What is Monkey's Audio / APE?
Monkey's Audio is a lossless audio compression format usually identified by the .ape extension. It is still actively maintained even though its user base is smaller than FLAC's.
Lossless compression
Monkey's Audio compresses audio without discarding information, allowing the original decoded audio to be reconstructed exactly. The project emphasizes compression efficiency, error detection and verification rather than lossy bitrate targeting.
Is APE obsolete?
No. Monkey's Audio is still actively released and its official project continues to provide current Windows software and source/SDK support. It is niche compared with FLAC, but that is different from being abandoned.
APE tags vs .ape files
Monkey's Audio uses APE tags, and the APEv2 tagging system has also been used by other formats. Seeing “APE tag” therefore does not prove the audio codec is Monkey's Audio.
Inputs and conversion
The current Monkey's Audio tools can accept several uncompressed audio file types and can be used in pipelines with software such as FFmpeg. For broad cross-platform distribution, FLAC is usually more interoperable; for an existing .ape collection, lossless conversion can preserve the decoded PCM.