Originally for DOS, starting with version Cakewalk 1.0 in 1987,[1] and, beginning in 1991, for Windows 3.0.

The latter was a lite version limited to 25 tracks and 1 MIDI output port.

The Express version was sometimes bundled with hardware such as a sound card.

The last version of the product featured a piano roll editor, support for limited music notation and a built-in scripting language called CAL (Cakewalk Application Language).

Cakewalk had piano roll and CAL support since the Windows 16-bit Version 3.01.