Link to MIDI vs ShowMIDI
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Link to MIDI
Synchronize MIDI devices with Ableton Link sessions. This app bridges the gap, making your MIDI hardware compatible with Link-enabled music software for stable, quantized clock synchronization.
- Ableton Link to MIDI Clock Sync
- Link-enabled MIDI devices
- Launch quantization
- Stable clock output
- Fine offset control (±250 ms)
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Link to MIDI = Ableton Link to MIDI Clock Sync. Link to MIDI connects Ableton Link to musical devices that support MIDI Clock Sync. Simply join a Link session, connect your MIDI device, and that's it. Your MIDI device is now Link-enabled. Link to Midi features launch quantization, an incredibly stable clock output, and a fine offset control (±250 ms) to perfectly line up the receiving MIDI device's playback. Note: Link to MIDI is only recommended for use with hardware MIDI devices. Connecting to apps is possible, but may lead to a poor user experience due to software challenges in synchronizing to MIDI Clock. Ableton Link fixes this. Please contact the developers of your favorite apps and ask them to support Ableton Link.
ShowMIDI
This application provides a real-time, glanceable view of all MIDI activity on your computer. It visualizes various MIDI messages and allows you to pause the flow for a data snapshot. It can be used as a standalone tool or an AUv3 plugin within your DAW.
- Real-time MIDI visualization
- Auto-hides irrelevant messages
- Pause and snapshot data
- Standalone application
- AUv3 plugin support
- Supports MPE configuration
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ShowMIDI is an open-source multi-platform GUI application to effortlessly visualize MIDI activity. Instead of wading through logs of MIDI messages to correlate relevant ones and identify what is happening, ShowMIDI visualizes the current activity and auto-hides what you don't care about anymore. It provides you with a real-time glanceable view of all MIDI activity on your computer. ShowMIDI is designed to be always on, using the spacebar or play/pause button you can pause the flow and focus on a data snapshot with the latest state of any MIDI entity. ShowMIDI can be ran as a standalone application that automatically detects all your MIDI devices, or as an AUv3 plugin in your DAW or host to visualize MIDI data in your sessions. ShowMIDI visualizes: * MIDI ports * channels * program change * note on/off * channel pressure * polyphonic pressure * continuous control change * pitchbend * RPN and NRPN * MPE configuration and channel modes ShowMIDI supports: * themes * standalone operation * AUv3 operation
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: ShowMIDI at Free against Link to MIDI's $4.99. Link to MIDI's advantage is update cadence (fortnightly vs every 2 months) and ratings volume (74 vs 18). On rating, review sentiment, ads and in-app purchases 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
ShowMIDI is free to download; Link to MIDI costs $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
ShowMIDI holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.6. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 74 and 18 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 95% of Link to MIDI's written reviews are positive against 88% of ShowMIDI's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Link to MIDI ships an update fortnightly, ShowMIDI every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 4, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Link to MIDI | ShowMIDI |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.6 (74 ratings) | 4.8 (18 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 94.5% of reviews — better | 87.5% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 74 — better | 18 |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 8.0 — better | 12.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 3 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Alexandernaut | Uwyn, LLC |
Customer experience
Link to MIDI
ShowMIDI
In-app purchases
Link to MIDI
No in-app purchases
ShowMIDI
No in-app purchases
