I am team Ableton because I have the launchpad.
Plus, Ableton is really good for live looping. also, clyphx Pro is a python based programming language you can use to control most every aspect of live and assign it to a midi key.
In the past I have used LMMS and paid for versions of reason. I think for sure ableton is better than those. hands down. everything is all about the use case though. whatever floats your boat. I have heard some pretty respectable stuff made with FL.
I will say though that Ableton 10 standard is 260 dollars with a student id on a good day.
Ableton suite is the only way to get m4l, and very little else (sampler), is pretty much double that price tag.

M4L is great because its like literally thousands of dollars in plugins and vsts for a steep 1 time fee.

Have you heard binkbeats? I really dig his stuff.