Comparison

Complete Ear Trainer vs Functional Ear Trainer

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Complete Ear Trainer

Develop your musical ear and music theory knowledge with this comprehensive training app. It offers progressive drills, various sound options, and a gamified learning experience to improve improvisation, composition, and performance skills.

Highlights
  • 150+ progressive drills
  • 11 drill types
  • 24 intervals, 36 chord types
  • Melodic dictations and chord progressions
  • Gamified learning with star system
  • Custom drill and program creation
  • Cloud sync across devices
Features
Read full description

The ultimate ear training app for musicians. Develop your relative pitch to the full by improving your aural skills and your music theory knowledge. This will better many aspects of your life as a musician, be it regarding improvisation, composition, arrangement, interpretation, singing, or playing in a band. Designed like a video game and with strong pedagogical concepts in mind, this app will make you truly master each interval, chord, scale, etc. before taking you to the next one. Features • 150+ progressive drills arranged over 4 levels / 28 chapters • 11 drill types, 24 intervals, 36 chord types, chord inversions, 28 scale types, melodic dictations, chord progressions • Easy mode: 50+ progressive drills arranged over 12 chapters especially designed for beginners • Play a selection of 21 drills in arcade mode • 5 octaves of actual recorded grand piano sounds • 7 additional sound banks are available, all with actual recorded sounds: vintage piano, Rhodes piano, electric guitar, harpsichord, concert harp, strings and pizzicato strings • In each chapter, a theory card will introduce you to the concepts you will need to know • No need to know how to read music on a staff • Designed like a video game: earn 3 stars in each drill of a chapter to unlock the next one. Or will you be able to obtain perfect 5-star scores? • Don't want to follow the preestablished path of progression? Create and save your own custom drills and rehearse them at your own convenience • Create full custom training programs and invite friends or students to join them. If for example you're a teacher you can create custom programs for your students, add drills every week and view their scores on private leaderboards • Never lose any progress: cloud sync across your various devices • 25 achievements to unlock • Worldwide leaderboards (global, per level, per chapter, easy mode, arcade mode) • Nice and clean user interface with 2 display themes: light and dark • Designed by a musician and music teacher with a Royal Conservatory master's degree Full Version • Download the app and try out the first chapter of each mode for free • One-time in-app purchase to unlock the full version on all your devices Having a problem? Got a suggestion? You can reach us at hello@completeeartrainer.com Terms of use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Functional Ear Trainer

Develop your musical ear by learning to recognize tones within the context of a specific musical key. This app helps you understand the function of each note, improving your ability to transcribe, improvise, and play music by ear. Suitable for all ages and skill levels, with just 10 minutes of daily practice.

Highlights
  • Recognize tones in musical key context
  • Understand note function
  • Improve transcription skills
  • Enhance improvisation
  • Develop perfect pitch
  • Daily 10-minute practice
Features
Read full description

Have you (or maybe one of your friends) ever wanted to learn to transcribe or play music by ear? It is so important for a musician to know what you are hearing. A good musical ear helps when you are composing, improvising, transcribing melodies, or playing with others. Most likely you have already tried different programs to learn to recognize intervals or even to acquire perfect pitch. However, although such programs develop your ear, but can you actually play any melody you hear as soon as you listen to it? Imagine you could understand music... It is like when somebody is talking to you, you not only hear pleasant sounds, but you recognize words and their meaning. One day I came across Alain Benbassat's program called "Functional Ear Trainer" and have been using it ever since. It is based on Alain's method to learn to recognize tones. The main difference between the Functional Ear Trainer and other methods is that it teaches you to distinguish between tones in the context of a particular musical key. You begin to recognize the role (or function) of each tone in this key, which is incredibly similar to its role in other keys of the same scale. And it is *guaranteed* anyone can gradually develop this skill. It does not matter: - who you are - an absolute beginner in music or a virtuoso professional musician; - how old you are - a 3 yo kid or a 90+ adult; - what musical instrument you play (you don't even have to play one). The only requirement is to practice for 10 minutes a day. I was so excited about this ear trainer that I have developed a mobile app based on the Alain Benbassat method. I hope you will find it useful.

Screenshots

Complete Ear Trainer4 screens
Functional Ear Trainer4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Complete Ear Trainer at fortnightly against Functional Ear Trainer's every 7 months. Functional Ear Trainer's advantage is ratings volume (3.7K vs 195) and rating (4.9 vs 4.7). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Complete Ear Trainer sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month and Functional Ear Trainer sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Functional Ear Trainer holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Functional Ear Trainer has 3.7K ratings behind it against 195, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 85% of Complete Ear Trainer's written reviews are positive against 96% of Functional Ear Trainer's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Complete Ear Trainer ships an update fortnightly, Functional Ear Trainer every 7 months. The most recent releases landed on September 26, 2026 and September 28, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Complete Ear Trainer versus Functional Ear Trainer: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterComplete Ear TrainerFunctional Ear Trainer
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (195 ratings)4.9 (3.7K ratings) — better
Positive reviews85.1% of reviews96.2% of reviews — better
Number of ratings1953.7K — better
Update frequencyFortnightly — betterEvery 7 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS17.515.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size59 MB41 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperBinary GuiltSerhii Korchan

Customer experience

Complete Ear Trainer

All ratings195 ratings
Positive93.3%
Neutral2.1%
Negative4.6%
Written reviews174 reviews
Positive85.1%
Neutral7.5%
Negative7.5%

Functional Ear Trainer

All ratings3,749 ratings
Positive98.1%
Neutral0.8%
Negative1.1%
Written reviews612 reviews
Positive96.2%
Neutral1.8%
Negative2.0%

Bugs and requests

Complete Ear Trainer

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

Functional Ear Trainer

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Keyboard display issues when selecting all chromatic notes
  • Inconsistent note resolutions in some exercises

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add support for multiple notes/chords at once
  • Implement a mode for training key recognition
  • Provide more customization options for exercises
  • Include voice input to play the notes
  • Add support for German/Norwegian key names

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Complete Ear Trainer

Subscriptions2
  • Cloud Sync and Web access$0.991 Month
  • Cloud Sync and Web access$9.991 Year
One-time1
  • Full Version$6.99
1 purchases

Functional Ear Trainer

One-time1
  • Functional Ear Trainer Plus$19.99

Questions

Is Complete Ear Trainer free?
Complete Ear Trainer is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Functional Ear Trainer free?
Functional Ear Trainer is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Complete Ear Trainer or Functional Ear Trainer?
Functional Ear Trainer is rated higher. Complete Ear Trainer averages 4.7 out of 5 from 195 ratings, while Functional Ear Trainer averages 4.9 from 3.7K ratings.
Do Complete Ear Trainer or Functional Ear Trainer have ads?
Neither Complete Ear Trainer nor Functional Ear Trainer shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Complete Ear Trainer or Functional Ear Trainer?
Complete Ear Trainer ships an update fortnightly, and Functional Ear Trainer every 7 months. Most recently, Complete Ear Trainer was updated on September 26, 2026 and Functional Ear Trainer on September 28, 2026.

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