Functional Ear Trainer vs Otonic
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- Recognize tones in musical key context
- Understand note function
- Improve transcription skills
- Enhance improvisation
- Develop perfect pitch
- Daily 10-minute practice
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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.
Otonic
Enhance your musical abilities with a comprehensive ear training application. Features a level editor for personalized learning experiences and progression tracking.
- Fully featured ear training
- Level editor
- Progression editor
- Personalized learning
- Music skill enhancement
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Otonic is a fully featured Ear Training app with a level and progression editor.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Otonic at every 5 days against Functional Ear Trainer's every 7 months. Otonic also leads on iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.0). Functional Ear Trainer's advantage is review sentiment (96% vs 67%) and ratings volume (3.7K vs 4). On price, rating, 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
Both are free to download. Functional Ear Trainer sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Otonic sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Functional Ear Trainer against 5.0 for Otonic. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Functional Ear Trainer has 3.7K ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 96% of Functional Ear Trainer's written reviews are positive against 67% of Otonic's.
Functional Ear Trainer ships an update every 7 months, Otonic every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on September 28, 2026 and June 4, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Functional Ear Trainer | Otonic |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (3.7K ratings) | 5.0 (4 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 96.2% of reviews — better | 66.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 3.7K — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Every 7 months | Every 5 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 41 MB | 59 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Serhii Korchan | Alexander Blackwell |
Customer experience
Functional Ear Trainer
Otonic
Bugs and 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
Otonic
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Functional Ear Trainer
- Functional Ear Trainer Plus$19.99
Otonic
- Otonic Pro$6.99
- Otonic Essential$19.99
- Otonic Pro$39.99
