Audiokinetic Wwise vs OpenAL Soft
Audiokinetic Wwise
audiokinetic.comOpenAL Soft
openal-soft.orgSide by side
| Figure | Audiokinetic Wwise | OpenAL Soft |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 1 |
| Spec score · Game Audio Middleware | 8.7 (#1) | 7.8 (#13) |
| Purpose | Wwise combines an audio authoring application, sound engine, game simulator, plug-in architecture, and Authoring API for interactive game audio and motion. | OpenAL Soft is a software implementation of the OpenAL 3D audio API for playing audio in a virtual 3D environment. |
| Security | Audiokinetic's SDK agreement says users may not reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or circumvent security measures in Wwise technology, subject to applicable law. | The opened official page does not state security certifications or compliance claims. |
| Support | Without a Direct Support Plan, users can ask questions through the public Audiokinetic Community Q&A; paid support plans include ticket allowances or unlimited tickets. | The project directs users to its GitHub issue tracker for bugs and feature requests and to the #openal IRC channel for help. |
Plans
Audiokinetic Wwise
- IndieFree
- Pro$8,000, paid once
- Premium$25,000, paid once
- Platinum$45,000, paid once
In their own words
Audiokinetic Wwise
Audiokinetic Wwise is a toolset for creating interactive game audio and motion. It combines an audio authoring application, sound engine, game simulator, plug-in architecture, and Authoring API. Its pipeline covers authoring, simulation, integration, in-game mixing, and real-time profiling. A project can organize sound, voice, music, and motion assets, playback behaviors, Events, simulations, profiling, and platform-specific SoundBanks. Wwise supports spatial audio, interactive music, dialogue management, localization, and audio streaming. Unity and Unreal Engine integrations are available; the Unity package includes a plug-in library, C# SDK API bindings, components, and Editor windows. The free trial is for non-commercial use and limits SoundBanks to 200 media assets. Commercial licenses are per title, with a license required for each platform used. Listed commercial plans start at $8,000, paid once; the price depends on platforms. The free Indie plan is for production budgets below $250K.
OpenAL Soft
OpenAL Soft is a free, LGPL-licensed software implementation of the OpenAL 3D audio API for playing sound in virtual 3D environments. It handles distance attenuation, Doppler shift, and directional emitters. The EFX extension adds effects such as air absorption, occlusion, and environmental reverb. The library supports streaming audio, multichannel buffers, and audio capture, with output options including mono, stereo, 4-channel, 5.1, 7.1, HRTF, UHJ, and B-Format. Implemented audio backends include PipeWire, PulseAudio, ALSA, WASAPI, CoreAudio, JACK, SDL2, and SDL3. Developers can use loopback devices to connect playback with other audio systems and incorporate the library into projects. The latest release identified on the site is version 1.25.2, available as source and Win32 and Win64 binaries. Building requires CMake 3.13 or newer and a compiler supporting C++20; Autotools is not supported. Runtime platforms listed are Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android. The project directs bug reports and feature requests to its GitHub issue tracker and points users to the #openal IRC channel for help.