Rekordbox vs Serato vs Traktor (and VirtualDJ, djay Pro): what each DJ program says it is

The five do not sell the same way, and that is the first real difference. Two of them sell a subscription with a buy-out option, one sells a single payment, one is free at home and paid at gigs, and one runs on plans that change what the cloud does. Prices age; the date at the top is when these were read, and the vendor's page wins over this one.

Two details the table cannot carry. Rekordbox's plan page has a yearly/monthly switch and was read on yearly, so its per-month figures are what it calls the monthly conversion of an annual payment. And Serato's licence question depends on hardware: a controller that unlocks Serato DJ Pro is, in its own words, all the licence you need.

All five run on Windows and macOS, so the platform question is mostly about versions and about phones. djay Pro is the one whose maker also lists an iOS and an Android app; Traktor is the one whose stated Windows requirement starts at Windows 11.

Streaming is where the pages disagree most, and it is worth reading them literally. Serato's FAQ names Spotify; djay Pro's pages lead with Spotify and Apple Music; Rekordbox names four services "and other"; Traktor names two. Whether a service works in your country is, by Rekordbox's own note, a separate question.

Rekordbox is the right call if you play on Pioneer DJ and AlphaTheta equipment in clubs: it is the program that prepares the USB stick those players read, and its cloud tiers exist for exactly that library. It is also the one with a free plan that stays usable for managing music.

Serato is the right call if your controller unlocks it — then there is nothing to buy — or if you want to learn on a free program (Serato DJ Lite) that grows into the paid one without changing habits. Its own FAQ lists Spotify among its streaming services, which the others' pages do not.

Traktor is the right call if you want one payment and no subscription: the page shows a single price, and its FAQ is explicit that the subscription tier was cancelled. It is the one whose export format, NML, carries the most metadata fields, which matters for a tagged library.

VirtualDJ is the right call if you are mixing at home and do not want to pay anything yet: it is free for home use, with paid tiers that start at US$4 a month and a Pro tier priced for paid gigs. It is also the one that states minimum requirements going back to Windows 10 and macOS 10.15.

djay Pro is the right call if you play from a phone or tablet as well as a computer, or if Spotify and Apple Music inside the DJ app is the feature you are choosing on: its pages lead with both. Its price is not on its site, so compare it in the app store you use.

None of the five is a competitor of EnergyCurve, and this page is not going to pretend otherwise. They are the programs you play with; EnergyCurve reads what they export — Rekordbox XML, Traktor NML, an M3U8, a folder of tagged files — and tells you what the order of a set does across an hour, before you play it. It does not replace any of them, and it does not convert one library into another. Which program you choose changes which export you drop into it, and nothing else. The import formats page says what each one carries, and if the choice itself is the open question, choosing DJ software walks through it by what is free, what runs where and what streams.