categories of recording software

1. Browser-based recorders

A web page that asks for microphone permission and captures audio through the browser's own MediaRecorder API. No download, no account, and on a well-built one like ours, no upload either: the audio is encoded in the tab and saved straight to disk.

The limitations are structural, not laziness. A page can only see the microphone your browser hands it, so system audio is off the table. Everything sits in memory until you export, so a crashed tab is a lost recording. And processing power is whatever the browser allows, so hour-long files get sluggish.

Use it for: memos, mic tests, pronunciation practice, quick drafts, recording on a machine where you are not allowed to install software. Skip it for: anything you cannot afford to lose, anything multitrack, anything longer than about an hour.

2. Built-in operating system recorders

Windows 11 ships Sound Recorder (the rewritten replacement for Voice Recorder), macOS and iOS have Voice Memos, and nearly every Android phone has a recorder app from the manufacturer. They are boring in the best sense: they write to disk continuously, they keep your past recordings organised, and they were not going to crash before your interview finished.

Modern versions are better than their reputation. Windows 11's Sound Recorder lets you choose the input device, pick between formats including WAV and FLAC, drop markers as you go, and trim afterwards. What you do not get is any real repair work. If the room was noisy, it stays noisy.

Use it for: lectures, meetings, interviews, long unattended sessions. Skip it for: anything that needs mixing or cleanup.

3. Free audio editors

This is the sweet spot for most people who record regularly. Audacity and Ocenaudio both record and repair: noise reduction, normalisation, compression, fades, format conversion, batch processing across dozens of files. They are free, they run on Windows, macOS and Linux, and they will still be free next year.

The difference between the two is philosophy. Audacity is a deep, slightly creaky toolbox with multitrack support and thirty years of features. Ocenaudio is a modern, fast single-file editor where every effect previews in real time while you drag the slider. Many people keep both.

Use them for: podcasts, voice-over, cleaning up interviews, converting formats, rescuing bad recordings. Skip them for: multi-musician sessions with live monitoring, which is DAW territory.

4. Digital audio workstations (DAWs)

REAPER, Adobe Audition, GarageBand, Logic Pro, Studio One, Cakewalk by BandLab, Ardour. A DAW is built around a multitrack timeline: many inputs recorded at once, each on its own track, each with its own plugin chain, all mixed together at the end.

If you are recording one voice into one microphone, a DAW is mostly overhead. If you are recording a guitar and a vocal, or three people, or layering takes over a backing track, nothing else will do. The good news is that the price floor has collapsed: GarageBand is free on Apple hardware, Cakewalk is a free full DAW on Windows, and REAPER's licence costs less than a single plugin.

Use them for: music, multitrack sessions, anything with automation and mixing. Skip them for: a two-minute voice memo you needed ten minutes ago.

5. Screen and system-audio capture

The category people find last and need most. Browsers and standard recorders capture microphones, not the sound your computer is playing, so a video call, a YouTube video, a streamed lecture or game audio is invisible to them.

OBS Studio solves it for free on all three platforms by capturing desktop audio and microphone as separate tracks in one file. On macOS it needs a helper (an audio loopback driver such as BlackHole) because the OS does not expose system output directly. On Windows, OBS can grab it natively. Commercial alternatives such as Audio Hijack on macOS do the same thing with a friendlier interface and a price tag.

The other route is a virtual audio cable: a driver that pretends to be a microphone and feeds it whatever your system is playing. VB-Audio Cable on Windows and BlackHole on macOS are the usual choices. Once installed, even a browser recorder can capture system sound, because the operating system is lying to it convincingly.

6. Hardware recorders (the honourable mention)

Not software, but it belongs in the decision. A handheld recorder from Zoom, Tascam or Sony writes to an SD card with preamps far better than a laptop's, runs on batteries, and does not care that your computer just decided to install updates. For journalists, students in big lecture halls, and anyone recording live music, a £100 handheld beats any free program on quality and reliability. Field-record to the device, then edit the files on the computer.

Compare the eight programs we reviewed

Prices and version details move around; treat these as guidance and check the vendor before you buy. Everything marked free was genuinely free to use at the time of writing, with no functional cripple.

Six things to check before you install anything

1. Does it record more than one source at once? If two people or an instrument plus a voice are involved, you need multitrack. Single-file editors will frustrate you within a week.
2. Does it write to disk while recording? Programs that buffer to disk survive crashes. Browser tabs and memory-only tools do not. For anything irreplaceable, this matters more than sound quality.
3. What does the free version actually do? "Free" spans genuinely free open source (Audacity, OBS, Ocenaudio), free-with-your-OS (Sound Recorder, GarageBand), free-for-non-commercial-use, and time-limited trials that watermark or truncate exports. Read which one you are getting.
4. Can it export the format you need? WAV for archiving and editing, MP3 for sharing, FLAC for lossless storage at half the size. Some free tools still need a separate encoder for MP3.
5. Does it support your interface? On Windows, ASIO drivers give the lowest latency and not every program supports them. On macOS, Core Audio handles this for everyone. If you plan to monitor yourself through headphones while recording, latency is the whole game.
6. How steep is the first hour? A DAW you never learn produces worse recordings than a simple editor you understand. Be honest about how much time you will actually invest.

How to record system audio (the question we get most)

On Windows: Audacity can select a loopback input under the WASAPI host, which records exactly what your speakers are playing with no extra software. OBS Studio captures desktop audio as a source by default. If you want any other program to see system sound, install VB-Audio Cable, set it as the default playback device, and record from it as if it were a microphone.

On macOS: Apple does not expose system output to recording apps, so you need a loopback driver. BlackHole is the free standard; install it, create a Multi-Output Device in Audio MIDI Setup so you can still hear what you are recording, then select BlackHole as the input in your recorder. Audio Hijack does all of this for you if you would rather pay than fiddle.

On both: once a loopback device exists, every recorder on the machine can use it, including the browser recorder on this site.

Five mistakes that ruin recordings

• Recording into the wrong microphone. The laptop lid mic sounds like a laptop lid mic. Choose the device explicitly in your recorder, every time.
• Chasing the loudest input level. Clipped audio is unfixable. Aim for peaks around −12 to −6 dB and lift the volume afterwards, which is a solved problem.
• Ignoring the room. Software cannot remove reverb convincingly. A closet full of coats beats a bare kitchen, and a duvet behind you beats an expensive plugin.
• Not doing a ten-second test. Record, play back, listen on headphones. It costs nothing and catches every one of the mistakes above.
• Trusting a single copy. Export, then back it up somewhere that is not the machine it was recorded on. This applies double to browser recordings, which vanish when the tab closes.