Native Instruments Komplete 15 is still the essential mega bundleKomplete 15 Select – £89 / $99 / €99
Komplete 15 Standard – £539 / $599 / €599
Komplete 15 Ultimate – £1,079 / $1,199 / €1,199
Komplete 15 Collector’s – £1,619 / $1,799 / €1,799
Upgrade pricing also available, native-instruments.com
For a generation of music makers, Native Instruments’ Komplete has reigned as the heavyweight champion of plugin bundles. Over that time the library has grown from a meagre 9 products to a sprawling 140 instruments, with almost 170,000 sounds on offer and a terabyte of disk space required.
Few products can claim to be the best, and fewer still can hold onto that title – but after 22 years on top, Komplete 15 still comes out swinging.

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As with previous iterations, Komplete is offered in a number of different pricing tiers, starting with the often-overlooked Komplete Select.
This entry-level collection, Komplete 15 Select, has now been split into three curated packages: Beats, Band, and Electronic. As the names imply, these are focused libraries that accommodate specific genre-based workflows. Overall, each option comes with less stuff than in the previous iteration of Select, but NI has also dropped the price from £179 to £89 — a welcome development for those looking to get a toe-hold in the Native Instruments ecosystem.
By comparison, Standard, the first of Komplete’s three main tiers, kicks things into high gear with over 95 instruments, including industry-leading flagships like Massive X, Guitar Rig 7 Pro, Ozone 11 Standard, Reaktor 6, and, of course, Kontakt 8. The new version of Kontakt is an excellent step forward and its inclusion in the Standard, Ultimate, and Collector’s bundles is a definite selling point.

There are also new additions to the workflow-focused Session range, which is becoming quite the centrepiece for Komplete Standard. Among other newbies, there’s Session Percussionist, Acoustic Sunburst Deluxe, and Icon Bass. Beyond excellent sound quality, the drawcard for the Session instruments is their combined offering of standard sample playback with ready-made rhythmic and melodic patterns. It’s almost scary how easy it is to slot these patterns into a track or to build up an entire arrangement using nothing but the Session range.
If you’re looking for orchestral scoring options, you’ll need to move on to Komplete Ultimate. This tier is firmly aimed at media composers, with an extensive selection of instrumental sounds across the Symphony Essentials line, and rapid-fire scoring tools from the Action series – which takes the same pattern-based approach of the Session instruments and applies it to woodwind, string and percussion ensembles.
There is also plenty of en-vogue acoustic-electronic textures from the new Conflux instrument, and the enormously fun Vocal Colours will be a delight for anyone who enjoyed the soundtrack to The White Lotus.
Vocal Colours in Komplete 15. Image: MusicTech
It’s also at this tier that you’ll start to get a decent range of plugin effects and mixing tools. With Brainworx and iZotope now part of the family, Komplete has, since version 14, begun extending its capabilities past the writing stage and into production, mixing, and mastering. This was a savvy move on Native Instruments’ part, so it’s a shame that there are no new additions on this front other than an updated version of iZotope’s Ozone mastering plugin.
If you have the need, and the funds, to hit the Collector’s edition, you’ll be rewarded with over 140 instruments, 30 effects and more than 120 Expansions This encompasses upgraded versions of the Symphony Series with many more articulation options, the new Valves Pro, for genuinely gorgeous brass passages, and the buzzy Kithara; an idiosyncratic sampler that smooshes together multiple string samples to create a single envelope of sound.
If there’s one grumble, it’s that once you arrive at the higher tiers, Komplete becomes almost too complete for any one person. The sheer size is more than just unwieldy – it starts to feel wasteful. Some will surely harness this library’s full potential, but most will probably whittle things down to a manageable slice of regular essentials. All of which is to say: it would be incredibly useful if Native Instruments extended the new genre-based pricing options available for Select up to the Standard and Ultimate bundles.
Kithara variations in Komplete 15. Image: MusicTech
Of course, having too many creative choices is an awfully nice problem to have, and with subscription options available via the 360 service, it is perfectly possible to try these tools out as a free trial before deciding which tier is most suitable for your workflow.
For new users, Komplete 15 should be at the top of the wish list. Whether you’re just starting out, looking to get serious or feel a deep, completionist need for 165-plus instruments in your DAW, there is something here for you.
The case for upgrading is less clear. If we focus purely on the instrumental additions, there are enough new goodies to make upgrading an attractive – though perhaps not essential – option. That is until you consider the inclusion of Kontakt 8. The newest edition of the world’s most used sample player is truly excellent, and once you consider that it costs £269 by itself, the upgrade cost starts to look like a bargain.
Guitar Rig 7 Pro in Komplete 15. Image: MusicTech
All in all, Komplete is still the indispensable resource for media composers – even against increasingly strong competition. EastWest’s Composer Cloud+ comes out ahead on the orchestral front but can’t compete with Komplete’s synthesis and production chops; Arturia’s V Collection X excels at synthesis and sound design but offers no standard acoustic instruments; Spitfire Audio’s orchestral bundles boast exquisite depth and detail, but demand a hefty price. Meanwhile, Musio has an instrument count that dwarfs even Komplete (2,000+ instruments!) and at an extremely approachable subscription price, but lacks the plugin effects, mixing and mastering tools that Native Instruments is slowly, but surely, building into Komplete.
At £539 Komplete Standard is a must-have for anyone looking to get serious about music production. While the Collector’s tier feels like a luxury purchase at £1,619, if you’re looking for comprehensive insurance against any future musical need, this is it.
Few modern media composers can afford to be specialists – at least in the early stages of their careers. Instead, they are called upon to bounce from genre to genre, to write music that pulls in a wide variety of instrumentation, sounds, and styles, and often to produce mixed and finalised tracks ready for the screen. For these users, there is nothing else that quite matches Komplete 15’s combination of scope, utility, and quality.
Komplete is still the mega bundle that all others are measured against.

Key features

Standard, Ultimate, and Collector’s editions all come with Kontakt 8
95+ instruments and 50+ expansions included in Standard edition
150+ instruments and 80+ expansions included in Ultimate edition
165+ instruments and 120+ expansions included in Collector’s edition
New Beats, Band, and Electronic bundles for Komplete Select
Library size range from 300GB to 1.1TB
Includes mixing tools from Brainworx
Includes iZotope’s Ozone 11 Standard mastering plugin

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