Software Alternatives & Reviews

PortAudio VS OpenAL Soft

Compare PortAudio VS OpenAL Soft and see what are their differences

PortAudio logo PortAudio

PortAudio is a cross platform, open-source, audio I/O library.

OpenAL Soft logo OpenAL Soft

OpenAL Soft is an LGPL-licensed, cross-platform, software implementation of the OpenAL 3D audio API.
  • PortAudio Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-06-15
  • OpenAL Soft Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-18

PortAudio videos

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OpenAL Soft videos

F.E.A.R. w/ EAX & 3D spatial sound 🎧 (OpenAL Soft HRTF)

More videos:

  • Review - F.E.A.R DirectSound3D: Creative Alchemy vs OpenAL Soft (Headphone only)
  • Review - Counter-Strike 1.0 WON w/ 3D spatial sound (OpenAL Soft HRTF audio) 20th Anniversary!

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to PortAudio and OpenAL Soft)
Development Tools
52 52%
48% 48
Game Engine
48 48%
52% 52
Rapid Application Development
Game Development
37 37%
63% 63

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, OpenAL Soft seems to be a lot more popular than PortAudio. While we know about 11 links to OpenAL Soft, we've tracked only 1 mention of PortAudio. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

PortAudio mentions (1)

  • Python speech recognition for pulseaudio
    FYI PyAudio built on this software: http://portaudio.com/ which interfaces directly with Alsa/OSS (refer to the sounds system page, I'm not saying Open-Source Software here) which PulseAudio also does. Source: about 3 years ago

OpenAL Soft mentions (11)

  • Audio Library
    OpenAL is probably the best middle ground. Source: 10 months ago
  • Prey (2017) Director: Using That Name Was A Mistake
    OpenAL Soft - Greatly improves audio. (Enable EAX effects in SS2 settings after this OpenAL Soft is installed). System Shock 2 used hardware accelerated audio effects and those work only if you have sound card that supports them. OpenAL Soft implements all those effects in software so you get good audio. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Death lamp worth?
    .MHR cannot be opened without a file viewer (Binary data). Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Anyone know a good OpenAL alternative or wrapper which works on Apple platforms?
    Sounds like you want OpenAL Soft a cross platform LGPL software implementation of OpenAL. Source code and issue tracker are [on Github](0https://github.com/kcat/openal-soft). Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Latest versions of Creative ALchemy and OpenAL
    OpenAL. I found OpenAL v1.1 Windows Installer from OpenAL: Cross Platform 3D Audio but OpenAL Soft v1.21.0 from here https://openal-soft.org/. What is the difference and which should I download? Source: about 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing PortAudio and OpenAL Soft, you can also consider the following products

JUCE - JUCE is a wide-ranging C++ class library for building rich cross-platform applications and plugins...

OpenAL - OpenAL is a cross-platform 3D audio API appropriate for use with gaming applications and many other...

RtAudio - RtAudio is a set of C++ classes that provide a common API for realtime audio input/output across...

FMOD - FMOD Studio is an audio middleware solution and engine for games.

FMOD Ex - FMOD is a proprietary audio library that plays music files of diverse formats on many different...

Wwise - Game audio engine, designed to give artists more control and save programmers' time.