I've dabbled with the various incarnations over the years (Cakewalk, then Sonar, now Bandlab). It is legit. These all have a high learning curve, so the risk is in time lost learning the wrong tool.

As the article says at the end, there are quite a few to choose from, some, I think, are free. I did a little shopping a year ago and saw several of the programs/apps on the list but I gave up since I felt overwhelmed and then life issues truncated my project.

Last month I bought a copy of DigitalPro11 (along with a laptop that I got yesterday) and a Yamaha digital arranger/piano, a mixer, mic and headphones.

After consulting a few musicians who do their own recording and a sound engineer whom I jam around with, I decided to take their advice and go for it. The recording engineer and I sat down and designed that set up for my needs. All the consults ended with a recommendation to call and shop at Sweetwater, a music everything shop with excellent customer service.

I did, I'm happy with everything so far. The thing about the software is what you intend to do with it, especially interfacing with other musicians' systems if you do collaborations. I got the program I did because I interact with the recording engineer most and he has that program, I have seen and used it for a few months so I have familiarity with that program and will be file sharing with my friend in time. That I can produce components of songs on my own with the arranger and manipulate it in the software is totally what I need to inform my collaborators about the whole concept of the song.

Don't know if that helps but I just dove in and am figuring out how to swim in that corner of the music world, it's a little daunting.

I'm not sure I'm the target for such software.
First, I've never collaborated on songwriting. Once I have what I conside4 a good lyrics idea, the song sort of forms in my head. I don't think that approach lends itself to collaboration.
Now, I've completed demos then provided them to the band looking for input on arrangement thoughts and adjustments to suit others' style of playing.
[One example: I had a song we did for years called "Twist My Words". After the second verse there's a rhythm break followed by a guitar solo. I told the guitar player "Do what you want there, but notice it's got a weird feel. Keep it weird." He said "I can do weird."]
But, I glommed onto your post because you mentioned Sweetwater. Those guys are amazing! Back in July, I ordered a 12 string set. One pack of strings!
The next day, Dave Klausner called to tell me they shipped. Dave is the VP of sales!
The VP of sales called over a $15 pack of strings.

their VP of sales called to let you know a pack of strings had shipped. Have you made a large purchase from them before, or did he know about your background as a professional musician?

No big items from them ever. A wah pedal a couple years back. And, their tech folks helped me out by suggesting a VidBox converter so i could master my recording to WMV when the Behringer converter i wanted was on interminable backorder. And they don't even sell Vidbox. I bought it from BestBuy. But, Sweetwater rec'd it and canceled my order when, after 3 months, they still had no potential ship date.
That's some serious customer service, there.

turning up is the Quail Digital Pro 11 headset for healthcare, which is obviously not what you meant.

I looked at some of these programs months ago, too, and couldn't decide. HookPad was one I was considering buying. GarageBand sounded good when I first read about it, but it's only for Apple devices.

Sorry, it's Digital Performer 11.

I looked up my list. From what I gathered, you just pick one and run with it. I looked at GarageBand also but couldn't get any customer service from anyone about it and not being a fan of Apple, I waited until I had someone to consult, someone I knew.

I got together with the sound engineer and we put the list together, then I called his sales rep at Sweetwater and talked over the list and whether it was a workable system. Turns out it was, he had a tip or two but the rest was what my friend and I came up with. I spent a little over $2500 for the whole set up. Free shipping. For me, the big deal is the piano/arranger that makes up for my lack of playing abilities.

I expect to spend some time getting acquainted with it all, winter is here and I'm ready for indoor stuff now.

Or Digital Performer 11 from MOTU?

I had the name wrong, nothing new for me.

GarageBand will suffice for getting ideas up and running but Logic offers SO much more.

After that I would choose Ableton Live, which is more loop-based but still offers good MIDI writing tools.

With a copy of any of those three and a modest MIDI keyboard you are only limited by your imagination.

It has a lot of my favorite aspects of different DAWs and is fairly inexpensive. Also available for PCs.