There are a lot of folks trying to decide which way to go with a replacement DAW either now or when Sonar quits. It might be helpful if people with experience of other DAWs can contribute to this thread with their comparisons to Sonar and specific features they love about their DAW. 
 
The main choices based on crossgrade deals are Studio One Pro and Cubase Pro. Even those wanting to continue with Sonar may be looking at investing in their next DAW now while the deals are there. Let's try to keep this from being too subjective or conversational so it makes a useful read for those stuck with the tough decision.
 
The only thing I will add is that I find Cubase to be most 'Sonar like' DAW and I suspect the reason for that is that Cakewalk and Steinberg spent decades competing pretty much head to head in the sequencer/DAW market and kind of pinching the odd idea off each other here and there. Studio One is new and sleeker but less mature and developed, however, it does currently have a lower price tag and with their crossgrade offer coming next week and Steinberg having shown their hand early, price could be in Presonus' favor. It seems it's a choice between a fast developing younger platform with a lower running cost that lacks a bit of maturity and an older giant with decades of experience and enough features to sink a battleship.

Re STUDIO ONE 3 being the younger Brat ..
 
That means it will only improve as it has not matured yet. OK it might not have all Sonar or Cubase has at the moment, but if one buys in now I am sure in a year or two or three it will have caught up a bit more.

For me to buy S1 now is PURELY a financial decision - Black Friday significant reductions, Special crossgrade prices. In 6 months time IF I need a Sonar replacement I dont want to look back at this and say I could have saved 100s by buying back then. I stress I will keep using Sonar as prime DAW for the moment but then would have S1 on the shelf whenever i need it if Sonar goes rogue due to win updates etc.
 
Again .. I have said elsewhere, keep in mind the Presonus site cart / checkout includes VAT in your price. VAT is charged at your countries rate. If you have a VAT Num you can add it in the right of checkout page to get the VAT off the price ( buying from another country ). 
 
Note this is not the case at AUDIODELUXE. At the moment its $168 with all discounts, no mention of VAT right through to your payment gateway.
 
So factor that in if you are waiting for the special Presonus crossgrade price next Tuesday. Will that be cheaper inc vat than the current Audiodeluxe price?
 
 

FWIW: I asked in a Swedish home recording group on Facebook what to use as a Sonar replacement in the future.
 
While I was expecting a lot of Cubase, Live & some Logic recommendations, 80% of all replies was about "Studio One" which was quite new to me. 10% about Cubase and the rest was about Logic & Pro Tools.
 
A few mentioned Live but I guess most forum members were actually recording instruments rather than just programming them.
 
However, my plan for the upcoming years is to stick to Sonar regardless of what Gibson is doing.

A CUBASE 8.5 trial is available here. Fill in the form and you get an email with link + trial serial - 9.4GB D/Load:
 
https://shop.steinberg.net/cgi-bin/dlreg?ID=CP85TRIAW
 
If thats any use for you guys testing DAWS
 
 

Studio One is far and away the most-suggested alternative. There are a great many ex-SONAR users there already, and they have an active forum. That means you can post questions like "what's the equivalent for SONAR's tempo map?" and somebody will be able to answer you. Whether you like the answer isn't as certain.
 
A friend of mine just went over to Cubase. I think his decision was based on the fact that Cubase is the most similar to SONAR, and equally mature and full-featured. While it lacks some of SONAR's features, it has a bunch of its own strengths to compensate for anything you might miss. Which is largely true for any serious DAW you might choose.
 
The surprise dark horse candidate is Mixcraft. It's far more sophisticated than I expected, given that it's been awhile since I last looked at it. If cost is a major factor, Mixcraft is the least-expensive alternative at the moment.
 
I think it's important to mention that there is really no rush to make a decision. Sticking with SONAR will continue to be a viable option for a long time to come. Those Black Friday deals will be back next year. Plus some vendors are offering special crossgrade pricing for Cakewalk users, and those will likely be kept going for a few months at least.

I'm probably a dissenting voice, but I don't want the best fit. If I can't one day use Sonar I will want something different. Something that will push me to really learn it. At the moment for me that is Bitwig. The traditional Cubase/Studio One/Reaper triangle all feel too similar to Sonar for me to not notice that they in fact are not Sonar.

Hey 35mm,
As a former VP of Sales at Cakewalk for 12 years, and now VP of Sales at Acoustica for the last five years, we would greatly appreciate your kind consideration to take a serious look at Mixcraft 8 Pro Studio. It is maturing with each new version and will surprise many of you. At $179 (on sale this weekend for $99), it includes side-chaining, VST3 and MP4 support, 64-bit and 32-bit, automation and sub-mixing, live recording to performance panel grids and professional video editing. Beautiful pristine sounding VI's emulating Steinway, Moog and many other vintage analog synths, acoustic instruments and orchestral strings. Includes integrated Melodyne Essentials directly into the sound edit tab, and one-click simultaneous publishing to soundcloud, mixcloud, youtube, FB, tumblr and your other music and video sites. Check it out at  the Acoustica website.
 
Please allow me to point out the intangibles. We are a small software-only company focusing on the PC (like the early days of Cakewalk). We have a CTO who came from Sonic Foundry and was part of the senior development team that created Acid and Vegas, which is why you will see that the Loop Library asset management (over 7800 loops and samples with integration of freesound.org into the sound edit tab with instant access to thousands of more free loops) and video editing are far superior than any other DAW on the market today. Mixcraft 8 is for real!
 
The Cakewalk forum host contacted us and is kindly going to allow us to start a new thread specifically about Mixcraft 8.  Look for the new thread in the coming days, and, of course, please ask any questions you have right here in this thread as well.
Anthony

Anyone had any experience with Bitwig? It has features that I like but I'm turned off with the lack of support for time sig changes. At least that's what I read - maybe it's changed since then?

aconte22
As a former VP of Sales at Cakewalk for 12 years, and now VP of Sales at Acoustica for the last five years, we would greatly appreciate your kind consideration to take a serious look at Mixcraft 8 Pro Studio.
Anthony

Hi Anthony,
 
I hadn't yet read your post when I posted my reply to bitflipper, above.  One thing I forgot to include in the prior post was Mixcraft's ACID-like track building capability.  I agree that no other DAW, except maybe ACID (if you can call ACID a DAW) comes close to Mixcraft when working with loops, especially in linear compositing of ideas in a track.  In addition to working with loops in a track, the ACID-like track envelope functions will be second nature to anybody who has worked with tracks in ACID.  Since Mixcraft 6 I have found no advantage to keeping ACID Pro 7 on either of my systems, since Mixcraft handles anything that ACID can, with a much more intuitive interface (once you get past assembling the individual tracks). 

sharke
Anyone had any experience with Bitwig? It has features that I like but I'm turned off with the lack of support for time sig changes. At least that's what I read - maybe it's changed since then?

Very limited experience (only a few days worth) but there's quite a bit to like in Bitwig. No experience with their support but it feels like a complete product and considering it's version 2 now it's surprisingly good. There are still things missing, but I have no doubt that it will be developed more.