Relative newbie here. Until recently I'd only set foot in a studio two times, I think. And neither was behind the controls. I did some recording years ago with a 4 track cassette machine.
I downloaded Cakewalk due to name recognition and already having a Bandlab account. I also downloaded Reaper, as it seemed pretty highly regarded for those of us not looking to shell out hundreds on a DAW for home recording.
For some reason, Reaper's interface just didn't feel like I could get started right away. Like I'd have to poke around to figure it out. Cakewalk felt a little more natural to me.
I'm sure Reaper is a fine piece of software. But its interface felt like too much of a hurdle to jump in with. With Cakewalk it felt kind of similar to working on that old 4 track, just expanded. I could probably get Reaper to look similar but I'm not looking to design the software, just to use it.