# OpenAL Reviews **Vendor:** OpenAL **Category:** [Audio Engine Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/audio-engine) **Average Rating:** 3.8/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 4 ## About OpenAL OpenAL is a cross platform audio API designed for rendering of multi-channel 3D positional audio and aims to provide an open replacement for proprietary 3D audio systems like EAX and A3D. ## OpenAL Reviews ### 1. Good tool for game developers **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Games | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 11, 2024 **What do you like best about OpenAL?** Support for Multi channel audio rendering **What do you dislike about OpenAL?** Not everything works perfectly and is less actively maintained **What problems is OpenAL solving and how is that benefiting you?** When developing games, it helps incorporate realistic audio environment so that players can have best audio experience. ### 2. Hard to learn, hard to use, hard to get working **Rating:** 1.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mason P. | Resounding, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 16, 2022 **What do you like best about OpenAL?** It has lots of options for audio modulation **What do you dislike about OpenAL?** Very little documentation, hard to use, steep learning curve, obscure feature limitations, prone to errors **What problems is OpenAL solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have tried to implement dynamic environmental audio for a sandbox game, and OpenAL makes it very difficult ### 3. Awesome library **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Games | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 18, 2021 **What do you like best about OpenAL?** OpenAL is easy to work with, has fewer lines of code to write (as opposed to ALSA though with fewer options) and, more importantly, works on Windows and Linux **What do you dislike about OpenAL?** Nothing really. I used it to build a recording app and in-game audio **What problems is OpenAL solving and how is that benefiting you?** Audio recording and playback for games ### 4. Simply excellent **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Micheal G. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 31, 2016 **What do you like best about OpenAL?** OpenAL is designed to function in a way that's very similar to OpenGL. As such, many of the features are easily accessible and simple to understand if you already know OpenGL, since they work in the same way, with the only significant changes being to syntax. The library does not provide file-loading functionality. While this is often seen as a negative point, it drastically reduces the size and increases the performance of the library, and reduces the scope of the library as a whole to allow it to target a particular function. It also offers developers complete freedom of what filetypes they use and how much they optimise their solutions. **What do you dislike about OpenAL?** My main dislike about OpenAL is the learning curve for people not using OpenGL. These users have to learn a lot about OpenAL to make it feasible for use. As such, some users are put-off when comparing the library to other, more feature-packed libraries or existing wrappers over OpenAL. **Recommendations to others considering OpenAL:** Make sure you have a solid understanding of how OpenGL works prior to working with OpenAL. **What problems is OpenAL solving and how is that benefiting you?** I've been using OpenAL for developing the underlying source code that I use to make indie games. These games are small in scope, and very few have seen public release, due to the experimental nature of the products being built. - [View OpenAL pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/openal/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-15+07%3A51%3A55+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=cd3b0c85-1977-4fad-8368-c0d2e6c35007&secure%5Btoken%5D=38f38e4f739870c0579cff05d1b0b7ad006ae1ad7e9794aa2836209fede37c21&format=llm_user) ## Top OpenAL Alternatives - [Wwise](https://www.g2.com/products/wwise/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (36 reviews) - [FMOD](https://www.g2.com/products/fmod/reviews) - 4.1/5.0 (21 reviews) - [SoLoud](https://www.g2.com/products/soloud/reviews) - 3.8/5.0 (3 reviews)