The digital audio workstation is the program in which recording, arranging, mixing and mastering happen — and it is also the host for every plugin. It is therefore the one decision that frames all the others. At the same time it is the least urgent: nearly everything one can do, they all can do.
The three questions that actually decide something
Which operating system? Logic Pro is macOS only. A few programs run on Linux, most do not. Anyone who might change computers should know this beforehand.
With whom? If you exchange projects with others, you save a great deal by all using the same program. In studios that is often Pro Tools — not because it is the best, but because it is what stands there.
For what? For linear recording and arranging almost any program will do. For live performance and loop-based work, Ableton Live has a view of its own that no other program matches. For engraving, a DAW is the wrong tool anyway.
What does not decide
Sound quality. Two DAWs playing the same project with the same plugins sound the same. This has been measured for years and is nevertheless argued about annually.
The number of bundled instruments. Pleasant as a starting package, and beside the point after six months, because you buy what is missing anyway.
Price is not the obstacle
Of the 68 DAWs in this catalogue, 43 are free and another 5 are open source. Only 13 cost money once, 7 run on a subscription.
The free ones are not trial versions: Cakewalk by BandLab and Tracktion Waveform Free are complete working environments; Ardour, LMMS and Zrythm are open source and actively maintained. Getting started needs no money.
One practical piece of advice
Take a free DAW and work through three projects with it. After that you know what bothers you — and that is the only useful basis for switching. Switching earlier means trading one program for another whose quirks you know just as little.
And a note that usually comes too late: a project cannot be carried from one DAW into another. What transfers is audio files and MIDI — automation, plugin settings and routing stay behind. The later the switch, the more it costs.