ive been rocking Big Sur with relatively no problem with various software from here and other places, but there are things im missing out on and im considering doing the smallest os upgrade that will rock the boat the least as i dont want to break anything in my set up plugins wise. Now i know as time goes on that becomes less than likely etc but i want to know how many things you think would break if i was to go to OS Ventura. Its predominately for later versions of Kontakt 7 Kontakt 8 as support on Big Sur stopped. Now i know most of the stuff i use are fine as is but i'm starting to miss out on some cool new libraries. Any one have experience? Also is there a way to see which plugins would require work and attention after upgrade etc?

 

None of them would break probably, I started on Monterey and was day 1 on everything up to Sonoma, had no issues with any of the plugins I use, at this point in time most developed plugins shouldn't have any issues on Ventura either.

 

did you have to find new versions of some of the vst's and au's? like older ones for example? or did everything just continue fine after a scan?

 

What Mac do you have? I would tend to agree with @Melodic Reality's post, and the hobbyist producer would just go right ahead with it and just do a backup first in Time Machine if you want to play it safe. But some of these "in-between" versions of MacOS can have some quirks you might not be able to just assume will work. So I asked AI to avoid lots of typing

Spoiler

Here’s the honest reality for that situation.

Going from Big Sur to Ventura is not a “small nudge,” it’s a real compatibility jump. Not catastrophic, but definitely enough that you need to treat it like a controlled system change, not a casual update.

Kontakt 7/8 is actually a good reason to move. Native Instruments tends to anchor newer libraries and updates to newer macOS versions, so that part of your motivation is solid.

What typically breaks or needs attention going Big Sur → Ventura:

Older plugins with no recent updates (especially anything 32-bit legacy or abandoned devs). Even some early Intel-era VST/AU builds can start misbehaving.

Copy protection systems. iLok stuff is usually fine, but older auth wrappers or offline license managers sometimes need reactivation.

Installers and plugin managers. Some older NI or third-party installers don’t behave properly on newer macOS permission systems.

DAW rescans. Logic itself is fine, but you’ll almost certainly get a full AU validation pass and possibly a few plugins quarantined on first launch.

What usually survives unchanged:

Modern plugin suites that are still actively maintained (FabFilter, Soundtoys, UAD, Waves current versions, etc.).

Anything already running cleanly on Apple Silicon or updated Intel builds from the last few years.

How to check what will break before you upgrade:

There isn’t a perfect “predictive scanner,” but you can get close:

Run a full plugin inventory using a tool that lists AU/VST versions and last modified dates. Anything not updated since ~2020 is a candidate for trouble.

Check each developer’s official “macOS Ventura compatibility” page. This is boring but it’s the only reliable source.

Look at your AU validation logs in Logic (Audio Units Manager / crash logs). Anything already borderline on Big Sur is likely to fail first on Ventura.

Do a staged approach if you’re serious about minimizing risk:

Clone your system drive or install Ventura on an external SSD first. Boot from it and run Logic there. That gives you a real-world test without touching your working setup.

Bluntly: Ventura is a reasonable upgrade target for your goal (Kontakt 7/8 access), but it’s not “safe by default.” It’s safe only if you assume you’ll spend a day or two fixing plugin edge cases afterward.

If you want, I can map a “lowest-risk macOS jump path” based on what DAW + plugin ecosystem they’re running.

I've been doing this same kind of migration, but from my Mac Pro 5,1 on Catalina to new ARM Mac on Tahoe. If you do decide to switch, ask for more specific issues or fixes and workarounds before you jump back to the backup image. My main concern would be if Kontakt is going to be loading session correct if you do update, and. I would check to see what is going to happen with your old projects. Wether that means new version of Kontakt will be ignored by Logic, in which case it will say you are missing plugins from that project file. That would be my biggest concern if I was in your boat, but I cannot say as I am not a very heavy Kontakt user.

 

Last edited: May 23, 2026 at 7:42 PM

When I moved to macOS from Windows/Linux, every developer updated plugins to work on M1, so I was at home immediately, over this time I didn't encountered any issues with those same plugins, they would just work on next macOS without issues and they kept updating them. But again, I have really minimalist setup and my experience should be taken with grain of salt, I don't use AU's either, don't rely heavily on warez and "legacy" plugins, use handful of legit iLok ones, don't use Native Instruments or Kontakt, so yeah, take this with grain of salt.

 

Congrats on new machine, hope you will have least issues and amazing time using it.

 

Absolutely congratulations on the new machine!

(obvious still love for the 5,1's... but jeebus, just the electricity bill alone almost justifies the price... ;) )

 

It's always like this anyway. We've all learned the hard way about when something breaks, the original "do it and find out" later somehow morphs into a guarantee, even if it was really more like “this usually works in most setups.” " You told me everything would be ok and it's not! Now YOU fix it!"

For the Intel->ARM move, it's quite a lot to do, but my mindset is if something doesn't work, I'll find something else to do the same thing before I resort to installing anything that is not ARM, because I hope to strip all the Intel binary slices in one fell swoop. But with Kontakt, if you are a heavy user; there is no such easy fix, and when people "keep trying" to open more old projects with "plugin missing" error. Then you're potentially screwed.

 

oh okay thats good to know, i mean i would want to go further than ventura but i feel like because im concerned about different plugins *no longer* functioning im just weighing that you know so the thing i know i would benifit from off the bat is a later kontakt, cause everything else is still working technically

 

i don't know if this changes things in your assessment for me (and i appreciate your thourough path so far) im still running intel so im not even on the m1 series, its just that at the time (2021) it was a very powerful macbook i9 2.4 ghz 8 core 64 gb ram 2 tb ssd. and yes any additional help i would appreciate, im primarily using ableton live for context but i use many au as well. interestingly enough i installed logic and there were some au's that were breaking logic and i erased those so at least i know right now there is none that is inherently giving a red flag if you get what i mean.

 

Seems like Ventura is sweet spot for Intel based machines, but still you will be just one version behind minimum requirements for latest Kontakt and Logic, it's one of those things, doubt you will lose single plugin, but your resources will probably get taxed little more, maybe thing hitting your fans less often will make more sense than last Kontakt/Logic. As clone said, do a backup, then give a shot to both, guess it's the only way to find out.

 

yeah maybe ill try a backup if i can. So the next upgrade would be Sonoma. So based on my specs the more i upgrade the more taxing it would be on my setup? (i mean yes i know thats generally true lol but everything is degrees) funny enough im already having some issues with big sur that i thought maybe one os upgrade could fix. Having Kontakt 8 and later 7 would be enough but what kind of extra taxing am i looking at?

 

Personally noticed my laptop being hot from time to time with trivial tasks, it's nothing really one would even care with M1 Air, but suddenly my most demanding projects which were being on the limit of this machine started consuming swap and higher memory pressure, OS didn't felt as snappy as before, battery life dropped and since I had no actual reason to be on Sonoma, rolled back to Monterey. (this was the time when Sequoia got released and I realized stuff are going to get even more AI and heavier from that point)

If you Google difference in CPU handling between Ventura and Sonoma (which I did prior the writing of my earlier post), you will get answer like this, gonna post it here, guess it's one of the things to consider at least

Spoiler: Google answer

macOS Ventura and Sonoma handle multi-core Intel CPUs similarly at the base level (using standard multithreading and Grand Central Dispatch), but Sonoma requires more background resources. Because Sonoma is tailored for Apple's unified memory and Neural Engine, multi-core Intel Macs often experience higher temperatures, fan noise, and sluggishness

Multi-Core CPU Allocation Differences
Both operating systems take advantage of the multiple physical and virtual cores in Intel processors using Apple’s Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) to distribute background daemons, user apps, and window rendering. However, the architectural load differs: [1]

1. Metal 3 and Graphics Hand-offs

• Ventura: First introduced Apple's Metal 3, offloading a large portion of rendering to compatible discrete graphics and freeing up general-purpose CPU cores.
• Sonoma: Further integrates these graphical operations, which heavily taxes older Intel integrated or legacy AMD GPUs. If the GPU can't keep up, the OS forces the multi-core CPU to compensate, leading to bottlenecks. [1, 2, 3]

2. Apple Silicon Optimizations

• Ventura: Still retains a high degree of core optimization for x86 Intel architecture.
• Sonoma: Heavily optimized for Apple Silicon (M-series) unified memory and Neural Engine processes. As a result, certain background tasks are less efficient on Intel multi-core setups, causing spikes in multi-core usage for basic UI elements (like dynamic wallpapers or widgets). [1, 2]

3. Thermal and Power Throttling

• Because Sonoma demands more from the CPU for the same tasks, Intel multi-core MacBooks and iMacs will reach thermal limits faster.
• Many users on community forums and discussion boards note that an Intel Mac running Sonoma will spin its fans up much more frequently than when running Ventura. [1, 2]

Real-World Performance
While multi-core benchmark tests (like Geekbench 6) report similar raw processing scores between Ventura and Sonoma, the experience is different in practice: [1]

• Ventura is widely regarded as the more stable and cooler-running OS for native Intel Macs.
• Sonoma often feels noticeably more resource-heavy, and is only recommended for Intel Macs with 16GB of RAM or more, as well as an upgraded SSD. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

 

thats my first time seeing that spoiler feature show up lol, that was brilliant. And to be honest my macbooks fan is already whizzing soo much that upgrading to sonoma just to use a few more plugins to have my computer buckle under pressure like Bowie & Queen is probably not worth it. And from that document it sounds like Ventura would at least not do that since it was designed with intel in mind vs Sonoma entering M1 territory

 

Hahahha yeah, it's safer choice for sure.

Among people, limited stuff I saw on Reddit and etc, seems like Monterey and Ventura are fan favorites, Monterey feels totally like Snow Leopard, no frills just polished version of prior one, Ventura is step up, but difference in actual resource consumption between both is negligible, while Ventura offers little more. Sonoma seems like it's designed to be OS where you think you need to upgrade your machine again, same stuff they do with iPhones, which I had pleasure of experiencing over the years until I learned my lesson and stopped updating.

 

Last edited: May 24, 2026 at 5:44 AM