I'm building LYNX, an open-source DAW inspired by FL Studio, free,cross-platform

Overview

A lightweight DAW with the FL Studio workflow. Channel Rack, Piano Roll, Playlist and Mixer in C++20 + JUCE 8, built to run well on any PC. Windows, macOS and Linux.

Formerly "LYNX": renamed LYNX SHARE in v0.1.20 (it was easy to confuse with the Lynx text web browser). Old links to github.com/Ka1-S/LYNX redirect here; your settings and projects stay where they are.

Website · Download · Features · FL projects · Built-in plugins · Building · Status · Roadmap

LYNX SHARE's own demo project (LYNX.exe --showcase) in the 0.1.19 workspace: browser, Piano Roll, Channel Rack and Mixer.

Built-in Plugins

LYNX SHARE ships native plugins inspired by the third-party plugins producers use most, next to its clean-room FL Studio natives.

24 dedicated LYNX SHARE engines are in, more are being built, and a project that uses one of the 56 originals below opens with the LYNX SHARE equivalent when the original is not installed (its settings are kept and come back once it is; see PLUGIN_FALLBACK.md).

Product and company names are trademarks of their respective owners. They are used only to describe compatibility and the role each LYNX SHARE engine plays. LYNX SHARE is not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by any of them and contains none of their code, presets, graphics or audio.

Performance

Lock-free engine, channels and mixer spread across threads, idle channels skipped and long audio streamed from disk. A 125-track project renders at more than 10× real time.

Measured against FL Studio 2026 on the same PC: 2.5-7× less RAM, demo songs open faster and render 2-3× faster (benchmark).

Workflow

Step-sequencer Channel Rack, patterns, Piano Roll, Playlist with arrangements, Mixer with inserts, sends and sidechain. Same shortcuts.

Imports FL Studio projects: channels, samples, patterns, arrangement, automation, mixer and 60+ native plugins converted, most of them bit-exact.

FL Studio's behaviour was studied through behavioural reverse engineering and documented; not a single line of Image-Line code was copied.

Playlist: pattern, automation and audio clips with a clip menu on right-click (split, chop, merge, reverse, normalize, fit to tempo and more).

Native Engines

LYNX SHARE's native engines are clean-room re-implementations of FL Studio's native plugins, each checked against the original running unmodified. The full list - every engine, what it is compatible with, its status and what is still missing - is in docs/PLUGINS.md.

Featured - the plugins FL Studio users reach for most, all at Exact or Near-exact quality in LYNX SHARE:

What each one does, how you get it (any insert or from an .flp) and the whole list are in docs/PLUGINS.md.

All built-in plugins:

Exact = bit-identical to the original on every installation state tested; near-exact = the rest below about −100 dB; close = same algorithm, within −60 dB.

Plugin names are Image-Line's trademarks, used only to describe compatibility; LYNX SHARE is not affiliated with Image-Line.

FL Studio Project Import

LYNX SHARE reads the .flp format directly and converts everything that has an equivalent:

• Structure: channels, real samples (including the Ogg Vorbis WAVs and WavPack files shipped with FL), patterns, slide/porta notes, every arrangement, markers, time-signature changes, automation and controller links.
• Mixer: routing, levels, sidechains, track EQ and native effects with their saved settings (Parametric EQ 2, Limiter, Compressor, Reeverb 2, Delay 3, Maximus, Gross Beat, Effector, Love Philter, Frequency Splitter, Patcher, Pitcher, Vocoder, Newtone/Newtime and more).
• Generators on FL's own engines (checked against FL's DLLs, most of them bit for bit): 3x Osc, SimSynth, MiniSynth, DX10, Kepler, PoiZone, Toxic Biohazard, Transistor Bass, Autogun, Plucked!, BeepMap, Sawer, Granulizer, Drumaxx, FL Slayer, FL Keys, Fruit Kick, Kick, BassDrum, Sakura, Drumpad, BooBass, Fruity DrumSynth Live, GMS, Morphine; Sytrus, Harmless, Harmor (including image synthesis) and Ogun on engines rebuilt from the plugin state. Built-in sounds and tables are read from your FL installation, never shipped with LYNX SHARE. DirectWave runs on its own exact engine (filters, modulation matrix and effects); FPC, Slicex, Fruity Slicer and Wave Traveller play as samplers through FL's own interpolators.
• Exact native effects: Parametric EQ 2, EQUO, Limiter, Compressor, Multiband Compressor, Maximus, Soundgoodizer, Reeverb 2, LuxeVerb, Convolver, Delay 3, Delay Bank, the chorus family, Flangus, Flanger, Fast Dist, WaveShaper, Soft Clipper, Stereo Shaper/Enhancer, Transient Processor, Frequency Splitter, Fast LP, Free Filter, Fruity Filter, Pitch Shifter, Love Philter, Fruity Vocoder, Vocodex, Hardcore, Distructor, Multiband Delay, Gross Beat, Effector, Vintage Phaser, Pitcher and more reproduce FL's algorithms; how each one was decoded is documented in docs/analise/.
• Third-party plugins: VST3/CLAP plugins inside the Fruity Wrapper are swapped for the same installed plugin, preset included. A report lists what was converted, what is approximated and what was left out. FLEX packs are encrypted and are never opened (the channel gets a synth patch chosen by preset name).

Note: Every conversion rule comes from behavioural reverse engineering (decompilation studied, official manual and project data), recorded in docs/analise/. Anything not confirmed is flagged as an approximation in docs/STATUS.md.

Downloads

Every release on the latest release page has builds for all three platforms (is the version, e.g. 0.1.10-alpha):

Release files are built from the tagged source by GitHub Actions (release.yml) and listed with their SHA-256 in SHA256SUMS.txt. Releases up to 0.1.7 are Windows-only; up to 0.1.12 the AppImage was named LYNX--linux-x86_64.AppImage and needed glibc 2.39.

Installation

Windows. Run the installer: it needs no admin rights, adds Start-menu/desktop shortcuts, opens .lynx projects and offers LYNX SHARE in Open with for .flp without changing FL Studio's default. Prefer no installer? Extract the portable .zip and run LYNX.exe. Both include a demo project (Demo.lynx). The executable is not code-signed yet, so SmartScreen may warn on first launch (More info → Run anyway); see Code signing policy.

macOS. Open the .dmg and drag LYNX SHARE to Applications. The app is not notarized by Apple and has no Developer ID signature (ad-hoc only), so the first launch needs one extra step: right-click (Control-click) LYNX SHARE in Applications → Open → Open. On macOS 15 Sequoia or newer, try to open it once, then go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. Or, in Terminal:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/LYNX.app

macOS asks for microphone access the first time you record.

Linux. Needs X11 or XWayland; audio goes through PipeWire directly (or JACK, or ALSA), see docs/LINUX.md. For the AppImage:

chmod +x LYNX-*.AppImage
./LYNX-*.AppImage

Some distributions need libfuse2 to run AppImages (libfuse2 on Ubuntu 22.04, libfuse2t64 on 24.04, fuse2 on Arch, fuse-libs on Fedora); otherwise use the .tar.gz: extract it and run ./install.sh, which installs LYNX SHARE for your user under ~/.local with a menu entry, an icon and the .lynx file type (./install.sh --uninstall removes it again).

Platform Differences

Opening FL Studio projects (.flp) works on every OS; the FL Studio integration only adds FL's own samples and plugin paths when an installation is found.

On first start a short setup wizard (skippable; Options > Setup wizard reopens it) picks the language, tests the audio device and lists the plugin folders - the standard VST3/CLAP folders plus the ones FL Studio uses on the same PC - and scans them in the background.

If FL Studio is installed, .flp projects use the very plugin files FL uses (read from its plugin database) and find samples in FL's folders; a plugin LYNX SHARE doesn't know yet gets a quick scan of just its file (details).

Command Line

LYNX.exe also runs headless, which is how everything is verified without opening windows. On macOS and Linux the binary is LYNX (/Applications/LYNX.app/Contents/MacOS/LYNX on macOS); the options are the same:

LYNX.exe project.lynx
# open a project (.lynx, .flp or .mid)
LYNX.exe --export project.flp out.flac
# render the song (wav/flac/ogg)
LYNX.exe --render project.flp out.wav 20
# render 20 s of the current pattern (24-bit WAV)
LYNX.exe --selftest report.txt [demo.lynx]
# self-test without an audio device
LYNX.exe --snapshot prefix project.flp
# draw the UI (and its windows) to PNG
LYNX.exe --showcase out.lynx [pattern]
# generate the demo project used in these screenshots
LYNX.exe --plugintest plugin.vst3 rep.txt
# test a VST3 or CLAP plugin
LYNX.exe --sandboxtest plugin.vst3 rep.txt
# test a plugin in a separate process (including a hung one)
LYNX.exe --scantest folder rep.txt
# scan a folder for plugins (separate processes)
LYNX.exe --fldb rep.txt [project.flp] [--scan]
# FL Studio found here, its plugin database, a project's plugin matches
LYNX.exe --devices rep.txt
# list audio drivers and outputs
LYNX.exe --devicetest "ASIO" "driver" rep.txt
# open a driver for 1 s of silence and repo