I have a friend who is trying to self-produce an album. He has self-published other albums with some financial success (made more money than he spent, which is what I call a success.) This time, he tried to manage all the production himself to minimize costs.  He started on Cubase and switched over to StudioOne. The technology has been a challenge that I am helping him with.  He became proficient on StudioOne, so I installed StudioOne Artist so I could guide him.
 
This isn't intended to be an exhaustive review, but I did want to note a few things.  Overall, StudioOne makes pretty good sense. It follows a paradigm where you work on songs as part of an album rather than each song being a separate project file. They also make a clear distinction between mixing mode and mastering mode.  That framework is OK, but I don't really feel it is an advantage compared to SONAR.
 
Right off the bat I got a real shocker when I tried to access some of my VSTs. StudioOne Artist won't do that. You can only
use the VSTs that Presonus provides for Artist. It is not a bad collection, but really ...  To access other VST's you have to buy an $80 upgrade or else upgrade to the pro version for $300.  That all seems really counter to the culture of plug-ins in the DAW world.
 
Most of the basic options are comparable to SONAR. There seems to be no way to archive tracks. That is a really important feature IMHO.  In this case, I was trying to clean up projects that had lots of extra tracks that were essentially multiple takes. They were muted, but without being able to archive, it is hard to keep them muted. Basically you can never use the global mute and solo buttons.
 
StudioOne makes makes a distinction between two different kinds of buses, which I really don't understand.  I created 2 reverb buses. That worked fine, but the solo buttons on these buses acted strangely -- not as I expected.
 
StidioOne is well behaved when adding the same effect to multiple tracks. If you select multiple tracks and drag an effect to one track, it goes on all the selected tracks. Maybe there is an equivalent way to do this with SONAR, but StudioOne seems particularly convenient in that case.
 
The effects included in Artist are mostly OK.  I particularly like the chorusing effect.  I haven't found any of the chorusing effects in SONAR to my liking. The PreSonus one provides a doubling mode that is exactly what I want to do from time to time, especially on vocals. It sounds realistic. I wish SPLAT had that.
 
SONAR is a lot more obvious to me regarding clip fades and cross-fades.
 
There are numerous user interface subtleties that really do warm up the user. Two examples: during mixdown, it says how much faster the rendering is than real time. It is no big deal, but it makes me feel good to see "Mixdown 18 times faster than real time." It makes me feel productive. Another example, during mixdown, if the output clips, it refuses to complete the mixdown, and that's a very good idea, IMHO.
 
I have only scratched the surface. My overall assessment is that SONAR is probably more comprehensive, but StudioOne is more comprehensible, which is important to people who can't invest too much time in the learning curve. The resulting sound is good with StudioOne, but I do think I get a slightly more polished sound with SONAR.
 
Just some observations, not looking to start any wars here. I think we can learn from others.

I have both and I find them both wonderful. 

It is one thing that is cool about Sonar Home Studio. It comes with practically nothing in the way of quality plug ins and VST's but it certainly doesn't stop you from rolling your own from just about any source. SO this makes it a real value for anyone just wanting basic features but needing an open door to upgrading the add ons. 
 
I downloaded the free version of Studio one a year ago just to kick the tires. Overall it was a nice DAW and I found no fault in the overall layout. But a demo is a demo and I haven't really played with it since. 

On a whim I installed the S1/3 Pro demo a few weeks ago.  Once I finally got everything downloaded (I have a slow-ass internet connection), I was immediately impressed.  I was so impressed that I purchased a crossgrade license as soon as a sale went on.
 
I have now spent a bit of time with it and honestly, there are things I like and things I don't like.  Just like every other DAW I've tried.
 
I'm currently working on a flow that starts with S1 ( arrange/scratchpad ) and later migrates to SONAR for tracking/mixing.  I expect to end up back in S1 for mastering.  I'm hoping that the pending Ripple Edit in SONAR will make the arrange/scratchpad features of S1 less appealing.
 
The simplest explanation I can come up with is that S1 is quicker to get started, but SONAR has the advantage when it comes to details.  Keep in mind that I have thousands of hours with SONAR and a few hours with S1.
 
But ... the jury is still out.  Ripple edit and a few other tweaks could easily make S1 an afterthought.  Well, there is the integration with Notion 6 that I haven't even started to explore yet.

I have both the latest versions of Sonar Platinum and Studio One v3. I've been a Cakewalk user since Professional 3.01 back in '95 and adopted Studio One (after winning a copy from a PreSonus NAMM show giveaway :)) as the DAW for my MacBook Pro since 2013. I mostly use Sonar as my default recording/mixing DAW and use Studio One for mobile recording applications of my laptop. 
 
I like how things move and flow on Studio One when it comes to recording, arranging and composing track view; I can intuitively move and copy/paste track data (whether MIDI or audio) around, even if the data doesn't begin on the first beat of the measure. For Sonar, you need to have some settings in place in order to do that. However, I also use hardware gear and Sonar is way superior in terms of sequencing and assigning tracks to hardware synths (Instrument Definitions, anyone?), whereas Studio One's implementation is rather half-assed.
 
In Console view, Sonar flows way better. The ProChannel has most things you need, and the buses already exist for assignment. I HATE mixing in the Studio One environment because I have to basically build my channels and buses up from scratch (yes, I could use templates, but even in Sonar I can work much quicker from nothing). Maybe it's because I don't 100% understand how to route and assign effects in Studio One, but whenever I work in Studio One, I want to use as few effects/bus routings as possible, whereas in Sonar, I want to use as much as possible. 
 

Let's go!
 
I use both. I love Sonar because it has more features to score to picture.
 
Let me compare both for you:
 
Sonar:
 
Advanced audio editing (25 years and counting)
64bit 384khz Audio Engine
Surround support
Built-in notation editor (buggy but functional)
Better midi tools and editing
More than 100 plugins and effects (best arsenal seen on a daw)
Pattern Tool
 
cons: Latency on lower PCs (it's weird i know), notation buggy, miss a chorder tool, miss an arrangement view)
 
Studio One:
 
Scratch Pads (This is very very good for arranging)
64bit 384khz Audio Sinthesis Engine
Ultra easy to use
Most beautiful interface i've ever seen in a daw.
Runs great on lower PCs. 
Original Cubase team (PreSonus contracted them)
Mix Engine FX (create your own sounds by multi layering instruments)
Complete Analog emulation (This took 15 years to make Analog Systems work sweet as butter and totally functional on a Digital Audio Workstation)
Sampler Presence XT with a Javascript Engine ready to create sounds by coding (you need to buy the editor, it costs 99 dollars.
Project Page for mastering (THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST THINGS)
 
Cons: No surround official support, chorder tool is very very very basic, Presence XT sometimes with filters gives cpu spikes, less plugins than Sonar. Sonar has better audio and midi editing tools.
 
This is my feedback!

cparmerleeI particularly like the chorusing effect.  I haven't found any of the chorusing effects in SONAR to my liking.

Check out this week's Friday's Tip of the Week regarding chorusing for guitar.

Anderton

cparmerleeI particularly like the chorusing effect.  I haven't found any of the chorusing effects in SONAR to my liking.

Check out this week's Friday's Tip of the Week regarding chorusing for guitar.

Thanks.  I had never noticed the VX-64. It is nice.  It sounds more like what I'm looking for than the various "chorusing" plugs in SPlat.  I like it, and very well may use it.
 
I still like the PreSonus a little better because it gives control over the LFO, so you can easily simulate the doubling going in an out of phase.  And to make that even better, it would be nice to have some randomness in the LFO.
 
I suppose a person could use an automation envelope to vary the amount of doubling effect with VX-64 to create a similar effect.  I didn't try that.  I am an old school guy where we used to manually double track every horn part to get that sound.
 
Anyway, thanks for the pointer.

Also try the Sonitus modulation effect. It's flexible enough that you can get pretty much any chorusing effect you want. People sometimes dismiss the Sonitus effects because they're old. So what? They got it right 

Y'now, I'm sure there were no bad intentions in terms of starting this thread, but ultimately isn't it kind of pointless? I think the only conclusion that could be possibly be drawn is "Different DAWs are different, and often do things differently."