I bought sonar X3 in 2014 and spent a few years producing but have been out of the loop for a couple years. No new news that bandlabs has taken over and wanted to know if the free software is something i should replace my version with to get back into the swing of things? 

I would recommend it, CbB has a lot of features X3 didn't have.
When Patch Points came out I thought that one feature was worth the upgrade to Splat.
Now you can get all that free.

Rickyb1, don't uninstall X3.
Install the new Bandlab version while keeping the previous X3 version, that way the new version will use the extras that X3 has, which it doesn't by itself.

Then enjoy replace track template, colours, etc. :)

Absolutely take advantage of CbB!

• It'll be an upgrade
• It'll include post-X3 and future fixes and enhancements (there have been a lot of them since 2013)
• You'll be able to seamlessly migrate all your projects
• You won't lose the X3 instruments and effects as long as you don't uninstall X3 *

* mostly. There are a few effects that are tied to SONAR and won't run in CbB, but not many and none that are essential

bitflipper, I upgraded to CbB from Splat.
What effects are tied to Sonar that won't run? All of mine work as far as I'm aware...

Only the plugins licensed from third parties where the developers didn't offer to unlock them for us. Initially, there were many, but back in December most of them (e.g. AAS, Overloud) were kind enough to supply licenses to SONAR users.
 
I haven't checked recently to see which ones are still locked to SONAR*.EXE, and it's possible at this date that maybe there aren't any anymore. I just didn't want to promise full compatibility and have someone come back with "oh yeh? what about PerfectSpace?".

bitflipper, thanks for the reply.

I assumed that because everything (as far as I can tell) from Splat is working in CbB,
that the same would be true of previous Sonar versions.

Well at least CbB has REmatrix Solo convolution reverb.