Kontakt Full vs. Kontakt Player

What is the difference between Kontakt Full and Kontakt Player?

The short answer to this question is that Kontakt Full will allow you to use any Kontakt instrument and also allows you to build and edit your own instruments. The free Kontakt Player will only open specially-encoded instruments. Kontakt Player is free, while Kontakt Full will cost you some money (there are cross-grade options).

The other notable difference is that non-player libraries (libraries that have not been encoded for Kontakt Player) will not appear in the Libraries tab of the Kontakt browser. You need to load them through one of several other methods.

All Authentic Soundware sample libraries require the full version of Kontakt. So, if you'd like to use one of our libraries, you'll need to get yourself a full retail copy of Kontakt. Lots of other developers have the same requirement, so owning the full version of Kontakt can open the door to a wide variety of options.

Here's how you can tell them apart: