I would (and did) choose Bitwig over Ableton but that’s just me.
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I wound up going with Reaper. It seemed… easier to me.
That said, I haven’t used it much. To get the sound I want, it’s not easy at all. And I work with software all day as my profession, the last thing I want to do when I’m done working with software is learn and work with more software.
Edit: that said, seeing some of the replies here I might give Ableton Lite another try, and I’m very interested in Bitwig. =/
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They are both great, as is Reaper, but with any of them - if you don’t want to spend a good chunk of time really learning how to use it, you are not going to get a ton more than just basic Reaper out of it. These are all professional music production tools and in the case of Ableton and Bitwig they border on being musical instruments themselves (and certainly each come with many instruments and effects).
Reaper comes with tons of plugins too, it’s just no one knows about them because they all have terrible UIs and are one level down in the workflow. It’s a shame because some of them are quite good; ReaEQ is fine, etc. You can even download them and use them outside of Reaper 
https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/
My Dock just made me giggle:
(Reaper, Bitwig, and Logic)
Honestly, of all the DAWs I have tried, Reaper is probably always going to be in the top 2. #1 may change over time depending on my focus and will sometimes be Reaper 
I could almost say the same for Logic, it’s just a great general purpose DAW, but Reaper is just way less buggy and more stable. And since it and Reaper are very very similar types of DAWs, I just don’t see myself using Logic much any more.
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Recording in reaper seems more straightforward but I haven’t tried in Ableton with guitar. If memory serves I like the post processing effects in Ableton much better.
I am using the eval version of reaper but maybe I’ll reinstall Ableton and give it a go.
I wouldn’t choose a DAW based on builtin plugins, though that’s certainly a nice thing. However, when you can download even better ones than any DAW builtins from Kilohearts or Melda for free as part of their free packages, any DAW can have great effects.
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This - for pretty much any DAW these days. Those are some very powerful pieces of software, but also often overwhelming in the variety of functions they offer. And… it’s not really just that there is yet another function to explore - it’s more that I more often than not don’t even know what that function does
So, it’s not just the software that we need to learn… it’s often the entire “theory” behind working with audio and midi and processing those data.
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I just mean the UI for things like compression reaper feels clunky in that regard. Otherwise the reaper UI is simpler
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I honestly don’t remember
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Well i went for the complete package and even though I’ve really only gone over basic what’s where type lessons I’ve already got a massively better grasp of how it all works than I’ve achieved up to now with my little scratching around the edges sufficient to do a bit of recording that I have done up to now. Very interested now in putting together simple little backing tracks that I can try improvising to. But a little more knowledge still required!
Also you can’t beat an unlimited trial period with full functionality, no questions asked, and a $60 lifetime license. AND it’s open source, I believe.
Reaper is not open source to he best of my knowledge but the pricing is just incredible.
The $60 gets you two major upgrades. But that’s like 5-6 years worth. I am fine paying $60 every 5-6 years.
Bitwig and Ableton, on the other hand, are only yearly for major upgrades. If you want more upgrades after a year then it’s another 100 clams or so for Bitwig, I forget Ableton’s pricing.
Logic is buy once own forever, but it is also a lot more expensive than Reaper.
All in all Reaper is the best deal out there for sure.
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