CLAP, VST3, AU, AAX or LV2: which plugin formats to ship in 2026

The formats at a glance

VST3: the default, now with no paperwork

VST3 is the format that reaches the most hosts, and in October 2025 it also became the easiest to ship. With VST 3.8, Steinberg moved the SDK from its proprietary and GPLv3 dual licence to MIT, and stopped requiring a signed licence agreement. The VST logo is now optional; use it, and Steinberg’s trademark guidelines apply. The current SDK is 3.8.1, from August 2026.

VST2 is the opposite case. Steinberg closed it in October 2018, removed it from the SDK, and has issued no licences since. A new plugin has no reason to ship it.

Audio Units: AUv2 for the Mac, AUv3 for iPad and iPhone

On the Mac, Logic Pro, GarageBand and MainStage load third-party plugins only as Audio Units. Apple describes AUv2 as “in maintenance mode” and recommends AUv3 for new development, but has not deprecated AUv2, and Logic Pro 12.4 (September 2026) was still shipping Audio Unit fixes and features. Logic Pro for iPad, though, takes third-party plugins only as AUv3 extensions, so iOS means AUv3.

One deadline to plan for: Apple says Rosetta will be available through macOS 27, after which only a subset for older games remains. Logic Pro already requires Apple silicon. Mac builds of every format should be arm64 or universal now.

CLAP: the open format, in a growing list of hosts

CLAP is an MIT-licensed C API started by Bitwig and u-he, now at version 1.2.10 (July 2026). These hosts load it in a stable release:

Cubase, Nuendo, Ableton Live, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, Ardour and Renoise did not load CLAP as of October 2026; Zrythm has it in a 2.0 pre-release, and LMMS has had a pull request open since 2024. So CLAP is not yet a replacement for VST3. KVR’s product database lists about 1,230 CLAP plugins against about 13,370 VST3 plugins. In a KVR forum poll from March 2026, 421 self-selected voters choosing up to three formats gave CLAP 19% of the votes and VST3 45%.

What CLAP offers in exchange is a cleaner contract for the things VST3 makes awkward: per-note modulation and expression, thread-pool access for the host, and an API that is plain C with a stable ABI. Whether it is worth shipping comes down to your framework. If CLAP has to be bolted on, it is extra work for a minority of hosts; if it is the framework’s core format, it costs nothing.

AAX: only for Pro Tools, and with gatekeepers

Pro Tools loads AAX and nothing else. Avid’s SDK is downloaded under a click-through licence (or GPLv3); releasing a commercial plugin requires contacting Avid, and every AAX build must be signed with PACE’s tools using an iLok. Pro Tools on Windows supports 64-bit Intel processors only, so there is no Windows-on-ARM AAX to build. We found no change to any of this in 2025 or 2026. Budget the approval and signing time before you promise Pro Tools support.

LV2: the Linux format

LV2 is ISC-licensed and is what Linux audio is built around: Ardour, Carla, Qtractor, LMMS and Zrythm host it, and REAPER has loaded LV2 on every platform since 6.24 in 2021. Bitwig Studio does not; it hosts VST2, VST3 and CLAP. If you support Linux, ship VST3, CLAP and LV2.

On the web

Two web formats exist and neither has a DAW behind it yet. Web Audio Modules 2.0 has been at an alpha API since 2023. WebCLAP is active and experimental, with a browser test host and a bridge that lets native hosts load web CLAPs. Neither is something users ask for today.

How many formats your framework makes you pay for

Every extra format costs build configuration, testing in the hosts that load it, and a wrapper that has to behave identically to the others. That cost depends on the framework far more than on the format.

In the Sonore SDK, one plugin.cpp builds a .clap, a .vst3, an AUv2 .component, an .lv2 bundle and a standalone app from one compile. The same file builds:

• an AUv3 extension inside an app, on the Mac and for iPhone and iPad;
• an Android app;
• an .aaxplugin, against the developer’s own copy of Avid’s SDK, as every framework’s is.

CLAP is the core, and the other formats adapt it, so a plugin behaves the same in every host. Asking for VST2 is a configure error that says why. No other framework builds all six natively, CLAP and LV2 included, and the Sonore SDK does it under Apache-2.0 at no cost. Audio plugin frameworks compared covers what JUCE, iPlug2, DPF and the Rust frameworks build.

Sources

• CLAP: repository, changelog, u-he on CLAP; hosts: Bitwig 4.3, MultitrackStudio 10.4.1, Qtractor, REAPER 6.x changelog, FL Studio 2024, Studio One 7 release notes, Studio One becomes Fender Studio Pro, Ableton Live 12 release notes, Zrythm releases, LMMS CLAP pull request
• VST3 and VST2: VST 3.8 announcement, VST3 licensing, SDK versions, CDM on the licence change, VST2 discontinued
• Audio Units: hosting AUv3 through the AUv2 API, Audio Units on Apple silicon, Logic Pro release notes, Logic Pro for iPad plug-ins, Logic Pro requirements, Rosetta, AudioUnitSDK
• AAX: Avid developer portal, Pro Tools 2026.4 release notes
• LV2: LV2, host compatibility, Ardour features, Bitwig plug-in hosting
• Usage: KVR CLAP listings, KVR VST3 listings, KVR format poll, March 2026
• Web: WebCLAP
• Sonore SDK: platforms and formats