People tout Sonar's deep feature set, which is a draw I suppose - if you need all of those features. Most people don't. For example, I'm a heavy MIDI user. Most of my projects are 90% MIDI based, at least they are until I bounce synths to audio. And I do some pretty intense MIDI editing. Despite this, I haven't yet tried a DAW in which the MIDI capabilities weren't good enough for my needs - and that includes Pro Tools. If I did a lot of old school external hardware MIDI based stuff then I'm sure my needs would differ. Ditto with full orchestral scores. But if your "heavy MIDI use" involves writing parts for soft synths, then quite honestly the MIDI in most DAW's is good enough. 
 
Likewise with most of Sonar's features. My projects are large and complicated to the point where Sonar stops functioning as a fully working DAW - which of course I've documented a lot - but nonetheless I'm still using probably less than 50% of Sonar's features. 
 
Most people will cite the DAW they know and love to be the "best DAW ever." Sonar certainly has some great features - little things like Auto Track Zoom, for instance, are great design. As is the ProChannel. But it's when you start using other DAW's that you realize that they have great features which Sonar doesn't. And quite honestly, the people who use those DAW's intensively would probably say the same thing about them as people here do about Sonar. You cling to the best features of a DAW, and develop workarounds for the stuff that's missing. I'm sure that people who use Logic extensively would say that it's an untouchable DAW, and if they tried to migrate to Sonar they'd find a lot of stuff lacking and/or missing. Look at Rain, who still posts here occasionally. He was a long time Sonar user, migrated to Logic, and never turned back. Says he thinks it's light years ahead of Sonar. 
 
If you ask people here if there is anything as good as Sonar, take people's replies with a pinch of salt. Features that are invaluable to one person might be completely superfluous to your workflow. I used Sonar for 6 years and never used the Matrix or the Step Sequencer. I never use screensets, and never found a need to use mix recall. 
 
When choosing a DAW with a feature set that you don't fully utilize, it's also worth thinking about how that DAW is developed. A DAW that has every feature under the sun requires a lot more ongoing development, and the development/debugging of features that you will never use happens at the expense of the development of features that you do use. Important to consider, that one. Is there a DAW which has a smaller feature set which you'll use more fully? If so, then you're buying into a piece of software that is being developed more along the lines of your requirements as opposed to the requirements of people who use the software completely differently to you. 

Well said Sharke.  At last a reasonable view.  I feel the OP is short sighted to say the least.  There are plenty of DAW's out there that can do the job.
 
People are too quick also around these parts to forget about the things that other DAW's actually do far better than Sonar ever did as well.  They are numerous and for example Studio One has a raft of features that are far superior than Sonar.  Things that Sonar could just never do.  Also the midi implementation is far better than most realise.  
 
Be prepared to switch to a new DAW and put the work into learning it.  Stop being lazy about it.  OK you have been using the same DAW for 30 years.  Big deal.  Let it go and learn a new one.  In a short space of time you won't even remember the DAW you were using.  You will become super proficient at the new one.  Learn the new key commands too rather than trying to map Sonar commands to the new DAW.  For a given DAW the key commands are often carefully designed and work very well.  Especially if you want to get one of the specially designed Editors Keys QWERTY keyboards which are excellent. 
 
You will still get the job done very well.  Amateur or professional.  Who knows even better.
 
 

sharke
 
If you ask people here if there is anything as good as Sonar, take people's replies with a pinch of salt.

Exactly, it's a bit like going to the FORD dealership and asking them which is better, FORDs or Chevy's (I wonder what answer to expect? )
 
Same with statements like "If you're looking for a replacement for Sonar that's almost an exact "feature-for-feature" equivalent, there isn't one." That statement is true and can be made for practically any DAW, not just SONAR, as they all have features etc that others do not.
 
I swiched to Studio One 3 - 2 1/2 years ago or so, haven't looked back, do not miss anything from SONAR. Still was a SONAR Platinum lifetime member, well until Cakewalk went belly up, but really haven't touched it appart from checking in every now and then to see whats going on, but absolutely no desire to use it as such, to be honest I can't stand looking at it now days, it looks old and quite ugly to me now, and certainly feels old and tired to me, and with the flakeynes, the quirks, the bugs . . . no thanks, especially now that nothing will be fixed, updated or added. It's not until you get away from SONAR until you realize how unstable, how flakey etc it really is, not until you experience something else, and I don't mean trying something for a couple of hours or a couple of days, I mean give yourself the chance to become comfortable with another product, forget the ways of SONAR and the SONAR thinking/mentality, learn and go with the ways of the new DAW, then the reality will sink in, as has been seen by many people making posts about their new DAW and the realization they have come to, and how they wouldn't come back to SONAR even if it was resurected.
 
SONAR will quickly fall behind, (as far as I am concerned it already was, there is a reason it wasn't very popular outside these forums) it's already started, no ARA2, the upcoming Midi enhancements, as time goes buy new plugins etc with new tech won't work, new tech, new and or changed standards etc etc, with no fixes or updates being made it wont take long before the list becomes quite long.

And then there is this announcement.  Another new MIDI feature: MIDI Polyphonic Expression.
 
I suppose most DAWs will need to include full support for this in future updates...
 
https://www.kvraudio.com/news/midi-manufacturers-association-mma-adopts-midi-polyphonic-expression-mpe-40169
 
MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) Specification Adopted!
https://www.midi.org/articles/midi-polyphonic-expression-mpe

I've only properly looked at Studio one, Samplitude and Reaper and although some nice things in each, found them all to be lacking something that outweighed whatever it was that I liked about them. If azslow properly pulls of his opening of cwp's in Reaper project then I will probably get that as back up in case the day comes that I can no longer use Platinum.
 
I like to revisit old projects and also have many unfinished projects that I'm not going to be spending hours and hours transferring to a new DAW, so the way I see it is that I'm going to have to keep Sonar going anyway, so why not just continue using it?

Are there any soft drinks as good as Dr. Pepper?  All DAWs do pretty much the same thing, but they look and feel somewhat different. All carbonated beverages can make you burp, but they do taste slightly different from one another.
 
Is there another DAW as good as Sonar? Sure. They all can record your burp, but may taste slightly different from one another.
 
Mixcraft and Studio One are tasting pretty good to me right now. I tried to convince myself that I loved Sonar, but I never really did. I just continued using it because my first music software was a Cakewalk product. I even have a "lifetime" update to Splat. I am loyal almost to a fault. But I am not a fan of wading through endless software options, which is what Sonar seemed like to me. It makes getting things done cumbersome. 
 
So, with apologies to those whose world seems to have come unraveled with the demise of Sonar, I shall move on to something else, get my nose out of manuals and tutorials, and possibly get more accomplished. 
 
Last one out don't forget to shut off the lights. 

sharke
People tout Sonar's deep feature set, which is a draw I suppose - if you need all of those features. Most people don't.

I totally agree to that sharke!
 
Well, I would even go further and claim that there is no one really using all of Sonar's features. And that is the reason why I believe we don't need all the new features of other DAWs that are coming in the future. Me for example, I am not at all interested in this new "MIDI Polyphonic Expression". Out of 10 new features I am probably only interested in 1 and even that may show later on that it's not worth the time I spend to learn it! This was also true for me with new features in Sonar in the past.
 
On the other hand I am convinced that features are not the whole thing! IMHO the design and workflow of a DAW is even more important. And in that area Sonar is really advanced compared to the other ones I tested. These are the actual things I am missing in other DAWs, e.g. the clear structured export dialog, comping with lanes, ...

It's probably also worth pointing out that other DAW's seem to have a much better manual than Sonar's. I think one thing that will have put a lot of people off Sonar is its awful documentation. There are so many errors and badly explained things in its manual, which is a confusing mess that often has you going around in circles trying to find the info you need. I wonder how many newbies demoing the software gave up after trying to read it.

sharke
It's probably also worth pointing out that other DAW's seem to have a much better manual than Sonar's. I think one thing that will have put a lot of people off Sonar is its awful documentation. There are so many errors and badly explained things in its manual, which is a confusing mess that often has you going around in circles trying to find the info you need. I wonder how many newbies demoing the software gave up after trying to read it.

Really? I found that some manuals of other vendors are even worse! But I agree that Sonar's isn't the best.

sharke
It's probably also worth pointing out that other DAW's seem to have a much better manual than Sonar's. I think one thing that will have put a lot of people off Sonar is its awful documentation. There are so many errors and badly explained things in its manual, which is a confusing mess that often has you going around in circles trying to find the info you need. I wonder how many newbies demoing the software gave up after trying to read it.

It wasn't just the lack of a decent manual.  Judging by what I see on the internet, not much interest in reading manuals anymore. 
 
Just look at all the various DAW video training courses popping up on places like YouTube, Groove3, Udemy, ADSR, etc.
 
It seems that the most popular DAWs by far rule this domain.  Tons of content for them.  But it is hard to find anything professionally produced recently regarding Sonar though. 
 
Well there was that stuff back in the X2 days... but how many years ago was that???  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKRYWdEpbc5PgUgvrNuSvVyfv5qkll0qj
 
It may have helped Sonar's longevity and marketability if Cakewalk had invested in video training more seriously.