Sound Forge Pro vs iZotope RX

Sound Forge Pro and iZotope RX are not really competitors. Sound Forge Pro is an audio editor that includes restoration tools. iZotope RX is a restoration suite that most people use as a plugin inside an audio editor — including Sound Forge Pro. The question isn't which one to buy instead of the other. It's whether the restoration tools already in Sound Forge Pro are enough for your work, or whether you need what RX adds on top.

Quick answer: Sound Forge Pro handles routine restoration — noise reduction, click removal, clipping repair — without any additional software. For spectral editing, dialogue isolation, music rebalancing, and complex per-frequency repair, you need RX Standard or Advanced. RX Elements is already bundled with Sound Forge Pro and covers the basics.

Comparison Table

Below is how the two tools stack up across the restoration tasks I encounter most regularly. RX Elements is the version bundled with Sound Forge Pro — no separate purchase.

What Sound Forge Pro Does That RX Doesn't

Sound Forge Pro is a full audio editor. The full feature list runs long — it records, edits at the sample level, normalizes, processes through effects chains, burns CDs, handles batch conversion, runs scripts, and exports to any format. It's the environment where the work happens. RX doesn't record. RX doesn't edit in the conventional sense — it can't splice, fade, or arrange audio. It repairs audio. Those are different jobs.

The restoration tools built into SF Pro cover what most music producers and voice-over engineers actually encounter: NR-2.0 for broadband noise removal using a noise print (detailed in the noise reduction guide), DeClicker and DeCrackler for vinyl and recording artifacts (covered in the click removal guide), DeClipper for overdriven recordings, and DeHisser for mic and preamp hiss. These tools are destructive by default, fast to apply, and integrated directly into the workflow without switching applications or loading plugins. I use them on at least 60% of files without reaching for anything else.

For mastering and final delivery, SF Pro's full signal chain — covered in the mastering guide — EQ, compression, normalization, dithering, export — runs on the cleaned audio in the same session. RX has no equivalent of this. It doesn't master. It restores. Getting audio from RX to a deliverable still requires an audio editor, which is why most RX users load it as a plugin inside WaveLab, Cubase, Pro Tools, or Sound Forge rather than running it standalone as a primary tool.

What RX Does That Sound Forge Pro Doesn't

The gap opens at spectral editing. Sound Forge Pro has no spectrogram editing interface — no way to select a specific frequency range at a specific time and repair just that region. iZotope RX Standard's Spectral Repair module does exactly this. Select a region in the spectrogram, click interpolate, and RX synthesizes replacement audio based on the surrounding frequencies. This is how you remove a specific sustained noise — a distant car alarm, a phone ringing in the background, a 60 Hz hum with harmonics — without touching the rest of the signal.

The Spectral Editor in RX Standard goes further: it works as an ARA plugin in Studio One and Logic (Rosetta mode), letting you draw selections directly on the spectrogram and process them without leaving your DAW. Pro Tools ARA support was in progress at time of writing — check the current compatibility list before assuming it’s available. Sound Forge Pro Suite includes SpectraLayers Pro, which has similar spectral editing capability — but that's an upgrade over the base SF Pro.

Dialogue Isolate in RX Standard separates voice from background noise using machine learning. It works on recordings where the noise doesn't have a clean noise print — crowd noise, reverberant rooms, ambience with complex frequency content. NR-2.0 in Sound Forge Pro doesn't do this. It needs a clean noise sample. On recordings where the background noise runs throughout (no quiet section to sample), NR-2.0 struggles and Dialogue Isolate handles it cleanly.

Mouth De-click in RX Standard targets the specific transient profile of lip smacks and mouth noise in voice recordings. Sound Forge Pro's DeClicker runs on any transient above a sensitivity threshold — it doesn't distinguish between a lip smack and a consonant. For voice-over work with heavy mouth noise, Mouth De-click is noticeably more precise. I ran the same VO file through SF Pro's DeClicker at sensitivity 5 and through RX Mouth De-click at the default setting. RX removed the lip smacks without touching the consonants. SF Pro removed the lip smacks and slightly softened five hard consonants across a 20-minute session.

RX Elements: What You Already Have in Sound Forge Pro

Sound Forge Pro 18 bundles RX Elements (currently RX 10 or 11 Elements depending on version). This matters because it closes some of the gap without any additional purchase. RX Elements includes De-click, De-clip, Voice De-noise, De-hum, De-reverb, and Music Rebalance as VST3 plugins, accessible through the Plug-In Chainer or FX Favorites in Sound Forge.

RX Elements doesn't include the standalone RX Audio Editor, Spectral Repair, Dialogue Isolate, Mouth De-click, or Repair Assistant. It's the restoration toolkit without the spectral workstation. For the majority of restoration work on music recordings and voice-overs, Elements plus the native SF Pro tools covers everything. A magix.info moderator summed it up clearly in a 2024 thread: the NR-2.0 and RX Elements combination handles routine noise reduction, clicks, pops, and clipped peaks for most use cases without needing Standard.

When I get a file that Elements and NR-2.0 can't handle cleanly — usually complex ambience under dialogue, or a lip smack pattern on a long voice session — that's the decision point for upgrading to RX Standard.

Price and the Upgrade Decision

Sound Forge Pro runs $299.95 as a perpetual license or $24.95/month on subscription (Boris FX pricing as of April 2026). RX Elements comes bundled. That's the baseline cost.

RX 11 Standard lists at around $279–$418 depending on the retailer — the RX editions comparison page shows what each tier includes — but iZotope runs significant sales several times a year — $199 to $225 is a reliable sale price. Upgrade pricing from RX Elements is lower still. RX 11 Advanced lists above $1,000 and is aimed at professional post-production facilities doing feature film dialogue work.

I held off on RX Standard for about two years after getting SF Pro — the bundled Elements and NR-2.0 handled everything I threw at them until I took on a corporate video project with three hours of location-recorded dialogue from a reverberant conference room. Dialogue Isolate cleaned it in an afternoon. NR-2.0 had spent a week making it worse.

The practical upgrade path for most Sound Forge Pro users: start with the bundled RX Elements and the native restoration tools. Add RX Standard when you start encountering recordings that need spectral repair or Dialogue Isolate — not before. The jump from Elements to Standard is worth making on one sale cycle if you work regularly with voice-over, podcast, or location-recorded dialogue. For music production and vinyl restoration, the native SF Pro tools plus RX Elements usually get the job done without Standard.

Using RX as a Plugin Inside Sound Forge Pro

RX Standard and Advanced install as VST3 plugins that load inside Sound Forge Pro through the Plug-In Chainer or FX Favorites. This is the most common workflow: use Sound Forge for editing and session management, call RX modules for the restoration passes that need them, apply destructively, continue in SF Pro.

My usual session setup: SF Pro open with the file, RX modules loaded in FX Favorites for quick access. I call Mouth De-click or Spectral De-noise as needed, apply destructively, and continue editing in SF Pro. For anything requiring spectral repair — drawing selections in the spectrogram — I export the section to RX standalone, repair it, and import back. Switching contexts takes about 30 seconds and is worth it for the spectral editing interface.

The integration has been inconsistent across versions. The magix.info forum has a documented pattern of RX breaking with SF Pro version updates — RX 10 worked in SF Pro 16 but had crashes and rendering failures in SF Pro 17, requiring a VST plugin rescan and preferences reset. Boris FX's SF Pro 18 with RX 10/11 Elements has been more stable, but if you're running older RX versions, check compatibility before upgrading either application.

For heavy restoration passes — long files with complex spectral repair work — launching RX as a standalone application and transferring files between it and Sound Forge is often faster than loading it as a plugin. The plugin workflow introduces a render step that can be slow on RX's more CPU-intensive modules like De-reverb and Dialogue Isolate on files above 20 minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Sound Forge Pro include iZotope RX?

Sound Forge Pro 18 bundles iZotope RX Elements, which includes De-click, De-clip, Voice De-noise, De-hum, De-reverb, and Music Rebalance as plugins. It doesn't include the standalone RX Audio Editor or the spectral editing modules (Spectral Repair, Dialogue Isolate, Mouth De-click) that come with RX Standard. Sound Forge Pro Suite adds SpectraLayers Pro, which has spectral editing capabilities comparable to parts of RX Standard.

Is iZotope RX better than Sound Forge Pro for noise reduction?

For broadband noise with a clean noise profile, Sound Forge Pro's NR-2.0 produces comparable results to RX Standard's Spectral De-noise. For complex ambience with no clean noise sample, noisy dialogue recordings, or situations requiring per-frequency manual editing in a spectrogram, RX Standard is better. The bundled RX Elements handles most routine cases. The native SF Pro tools plus RX Elements covers most music production and voice-over work without upgrading to RX Standard.

Can I use iZotope RX inside Sound Forge Pro?

Yes — RX Standard and Advanced install as VST3 plugins that load in Sound Forge Pro's Plug-In Chainer or FX Favorites. RX Elements plugins are available the same way. Compatibility can be inconsistent across version updates — if plugins stop appearing after an SF Pro update, go to Options → Preferences → VST Effects → Refresh, then reset the plugin cache. RX 10 had known issues in SF Pro 17 that required this fix.

What does iZotope RX Standard have that Sound Forge Pro doesn't?

Spectral Repair (select and interpolate specific frequencies in a spectrogram), Dialogue Isolate (AI-based voice separation from complex background noise), Mouth De-click (specifically targets lip smacks and breath noise in voice recordings), Repair Assistant (automated problem detection and correction), and the standalone RX Audio Editor. Sound Forge Pro has no spectrogram editing interface in the base version — that's the main gap RX Standard fills.

Should I buy iZotope RX if I already have Sound Forge Pro?

Start with the bundled RX Elements and the native NR-2.0, DeClicker, and DeClipper tools. If you encounter dialogue recordings with complex background noise that needs Dialogue Isolate, or voice sessions with heavy mouth noise that needs Mouth De-click, or any work requiring manual spectral repair — that's the trigger to add RX Standard. Wait for a sale: iZotope discounts RX Standard to $199–$225 several times a year, and upgrade pricing from Elements is lower. Don't buy RX Advanced unless post-production feature film dialogue is a regular part of your work.

Is Sound Forge Pro Windows only compared to iZotope RX?

Yes — Sound Forge Pro is Windows-only as of the Boris FX release. Mac support was discontinued. iZotope RX runs on both Windows and Mac. If you're on Mac, RX is the restoration tool you'd pair with a Mac-compatible editor like Logic Pro, WaveLab, or Pro Tools rather than Sound Forge Pro.