Suno, BandLab, ElevenLabs, Voloco and Mubert compared — a finished song from one sentence, a free multitrack studio, voice cloning, mobile autotune and royalty-free tracks.
You want to make something musical on your phone: a complete song from a description, a proper recording over several tracks, a voiceover in your own voice, pitch-corrected vocals or a background track for a video that will not get claimed. Most AI music recommendations turn out to be desktop websites, so the first filter here was that everything actually installs on an iPhone. The meaningful difference between them is the job each one does, because none covers the whole chain. The 5 apps in this guide were picked to cover those five distinct jobs rather than five variations on the same generator.
Suno is the only app here that hands back a finished song — lyrics, music and a sung vocal — from one sentence.
Suno generates a complete track, including structure, music and a sung vocal, from a text description or from lyrics you paste in, and it was the app that brought this kind of generative music to the phone. It also runs its own catalogue, so you can hear what other users are making, which helps with prompts and expectations. In pop and trap the output can be surprisingly convincing. The free plan offers a handful of daily credits that a few songs exhaust, you cannot edit the result track by track, and commercial rights require a paid plan.
BandLab is a real multitrack studio, free with no watermarks, where AI handles the tedious jobs and you do the writing.
BandLab is a complete multitrack recording studio that costs nothing and puts no watermarks on your work, which already separates it from most of this list. The AI features act as assistants rather than the main attraction: they can split a song into stems, generate instrumental beds and clean the noise out of a take. That makes it the right choice for people who want to actually make music and automate the tedious parts. The price is a genuine learning curve, since this is not a one-tap toy; the AI will not compose a whole song for you, and nearly everything needs a connection.
Voloco is autotune for the phone: real-time pitch correction while you sing, plus it can lift the instrumental out of almost any track.
Voloco keeps the workflow to three steps: open a backing track, sing over it and publish. It corrects your pitch live as you record, adds vocal effects and includes a large library of instrumentals, and its stem separation means you can sing over nearly any song rather than only the built-in catalogue. It is the most direct option here for a vocalist. Its limits are equally clear. It is built around the voice and does not compose anything, heavy correction starts to sound obvious, and the best backing tracks plus high-quality export are paid.
ElevenLabs sets the standard for synthetic speech and clones your voice from a short sample, but it narrates rather than sings.
ElevenLabs turns text into narration with a naturalness no other tool matches, and it can clone your own voice from a short recording. For music purposes it handles spoken passages, choirs and narration, which is why it works best as a companion to Suno instead of a replacement for it: ask it for a sung lead and you will be disappointed. Its free plan grants only a few minutes of generation a month, so serious use means paying, and cloning someone else's voice raises obvious consent and legal questions even when the technology makes it easy.
Mubert generates royalty-free instrumentals at an exact length, the practical soundtrack tool for YouTube, TikTok and podcasts.
Mubert creates endless instrumental music from a mood or an activity, designed to sit behind videos, podcasts or focus sessions rather than to be listened to as songs. It does not write lyrics or sung vocals; it produces atmospheres, and it will render a track at precisely the length you ask for. Its concrete advantage is the royalty-free licence, which matters when a platform checks the audio in your post. It is also the lowest-rated app in this group at 3.9 stars, it is instrumental-only by design, and downloading tracks requires a subscription.
Pros
Royalty-free music for published videos
Tracks generated at the exact length requested
Continuous listening by activity or mood
Cons
Instrumental only, no vocals or lyrics
Lowest rating in the group, 3.9 stars
Downloading tracks requires a subscription
Download price only. In-app purchases and subscriptions may cost extra.
Questions & answers
Can you make music with AI for free?
Yes, all five include a free tier, but the limits differ sharply. BandLab is the only one genuinely free for the essentials: a full studio, no watermarks and no cap on projects. Suno gives a handful of daily credits that a few songs burn through. ElevenLabs and Mubert are the tightest on the free plan, so they work more as trials. If the goal is regular publishing rather than experimenting, expect to pay on at least one of the generative tools.
Can I release AI-generated music on Spotify or YouTube?
It depends on the app and your plan. Mubert is built for exactly this and supplies royalty-free music. Suno allows commercial use only on its paid plans, while the free tier grants limited rights. Before you monetise a video or upload a track, read the current terms of whichever app produced it, because these licences change often and the free tier rarely grants the same commercial coverage as a paid subscription.
Does any app write the whole song, lyrics and vocal included?
Suno does, and it is the only one in this guide. Describe a style or paste your own lyrics and it returns a finished track with a sung vocal. BandLab and Voloco require you to bring the performance, ElevenLabs produces speech rather than singing, and Mubert stays instrumental. For full control over that Suno track afterward, the realistic workflow is exporting it into BandLab for editing.
Do these apps work without an internet connection?
Barely. Suno, ElevenLabs and Mubert process on their own servers and need a connection at all times. BandLab lets you record and edit offline, but syncing and all of its AI features run online. Voloco applies its pitch correction on the phone itself, so that part works without signal, although its backing-track library still needs a connection.
More related apps
App library · United States App Store. Prices and availability reflect the last check.
