Why would anyone use JACK instead of ALSA

[optonox]

Hi,

I am using the Bitwig Studio DAW. It supports options for Pulseaudio, ALSA and JACK. It seems like JACK is preferred by most people.

However, after reading this article https://www.learndigitalaudio.com/how-l ... audio-2017 it makes it look like, on Linux, JACK sits on top of ALSA.



So my question is:
Why not just use their ALSA driver directly and assumedly skip the overhead of using JACK? If there is little or no latency *still* why would I use JACK?

[tramp]

because ALSA use exclusive access to the sound-card, means, only one client at time could use it.
So, if you would use multiple applications to interact together, you need a layer around ALSA. That is what pulseaudio does for desktop usage, and jack, does it for more professional audio use.
If you just use a single, monolithic DAW, were you only use plugins inside the DAW, you ain't need jack, but could go with ALSA.
But as soon you'll add a other application were you would route your sound to and back, you'll need jack.
In Linux, those monolithic DAW's comming up just recently with the wider use of LV2 plugins. Before that, you've usually used multiple applications and wired them together with jack.

[optonox]

Thank you very much for your response. This confirmed my suspicions.