Best App to Learn Guitar: What Is Free, What You Pay

Start with Yousician if you want an app that hears what you play and tells you whether it was right. Its plans page puts one instrument at $89.99 a year, the lowest yearly price among the listening apps that publish one. If you would sooner pay nothing, the lessons on JustinGuitar’s website are free, and a free tuner is the only app you need to follow them.

We read each app’s listing on Google Play and on the App Store, and the maker’s own site where it publishes more. What an app teaches, how it hears you and what it charges all come from those pages. Five of the ten apps on our old list are in the table.

Guitar learning apps compared

Every app in the table is on both stores. All are free to download with in-app purchases except iReal Pro, which is paid.

Prices are in US dollars as the makers and the US stores give them. They differ by country, and a price inside the app can differ from the one on the maker’s website.

Apps that listen to you play

Yousician

Yousician’s listing describes real-time feedback that listens as you play, with lessons that run from first chords to lead guitar. The company’s site says all you need is the instrument and the app, with no cables or extra microphones, and that an acoustic or an electric guitar will do.

The site offers Premium+ free for seven days. Neither store listing says what stays free after that. Yousician’s plans page gives Premium at $89.99 a year for one instrument, and Premium+ at $159.99 a year for all five it teaches, which works out at $13.33 a month. The App Store lists the one-instrument plan at $119.99 a year, so compare the two before you subscribe inside the app.

Simply Guitar

From Simply, the company behind Simply Piano. Both listings explain how it hears you: place the phone in front of you and play, and the app recognises what you are playing and tells you when it is right. It works with any guitar and includes a tuner.

Simply’s site calls the app free to download with optional paid subscription access, and prints no price. The App Store’s list of in-app purchases runs from $19.99 to $199.99 without saying what period each one covers. Read the amount on the screen before you subscribe.

Gibson: Learn to Play Guitar

Made by Zoundio, a Stockholm company, with Gibson. Its App Store listing says the app listens to your guitar and gives instant feedback, and that the tuner, the metronome and a practice calendar are free. A seven-day trial opens everything and the subscription begins on day seven unless you cancel. The App Store lists monthly plans from $19.99 and yearly plans from $129.99.

Fender Play

Fender teaches guitar, bass and ukulele in short videos, with songs, scrolling tablature and backing tracks. Its App Store listing describes lesson feedback built on listening technology from MatchMySound, and says there are no adverts. The Google Play listing does not mention the listening feature, so do not count on it on Android.

The App Store listing offers 14 days free. Fender prices the app at $19.99 a month or $149.99 a year, and both amounts appear among its in-app purchases on the App Store. Twelve months at the monthly rate is $239.88.

Video courses

Justin Guitar Lessons & Songs

This is the app built on Justin Sandercoe’s beginner course, published by Musopia. The listing counts 210 lesson videos running to 36 hours, beginner grades one to three and more than 1,500 songs to play along with at a tempo you set. Nothing in it says the app listens to you.

A Full Access subscription unlocks the whole song collection and every stage of the course. The listing gives no price, and the App Store shows several: monthly entries from $8.99 to $19.99 and yearly ones from $64.99 to $129.99. The lessons do not need the app. JustinGuitar’s own website describes its guitar lessons as free, and the app adds the play-along songs.

Guitar Tricks

Guitar Tricks puts its price in the listing: $19.99 a month or $179.99 a year. The free version offers a rotation of free lessons, and the App Store listing adds a seven-day trial that turns into the monthly plan. The listing counts more than 11,000 lessons and says the site has taught since 1998.

TrueFire

TrueFire is a library more than a single course. Its listing counts more than 800 courses from over 200 players and teachers, for all levels, in blues, jazz, rock, country and fingerstyle. Joining is free and brings a 14-day trial of All Access with one free course to download. The App Store lists All Access at $29.99 a month.

Coach Guitar

Coach Guitar, from Manomaya, teaches songs by colour: five colours, one per finger, shown on an animated fretboard with no music theory. Videos can be slowed and looped. Premium brings unlimited playtime, and the listing prints no price. On the App Store it is called Guitar: Play & Learn Chords.

Songs and practice

Ultimate Guitar is a library of chords and tabs more than a course. On Google Play it is free with adverts. Pro opens the full library of more than two million tabs, official tabs with backing tracks, and Practice Mode, which gives feedback on your playing on a phone. The App Store listing gives the price as $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year.

iReal Pro does not teach. It is a backing band that plays a chord chart in 50 styles while you practise over it, and it shows a guitar fingering for any chord. It costs $21.99 on either store, with extra styles sold in packs.

A tuner

Install Fender’s. Fender Guitar Tuner on Google Play shows no adverts label and no in-app purchases, and the App Store page, where it is called Fender Tune, lists nothing to buy. The Google Play listing describes an automatic mode that hears each string through the microphone, a manual mode with reference tones, a chromatic mode and at least 26 tunings.

GuitarTuna, from Yousician, also tunes through the phone’s microphone and says its standard guitar tuner is free to use. Google Play shows adverts and in-app purchases on it.

Which one to pick

• You want to be corrected as you play: Yousician, bought on its website if the price there is lower.
• You want to pay nothing: JustinGuitar’s website with Fender’s tuner.
• You want a teacher on video and songs to play along with: Justin Guitar Lessons & Songs.
• You already play and want to get better: TrueFire for its range of courses, or Guitar Tricks for its published price.
• You only want the chords to a song: Ultimate Guitar, free with adverts.
• You are paying by the month: check the yearly price first. Fender Play’s annual plan is $89.89 less than twelve monthly payments.

If you have no guitar yet, apps that put a playable guitar, piano or drum kit on the screen are in our list of musical instrument apps for Android and iPhone.

What happened to the old list

• Justin Guitar by FourChords: now Justin Guitar Lessons & Songs, covered above.
• Yousician, Coach Guitar and iReal Pro: still on both stores.
• Ultimate Guitar Tabs HD: today’s listing is Ultimate Guitar: Chords & Tabs, free to download.
• Guitar World Lessons and Guitar Bandits: we found neither on Google Play or the App Store.
• Autochords: on the App Store only, free with in-app purchases. It suggests chord progressions for songwriting and is not a course.
• Learn Guitar Chords and Learn Guitar: many apps share those names, and we could not tell which ones were meant.

Quick answers

Is there a guitar learning app that is completely free?

Not among the lesson apps here. Each one shows in-app purchases. The free route is JustinGuitar’s website, with Fender’s tuner on the phone.

Is there a guitar learning app without a subscription?

Most charge by subscription. TrueFire’s App Store page also lists single courses to buy, such as Learn Guitar: Next Steps at $9.99. iReal Pro is a single payment of $21.99, and it is a practice tool with no lessons.

How much does Yousician cost?

Yousician’s plans page gives $89.99 a year for one instrument and $159.99 a year for Premium+. The App Store shows higher prices for some plans.

Is the Justin Guitar app the same as the website?

No. The website’s lessons are free. The app is published by Musopia and sells a subscription for the full course path and its play-along songs.

Which guitar apps listen to you play?

Yousician, Simply Guitar and the Gibson app say so in their listings. Fender Play says so on the App Store only.

If something here is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.