I used SONAR for quite a while until, like the previous person mentioned, it was sold by Gibson. It then also changed name to Cakewalk by Bandlab.
Having been with Cubase now for some years, I think it’s a better DAW for composing then Cakewalk but I’d definitely recommend it for newbies (and have done to friends).
It’s a very complete DAW, it works great and best of all, it’s free!
Edit: to respond to the previous post, I don’t think it’s that complicated to be honest. It’s quite similar to Cubase as well, so when I changed to Cubase, it didn’t take me long at all to learn my way around which could be a plus point for those starting out in Cakewalk and then maybe later on changing to Cubase.