[richiebee]

Standalones are less likely to crash since the OS is built for the hardware, but they are a lot less flexible, and unless you get one that can be connected to a monitor, editing can be a bitch. The good ones are perfectly valid ways to create a professional product - the majority of my band's album was recorded on one, though it was mixed in a DAW (Nuendo), and we tracked some of the vocals and all the horns in ProTools.