Editing Advanced Audio Coding (section)

====FFmpeg and Libav====
{{See also|FAAC#Alternatives for AAC encoding in Unix-like operating systems}}

The native AAC encoder created in [[FFmpeg]]'s [[libavcodec]], and forked with [[Libav]], was considered experimental and poor. A significant amount of work was done for the 3.0 release of FFmpeg (February 2016) to make its version usable and competitive with the rest of the AAC encoders.<ref>{{cite web |title=December 5th, 2015, The native FFmpeg AAC encoder is now stable! |url=https://ffmpeg.org/index.html#aac_encoder_stable |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160716124052/http://ffmpeg.org/index.html#aac_encoder_stable |archive-date=16 July 2016 |access-date=26 June 2016 |website=ffmpeg.org}}</ref> Libav has not merged this work and continues to use the older version of the AAC encoder. These encoders are [[LGPL]]-licensed open-source and can be built for any platform that the FFmpeg or Libav frameworks can be built.

Both FFmpeg and Libav can use the [[Fraunhofer FDK AAC]] library via libfdk-aac, and while the FFmpeg native encoder has become stable and good enough for common use, FDK is still considered the highest quality encoder available for use with FFmpeg.<ref name="ffmpegdoc">{{cite web |title=FFmpeg AAC Encoding Guide |url=https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/AAC#fdk_aac |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160417000546/http://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/AAC#fdk_aac |archive-date=17 April 2016 |access-date=11 April 2016 |quote=Which encoder provides the best quality? ... the likely answer is: libfdk_aac}}</ref> Libav also recommends using FDK AAC if it is available.<ref>{{cite web |title=Libav Wiki - Encoding AAC |url=https://wiki.libav.org/Encoding/aac |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160420213129/https://wiki.libav.org/Encoding/aac |archive-date=2016-04-20 |access-date=11 April 2016}}</ref> FFmpeg 4.4 and above can also use the Apple audiotoolbox encoder.<ref name="ffmpegdoc" />

Although the native AAC encoder only produces AAC-LC, ffmpeg's native decoder is able to deal with a wide range of input formats.