Current Waveform 9 user. Should I be using Free version instead?

[iotaprime]

Happy with Waveform 9 since 2018 - except for plugin support.

[pough]

How should we know what you want? You can have both installed and since the free version is free, why not? Just remember to keep you projects separate. Once an edit is save with 12, you can't open it with 9. If you want to see what 12 can do with an edit made in 9, make a copy first.

[Watchful]

Unless you have a compelling reason to change, don't change.

For me, Waveform hit its peak with 11.5. I've been quite disappointed with v12. Again, unless there's some feature you absolutely must have, don't go to 12. On the other hand, v9 worked really well, too. I do think 11.5 is a ton more stable and faster, though, than v9.

As for plugin support, that's a trick question. Waveform (all versions) expects 100% compliance to VST-publishing rules; as a result, nearly all of the plugin support issues that "plague" Waveform really originate with the plugin originators, not Tracktion. The biggest exception to this, by far, is the window sizing--and that's a bug in JUCE, on which Waveform is based, and out of their control...and has been this way for many years.

So in short, don't expect plugins to work any better in a higher version of Waveform; there's a chance they could function worse. I have some that worked in v11, but no longer do in v12. Not a big issue for me, but I imagine that could be disastrous for many people.