I'm not going anywhere in a hurry 😉

Honestly I hadn't been using Sonar for the last year or two.  But when I heard about Cakewalk going out of business I reinstalled it and now I really am appreciating it.  I kind of like that it's a "throwback" now. . . in a way it's cool that I won't have to learn new features and deal with changes.  The only reason I'd jump is if I have stability issues.

A few years before 2K, I bought Cakewalk Home studio 6, The family only PC with 2 gig hard drive didn't leave me with much time to record digital audio, but I tinkered with midi files found aplenty in those days, learn the basics. The keyboard could be used as an input device, so some simple tunes created. 
During those years computers were upping the speed and horsepower, yada yada, the second PC was bought.
The old family work horse was mine, buggered up the clean up, loaded win 98 and the PC worked fine, throw in some plug ins ... the system choked ... digital audio was limited to four tracks, sound card samples not great.
Along the years soft synths became great, and the budget PC held okay, tunes were being produced.
When the Sonar X series came to us, the new interface was snappy, but my PC hardware was limited. Built a medium tower, had audio issues for a month, 64 bit got touchy with loading plugins as revisions came about. The 64 bit on my machine was really the audio drivers, once cleared up, 64 bit was sailing fine, bye 32 bit.
A audio issue I nick named the devil's horns showed up on some wave files, okay my trusty M audio 2496, out.
By the time X3 D was installed, the features thrown in were cool, the system worked absolutely fab. My new home my studio corner was no longer in a dark basement. Add liquid cooling, quiet, SSHD big improvement.
I gotten to the point I'm comfy with Sonar, know most of the features, so I can work on producing with confidence and focus on the building of a tune. Sure once in a while the odd weirdness prompts up, basically no biggie, glitch.
When the subscription came about, I threw some version on and didn't see enough to warrant buying.
I focused on work flow, not software, but all the other things such as one man set up, room treatment, better mikes. 
When recording, it comes in spurts, this year has yielded some great tunes. So yes I'm staying with Sonar for awhile yet. My next PC will be some cube, probably bluetooth input for midi. I stayed with win7, works fine. I'm a happy user.

Not like I am just going to stop using it, hell I used PA9 for 2 years after "Sonar" came out.  Used 8.5 till I caved at X2, but I do think all our hopes of it remaining viable long term are very much like the couple that meets at summer camp and vow their devotion to one another and promise to write every day...

Sure, a few of us older guys (only 50 here) may ride it out till breath leaves us, especially the hobbyists, but I do operate my production business for profit and I can not allow a W10 update that creates bugs (it happens regularly to non-updated software) to derail work I am being paid to do.  Eventually a BIG change will happen OS wise even though W10 is the "last" Windows.

I spent a lot of $$ on MOTU interfaces that should have been viable for decades and now are physically still fine but stopped working with the OS 3 Windows versions ago and will not work 64 bit at all.  I fought/searched out and employed work arounds and held myself back DAW wise for a few years.  (yes no 64 bit mixbuss)  I finally had to dump that gear and move on.

Because of that, I will not JUMP ship, but will pull another ship along side, learn to sail it, and tow SPLAT along with me on the journey, using it where it benefits me without putting me in a situation I can't recover from should it suddenly sink earlier than later. 

I have to grow along with a ship (DAW product) that can move with current technology.

I'll not purposefully ignore SPLAT but I can't pledge my undying devotion either because there will come a day where it does fail to write me the promised letter, so I will hold it as a fond memory of that amazing (20+ year) summer we spent together knowing full well, we will have to move onto other loves eventually so why wait.

I'm planning on sticking with Sonar, but I will be picking up a new DAW in the current deals. Eith Cubase or maybe Studio One. I suspect though, that once I get into digging into the new DAW Sonar will start to drift from my attention even if I don't want it to. Maybe the new DAW might turn out to be better. Who knows. Currently, I am very attached to Sonar.

wdaweb
I'm sure Win10 updates will force us all out in short order if that's the OS we're on. So with a lot of anger and despair, I'm out as soon as I find something else. Maybe Pro Tools. Sonar Platinum was cheaper to own and arguably better than Pro Tools, but since I do recall one time when a Microsoft update killed Sonar, I'm not taking a chance on it happening again. Hopefully the product is rescued by another entity because it is a more attractive product than PT, but I can't wait around for that.

If you are getting paid and most of your work is new clients, PT is a smart move.  If you are a hobbyist, or like me, working with return clients that understand you are working with "non industry standard" software then I would suggest S1, Mixcraft or even Reason over PT based on expense alone.

I occasionally "rent" PT with the subscription plan when I have collaborative work from other studios and while it is a good program and I learned it really fast, I think it is no better than the MUCH cheaper alternatives I listed above.

SimpleM, Thanks for the advice. I'm not going to make a quick decision on this, but rather will try to think it all the way through before I make a move.

I'm staying on for sure.  You never know what the future holds.  This DAW is too good to be depleted entirely.  My thought is that its assets will be purchased by another company, and even if they re-brand it (just like they did from Cakewalk Pro Audio to Sonar), I'm fine with that.  When I first got into the Cakewalk world, I was using Cakewalk Pro Audio 3.0.  I've gone through so many version upgrades with them since 1994.  Don't forget, there were plenty of bumps and bruises along the way, but they have always improved.  I think SPlat is the best DAW out there anywhere.  I was searching the other forums, and here's an interesting one from 2011, around the time when Sonar X1 was procured by Roland:  https://www.gearslutz.com/board/cakewalk-sonar/574239-has-cakewalk-finally-screwed-themselves.html

I am most definitely going to stay with Sonar as long as I my computer can run it.  The latest Platinum update is for me nearly perfect.  It is a tremendous and stable program.  There is no reason for me to stop using it just because development for it has stopped.  I hear of cross grade offers for other Daws and I am not the least bit interested in giving up Sonar for something else that might not have all the features I rely on in Sonar.  I have a full version of Cubase 7 that I bought several years ago but never could feel any love for the program.  Sticking with Sonar Platinum and I fully expect to be using it many more years to come.

Sonar (apart from its own bugs) is rock solid on Win 7. Been on Win 7 for years, never felt the need to update/upgrade and I`m so glad I didn't.  Just get everything as you want it then do an image back up. One thing I always do is if I do need to do a fresh install is always keep the same computer name and same hard drive serial. Once Windows basic install is up and running I change my Hard drive serial number to one I always use, before installing any other software. You can find apps online to do this.

I've been in the middle of a DAW testing frenzy these past few days -- Samplitude and Reaper (both of which I own), plus Mixcraft, Digital Performer, Studio One 3, n-Track Studio -- and all of them have their strengths and weakness, and some nice features and clever design elements, etc. But absolutely none of them have the same intuitive, sensible and flexible workflow of Sonar. I was already a dedicated Sonar user long before this week's disaster, but these last few days have made me appreciate even more just how well thought this software is, and how elegantly it is implemented. I'm on Windows 10, at the moment, which is the platform most vulnerable to breaking Sonar with an update, and should that happen, I honestly would just pull out my Windows 7 discs and roll back to the earlier OS and keep using Sonar. I'd rather be on Win 7 with Sonar, than Win 10 with any of the other candidates, at least at this point...

keep it up everyone...someone might realise how valuable this software might be to invest in

I've installed Studio One as a backup and had a good look at Pro Tools, but I'll be sticking with Sonar Platinum until it stops working. Hopefully that won't happen before Cakewalk is magically resurrected by a kindly (and wealthy) benefactor, however unlikely that may be.

I haven't logged in this forum for years !
today I logged in just to say that I'm NOT abandoning SONAR... after trying few other DAWs I decided that I'm never switching !