Originally designed through consensus on the Linux Audio Developers mailing list, it now works on a variety of platforms.

It is used in many free audio software projects, and there is a wide range of LADSPA plug-ins available.

LADSPA exists primarily as a header file written in the programming language C. There are many audio plugin standards and most major modern software synthesizers and sound editors support a variety.

LADSPA is unusual in that it attempts to provide only the "Greatest Common Divisor" of other standards.

This means that its scope is limited, but it is simple and plugins written using it are easy to embed in many other programs.