What are you trying to do?
I think an LA will be a little more smooth than a limiter. One LA that comes to mind acutally uses an LED which is driven by the input signal. The LED gets brighter the hotter the input signal gets and drives a negative feedback circuit that attenuates the output signal.
Simply put, more input means less output and less input sort of means more output or less attenuation of the output which reduces the dynamic range but generally does it in a smooth manner.
Good for novice singers if you use it during recording.