LUNA vs Podium

LUNA is Universal Audio’s digital audio workstation for recording, producing, and mixing music. It runs on macOS and 64-bit Windows 10 or 11 and supports VST3 and AU plug-ins and virtual instruments. Its smart tools include tempo and instrument detection, voice control, stem separation, audio-to-MIDI, lyric transcription, and chord extraction, though some require LUNA Studio. LUNA Play detects an instrument, sets levels, and suggests presets. The software works with any audio interface; Apollo and Volt have deeper integration, and Apollo supports real-time tracking with UAD plug-ins, Unison preamp technology, and Accelerated Realtime Monitoring. LUNA Studio adds API, Studer, and Ampex console or tape extensions, hardware inserts, and six ARA plug-ins. LUNA Free is free. Listed paid plans are LUNA Studio at $199 a month and UAD Spark Studio at $149 a year, billed annually. Installation requires free Universal Audio and iLok accounts, UA Connect, and iLok License Manager. LUNA needs 600 MB of available system storage.

Podium is a Windows digital audio workstation for recording and editing audio and MIDI, and hosting VST instrument and effect plugins. Projects can contain unlimited arrangements that share sequences and sounds. It can record any number of MIDI and audio inputs simultaneously and supports loop recording on audio input tracks. Its hierarchical track engine supports group tracks, multicore plugin processing, automatic delay compensation, and up to 100 mixer bus instances. Podium handles Wave and AIFF files with up to 32 channels, as well as RF64 files larger than 4 GB. It supports VST 2.4 plugins and includes zPEQ, zReverb, and zPitch; external MIDI and audio devices can be routed in the track hierarchy with latency compensation. Podium Free is available at free, with limits including disabled ReWire, surround playback, the 64-bit mixer option, and plugin multiprocessing, plus MIDI setup limited to one input and one output. A single-user license is listed at $50 as a one-time purchase for a one-year upgrade period, $75 as a one-time purchase for two years, or $90, paid once for three years. Podium does not support audio warping or VST3. The maker lists Windows 7 or Windows 10, an 800 MHz CPU, 512 MB memory, 32 MB graphics memory, and an ASIO or MME sound driver as minimum requirements.