Yes, Sonar is alive.
But it is old. And it has died because it was old.
In current state it is "resurrected", at the necromancy level. As (no doubt) best free DAW currently available, it can "exist" for infinite time. But it can not really live like that.
Meng has to apply Phenix magic to make it alive again. He is smart and has resourced. But is he going to do that? Time will show.
For the moment, "Bandlab Assistent" has the same quality as newer Cakewalk plug-ins. In case they continue in the same direction, they will end in nowhere.
A DAW is not an "App". It is a tool, not a toy. People expect it is fast and water prove. No one care how long some "Social network" app loads and when it crash.
But if a DAW stop working as expected at unfortunate moment ONCE, it is immediately declared "unusable for purpose". Like a hammer, as long as you think there is
non zero probability it hits your hand during normal operation. All other properties (nice, full of features, etc.) have no big sense in this case.
I like my VS-20 and I like my old M-Audio interfaces. But NO WAY I will use them other then playing for myself. The same with Sonar.