I actually had to Google search just to confirm it is not a coincidence. Unfortunately, I can't say much about other DAWs as Reaper was pretty much what my bud

I actually had to Google search just to confirm it is not a coincidence. Unfortunately, I can't say much about other DAWs as Reaper was pretty much what my budget allowed, and that was my first (and last) paid full featured DAW. There were not much free alternatives at the time. LMMS wasn't very stable, and hard to figure out (it might be better now). What I previously used was Synthfont (much cheaper freemium and more minimal and unlike common DAWs, but gets my job done) + Sekaiju opensource MIDI editor. My workflow was to use a scoring program (MuseScore), export the MIDI, tweak the MIDI in the DAW and use third party instruments/effects. But I remember that the Reaper downloads were less than 20MB. It didn't bundle with many VSTs or samples, but I preferred that as I felt other DAWs are bundling a lot of stuff that you probably won't need to justify higher prices. Especially since my main genre back then was orchestral music and most bundled sounds appear to be for dance music. Almost all sounds I used are third party VSTs and samples (I did use Reaper's reverb). I never noticed any lag on my 2008 Thinkpad or my 2013 MacBook Air. I'm not an active user now, since I spend more time coding (which may have killed my "right brain"...). Just to add. New versions often showcase cool useful features, hence made me say it is original (sorry this might sound subjective without trying other paid DAWs).