Here's a different approach...

Since your service life is 10 years, get a professionally assembled hardware DAW. Select the latest generation processor and twice as much memory as you need. Divide the cost by 10 to get your annual cost. $200-300/year (less than $1/day) for your music hardware backbone is manageable for many music enthusiasts.

My studiocat.com DAW purchased in 2017 lasted 8 years, and was still going REALLY strong until Windows 10 end of life spooked me into upgrading to a Windows 11 DAW...


DC Ron
BiaB Audiophile
Presonus Studio One
StudioCat DAW dual screen
Presonus Faderport 16
Too many guitars (is that a thing?)