AAX
The AAX (Avid Audio eXtension) plugin format is owned by Avid and is only used by the Avid products: Pro Tools, VENUE | S6L and Media Composer.
ARA
TODO
AU
Apple created the AU (AudioUnit) plugin format. It can be used by a number of DAW’s, but only on the Mac operating system.
CLAP
CLAP (CLever Audio Plugin) is a relatively new plugin format, notable for being created and published as an open source format.
DAW
TODO
LADSPA
LADSPA (Linux Audio Developer’s Simple Plugin API) is an open source plugin format for Linux audio plugins.
LV2
LV2 is a platform agnostic open source plugin format with a liberal license. Thus it is highly favourable for creating and publishing Linux audio plugins.
Open Source
TODO
Plugin
TODO
VST2
Virtual Studio Technology (VST2) was a proprietary audio plugin format created by Steinberg.
Note that VST2 was deprecated in 2013 and has been replaced by VST3.
VST3
Virtual Studio Technology (VST3) is a (now open source) audio plugin format created by Steinberg.
VST3 is the current version of the format. Notably it was made open source in October 2025.