Yousician, Simply Guitar, Ultimate Guitar and GuitarTuna compared — real-time feedback for beginners, the biggest tab library and a free tuner with metronome.
Most people who give up guitar do so in the first weeks, and the reasons are nearly always the same: fingertips hurt, the chords buzz, and nobody tells you whether the problem is your hand position or the tuning. An app that listens through the phone's microphone and reacts while you play removes much of that uncertainty. The 4 apps in this guide cover the full early journey: two that teach with live feedback, one for the songs you want to play, and a free tuner every setup needs regardless of method.
Yousician listens while you play and corrects missed notes and timing in real time along a level-based path.
Yousician hears you through the phone's microphone and gives instant feedback on pitch and rhythm, so mistakes are corrected during the practice instead of the next day. The same method covers guitar, piano, bass, ukulele and singing, and its catalogue includes well-known songs rather than only drills. The subscription is expensive, the free plan limits daily practice time hard, and recognition needs a quiet room to work.
Simply Guitar is the gentlest zero-experience route, starting with the pick and moving slower than Yousician.
Simply Guitar comes from the makers of Simply Piano and walks absolute beginners through everything, from holding the pick to the first chords, listening through the microphone to check each note comes out clean. Its pace is deliberately slower and more forgiving than Yousician's. Once the trial ends a subscription is required, it runs out of road past intermediate level, and its song catalogue is limited compared with a tab archive.
Ultimate Guitar is the song library: the world's biggest chords-and-tabs archive, with transpose, capo tools and autoscroll.
Ultimate Guitar hosts millions of community-submitted chords and tabs, which is where you end up whenever you want to work out a specific song. It will not teach you to play from zero, but as a reference it is unmatched: key transposition, automatic capo settings, a metronome and autoscroll while your hands are busy. Official and Pro tabs are paid, the free version shows frequent ads, and accuracy varies because the catalogue comes from users.
GuitarTuna is the most-used tuner there is and costs nothing, with a chord library, metronome and ear games added.
GuitarTuna listens through the microphone and tunes guitar, bass, ukulele and violin with more than enough accuracy, and it is free, which explains why it is installed as a matter of routine. Beyond tuning it bundles a chord library, a metronome and games for recognising chords by ear. The full lessons sit behind payment, the free version contains ads, and it is a tool rather than a replacement for actual classes.
Pros
Most-used tuner, accurate and free
Also covers bass, ukulele and violin
Chord library, metronome and ear games
Cons
Full lessons are paid
Ads in the free version
No substitute for real guitar classes
Download price only. In-app purchases and subscriptions may cost extra.
Questions & answers
Can you learn guitar with an app alone?
Up to an intermediate level, yes. Yousician and Simply Guitar cover basic technique, open chords, strumming and the first barre chords well, and microphone feedback partly replaces a teacher's ear. What they cannot catch are bad postural habits, which lead to tension and injuries over time, so an occasional in-person lesson fixes a lot.
What is the best free guitar app?
GuitarTuna is the essential free install: accurate tuning plus a chord library and metronome at no cost. Ultimate Guitar opens millions of community tabs for free, with ads. Yousician and Simply Guitar both require a subscription once their first lessons are over.
Do I need a specific guitar to use these apps?
No. They work with any acoustic, classical or electric guitar because they listen through the phone's microphone with no cables or interfaces. It does help to keep the instrument properly tuned and practise somewhere without background noise, since recognition fails when music or conversation is playing around you.
How long until I can play my first songs?
With fifteen or twenty minutes a day, most people play simple four-chord songs in three or four weeks. What slows beginners down is rarely memory: fingertips take a few weeks to harden and the hand needs to build strength for barre chords. Expect that stage, because it is also where most people quit.
More related apps
App library · United States App Store. Prices and availability reflect the last check.
