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A word on VST2 vs VST3
by David Brennan (Software Developer) September 07, 2025
There's some confusion on VST2 and VST3 sometimes.
VST2 and VST3 (and other formats) have nothing to do with what goes on inside the plugin audio processing itself, it's just the way of communication between the host and the plugin.
Is VST3 better than VST2? No. In our case VST is just the kind of connecting a plugin to a host. Is VST3 more stable than VST2? No. If a plugin is stable or not depends on what's going on in the plugin. A VST3 plugin could cause 99% cpu usage and complete breakdown as well as a VST2 plugin could do. And a VST2 plugin could be very stable by low cpu usage as well.
Since Carl Steinberg invented VST a lot of water runs down the river. Other protocols are been defined. Why VST3? Well, in my eyes it's all about license reasons and marketing of course. In the early days the SDK was free to download, later you had to sign a contract even VST was free and open source. VST2 is almost 30 years old and VST3 is much more complex but not the Guardian of the Grail.
All our plugins are VST2 because it's stable and reliable and reinforced over the years. Don't measure a plugin if it's VST2 or VST3 - just checkout if and how it does it's work in your DAW.
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