Amp Simulator plugins

All-in-one guitar rack. 26 amps, deep effects chain, decades of refinement in one plugin.

• 26 amp models plus 115 effects and tools cover a huge range of tones without ever leaving the rack view, useful for anyone who wants one plugin to handle amps and pedals both
• The Matched Cabinet Pro library pulls in impulse responses from several well-regarded IR specialists (3 Sigma Audio, Bogren Digital, Lancaster Audio, Eminence), so cabinet options extend well past what ships in the box
• A modular rack interface lets you reorder amps, cabs, and effects freely, handy for signal-chain experiments a fixed-order amp sim won't allow

• At $199 it's priced like a flagship, and with 26 amps plus 115 effects, a lot of that depth goes untouched if you only ever reach for two or three tones
• Windows loses AU entirely and VST2 support is dropped on both platforms, worth checking your host's format support before buying

Deep multi-amp rig builder. 35 amps, VIR cabinet tech, a stomp-to-rack signal chain.

• 35 amp models plus 46 pedal and rack effects cover a very wide stylistic range from one plugin, clean to high-gain and everything between
• The same Volumetric Impulse Response cabinet tech as IK's newer capture products carries over here, giving mic-position-aware cab tone-shaping instead of a flat IR
• A drag-and-drop rack lets you build a full amp-plus-pedalboard signal chain visually, useful for anyone who thinks in terms of a physical rig

• At $199.99 for the tier with the full 35-amp library, it's priced closely to other flagship all-in-one rigs, and a lot of that library goes unused if you only need one or two amp voicings
• IK's tiered editions (CS, Special Edition, Standard, MAX) all share the AmpliTube name, so it's worth confirming exactly which amp count and price you're looking at before buying

AI-driven amp and effects platform. Text-to-Tone generation alongside 33 traditional amp models.

• Text to Tone and Music to Tone let you describe a sound in plain language or hand it an audio reference and get a starting tone back, a genuinely different workflow from dialing in knobs by hand
• 33 amp models spanning clean, crunch, and high-gain plus 63 effects give a wide toolkit even before touching the AI features
• It's the actively developed, current-generation version of Positive Grid's flagship amp platform, not a legacy product left on old pricing and old amp counts

• The AI tone-generation features need an internet connection to work, a real limitation for anyone tracking offline or on an unreliable connection
• No documented custom impulse response loading in the current spec sheet, worth checking directly if loading your own cabinet captures matters to you

Free, open-source amp capture player. Deep-learning models, no built-in amps of its own.

• It's completely free and open-source, a real deep-learning amp modeler with no license fee or subscription attached
• A large free community library of captured amp and pedal tones means there's already a wide range of tones to try before capturing anything yourself
• Its modeling approach has been licensed into hardware and plugins from other manufacturers (Darkglass, Two Notes, Hotone among them), a sign the underlying technology holds up outside its own plugin

• It ships with no amp models of its own, only the capture engine, so getting a usable tone means downloading or making captures first rather than dialing in a preset amp
• No AAX support, so users on Pro Tools are left out entirely

AI-capture amp and pedal modeler. 400+ tone models plus your own captures, mix-and-match cab IRs.

• 400+ Premium tone models ship in the box, and ToneNET's 65,000+ community-captured models mean the library keeps growing well past what you paid for
• VIR (Volumetric Impulse Response) captures a cabinet's mic position and distance, not just a flat IR, giving cab tone-shaping most impulse loaders don't offer
• 12 built-in effects pedals cover compression, modulation, and reverb, so a captured amp tone doesn't need a second plugin just to get to a finished sound

• Its core trick is capturing tones from real amps rather than modeling circuits from scratch, so a tone you want has to already exist as a capture (yours or someone else's) rather than being dialed in from amp-specific controls
• At $199.99 for the tier with the full 400+ model library, the cheaper Special Edition and CS tiers cut that library down substantially, worth checking which tier you're actually buying

Line 6's flagship modeling engine as a plugin. 60+ amps, preset-compatible with Helix hardware.

• Presets carry over directly from the entire Helix hardware family (Floor, Rack, LT), useful if you already own Helix hardware and want the same tones in the box
• 60+ amp models and 30+ cabinets plus 100+ effects give serious range for building complex signal chains without leaving one plugin
• iLok-based licensing means your license isn't tied to activating and deactivating on individual machines the way some simpler dongle-free schemes can be

• At $399 it's the most expensive plugin in this list, a serious investment if you're not also buying into the Helix hardware ecosystem
• iLok copy protection means an iLok dongle or iLok Cloud account is effectively required, an extra step and potential point of failure some engineers would rather avoid

Vintage American and British-style amp pack. Four amps, IR-captured cabs, a compact stomp rack.

• Four amp models cover a genuine vintage American/British spread (Pacific Dual Tremolo in two colorways, a Custom 100W, and a 30W Top Boost), each aimed at a distinct classic tone rather than overlapping voicings
• Cabinet IRs are captured with moveable microphones and the suite ships 8 IR Producer Packs, giving real mic-position variety beyond a single fixed capture per cab
• 11 stompboxes plus 12 additional effects and utilities round out a full signal chain without needing a separate pedal plugin

• Four amp models is a narrow field if you need a wider stylistic range, this suite is built around vintage clean-to-breakup tones specifically, not high-gain or modern voicings
• It's one Suite in a larger Amp Room lineup (Bass, Metal, ENGL Savage, Marshall are sold separately), so covering more ground means buying additional Suites individually

One-knob single-amp plugin. A Treadplate-style high-gain voicing, tightened by a built-in pedal.

• At $49 it's one of the more affordable ways to get a genuinely high-gain, modern metal-leaning amp tone without buying a full multi-amp suite
• A tightening pedal is permanently built into the signal chain by design, addressing this specific amp voicing's natural looseness rather than leaving it to a separate plugin
• The standalone app bundles a recorder, metronome, and tuner, small conveniences for quick practice or tracking sessions outside a DAW

• It models a single amp circuit, so anyone who needs a range of amp voicings will need to pair it with (or choose instead) a multi-amp plugin
• No documented VST2 support, VST3/AU/AAX only, worth checking if your host or older projects still depend on VST2

Boutique-voiced amp sim. Five hand-picked amps, convolution cabs, kept deliberately small.

• Five amp models, each modeled after a specific boutique or vintage-style circuit, means every option is a deliberate, distinct voicing rather than a filler preset
• Convolution-based cabinet emulation is built in by default, so a usable cab tone doesn't require sourcing or loading outside impulse responses
• A compact effects rack (DelayThing, ModThing, RoomThing) covers delay, modulation, and reverb without turning the interface into a sprawling multi-page rig

• Five amp models is a narrow field next to larger multi-amp suites, so a specific tone outside those five voicings isn't available here
• No documented custom impulse response loading, so you're limited to the convolution cabs it ships with rather than your own captures

Deep modular rig builder. 93 amp models, Fluid IR cabinet tech, mic-position modeling.

• 93 amp models (89 guitar, 4 bass) plus 86 pedal and rack effects and 18 microphone models cover an unusually wide range of gear from one plugin
• Fluid IR technology recalculates cabinet response as you move a virtual mic, closer to adjusting a real mic in a room than picking from a fixed IR list
• Over 42,000 Fluid IRs are available in the library, a genuinely large cabinet-and-mic combination pool to draw from

• At $269 for the Premium tier, it's a serious investment, and cheaper starter tiers cut the amp and effects count down substantially
• With 93 amps and 86 effects to sort through, dialing in a specific tone takes longer than a simpler, smaller-library amp sim