I was in something of a creative rut with Sonar, so took the opportunity provided by Gibson to cast around a bit.  I took a punt on S1 with the ridiculous pricing:
 
Session 1:  about an hour.  Tried to replicate everything I did in Sonar and got a bit stuck.  Transport, navigation, the use of instrument tracks for midi and the lack of the pro-channel left me underwhelmed.
 
Session 2: Watched a couple of YT tutorials.  Now we were getting somewhere - discovered that Transport/navigation is actually very well thought out.  PC isn't there, but you can configure the mix view efficiently, and the bundled presonus eq/comp/fat channel display in a way that is similar.
 
Session 3:  Watched more YT.  And I'm liking S1 a lot.  Workflow is clearly at the core here, and for how I use it, already proving more effective than Splat.  Even the simple act of sending an audio section direct to the sampler and having that load as a new track instantly makes a huge difference. Comping/layers are nicely implemented, and you need to learn some new keystrokes (such as moving midi parts) - but come to Sonar from elsewhere and you'll have the same problem.
 
I like the layout and the flexibility, and the workflow is productive.  I've had a couple of weird audio issues (sticking midi notes, audio interface oddness), and annoyed I can't manage plugins to maintain my own groups.  But I'm writing happily in S1, so will most likely use it as my default DAW for new projects.  Not removing Splat just yet mind, but it's eventual demise is certainly not going to worry me too much.

Well, I was working in Ableton LE for years, with just 4 vst plugins allowed.
I did try LMMS for free and it's ok to write something, but year ago it was in need of some polishing, just few months ago I've discovered tracktion and I was happy, because it was not so stable as ableton, but I was able to work with many plugins at once. I had sonar LE from 2004 and in w10 it still working! (well just not supporting64 and freezing sound sometimes)
month ago my friend gifted me sonar pro, so now I just don't understand why are you so freaking about they've closed developing? 
even thought it's not fair, coz I'd better had those new updates next year.
it's working, well maybe i'd fix few vst32 bugs, but sonar got everything you need to work with music.
there's no something new to add in DAW that you can't do with vst or rewire.
Just think different - you got best 30 years cakewalk product and now it's rare, no one else can't get it (xpt h4ck3z, that will risk with stability or evaluating some trojan), why would you spend more for something that is already working?
All those "windows update issues" is just fantasy of people who don't know about system updates, w10 backups only windows directory dll's, so it concerns for drivers only such as ASIO, that you just need to reinstall, and SOnar is not installing in winDir anything. And in any case you'll be able to get any dll from backup.
 We are owners of exclusive product, we did help developers as much as we can, but not enough, maybe. 
now just work with it and do better!

I'll stick with Cakewalk until the day I die. I've built my studio based on Cakewalk products (either software or hardware). Everything worked just perfect. I hope everything will still work for another 50 years.

I'm a small time User I'm sure. Church music, I play guitar for a few songs each service recording, and recording on the side. But it's spanned almost 15 yrs so quite a few recordings. Not all have been exported to a final mix. Due to the fact that Sunday's add up whether I'm ready our not!

If Sonar Splat took a final death crash (I doubt it will, but.....) I'd have a lot of audio that would be inaccessible unless I copy over plain audio in project folders.
I have a Windows 7 Premium desktop and Windows 10 laptop SPLAT, that's my "warm fuzzy" if you will....But I may be getting a new laptop soon so there's a reinstall problem there. Unless I keep the current laptop as well. That will hurt to do.

I believe Sonar is the better choice for me and would prefer it to keep on going......but....being in IT I've seen first hand what happens when a product is discontinued..without factory support, etc. It typically doesn't end well for Users.
*I may be wrong here and hope so. That said I'm doing the prudent thing and looking for a replacement. Feeling kind of forced to.
I hope the forum doesn't change! But these are things I have no control over so have to plan ahead.

I didn't mean to write such a long post!
Best,

All your audio would never be lost. It's in the audio folder and can be played with any DAW or Wave editor. A wav file is a standard file. 
But Sonar will work for a long time yet and even if Splat dies because of some unforseen issue, all the old versions will still run for a long time yet as well. 
Hopefuly you have backed up your project and audio folders an external drive. 
 
The only thing you loose when you switch DAW's is your set up with what ever plug ins you used on tracks. There is a few VST's like the TTS_1 that also cannot be used outside of sonar. Everything else is either midi or audio and easily backed up and portable. I save all my important projects as MID files. 

Yeah I will stick with Sonar till it quits working as well. I used Cakewalk before there was even windows {it was a DOS version} it was just a midi sequencer so I have seen alot changes since that Twelvetone version and still hold out for it's return in whatever form.

Cactus Music
All your audio would never be lost. It's in the audio folder and can be played with any DAW or Wave editor. A wav file is a standard file...The only thing you loose when you switch DAW's is your set up with what ever plug ins you used on tracks....

But..how does this work in practice?  I'm imagining going into my new DAW, say S1, and then importing .wav files - the tracks - one after the other.  Which ones do I import?  There's a lot of audio files related to a given project, but the DAW is only playing certain ones.  And how do I know the position of all the wave files along the time line?  Even if I record a 4 minute song in one take (mostly never), I still trim the silence...  
 
I'm genuinely curious how to approach this because it all sounds like a bunch of work that leads to a headache, and I'm not sure how many hours I could actually spend doing this.  I would love to believe that it's actually really simple, just do x, y and z.  

Yep, I've got all my wave files. It's those that are inside projects but I haven't finalized a mix for them are ones that I (believe) I need to mix them down to their present state. To get the wave files parked in their current mix at least. And I do have multiple drives with the original recordings backed up. Three xx terabyte drives. I've forgotten the sizes.

Biggest thing, but not terrible circumstances....I've got some recordings that I've gotten used to be able to listen to within Sonar anytime I want and tweak as desired for different versions at will. I know that's being unable to commit to a final final 😊 but who thought Cake was going to quit on me. (Gibson boogers!!!)
*I've got more of these than I thought 😂. Oh well. Life goes on.

Voda La Void

Cactus Music
All your audio would never be lost. It's in the audio folder and can be played with any DAW or Wave editor. A wav file is a standard file...The only thing you loose when you switch DAW's is your set up with what ever plug ins you used on tracks....

But..how does this work in practice?  I'm imagining going into my new DAW, say S1, and then importing .wav files - the tracks - one after the other.  Which ones do I import?  There's a lot of audio files related to a given project, but the DAW is only playing certain ones.  And how do I know the position of all the wave files along the time line?  Even if I record a 4 minute song in one take (mostly never), I still trim the silence...  
 
I'm genuinely curious how to approach this because it all sounds like a bunch of work that leads to a headache, and I'm not sure how many hours I could actually spend doing this.  I would love to believe that it's actually really simple, just do x, y and z.  

Unless others advise a better situation, knowing Sonar better than I do which is very likely...only the wave files or other audio file type (But wave files here for sure.) can be imported into a new DAW. Nothing else. If you mixed and created mp3s you can import those too.

Hola, llevas razon sonar es bastante estable ojala encuentren una solucion a este problema a mi me ha dado un problema la actualizacion de windows, y sonar teneia algun fallo leve que ya he resuelto....animo