Taper's Section vs DEADSHOWZ
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Taper's Section
Access a vast library of live music recordings from archive.org. Stream, save, and organize your favorite shows, build playlists, and enjoy offline listening. Features background playback and powerful search capabilities.
- Stream live music from archive.org
- Save favorite bands and shows
- Background streaming
- Offline listening
- Powerful search and filtering
- Build and share playlists
- Manage play queue
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Taper's Section gives you access to the Live Music Archive from archive.org in the palm of your hand. * Stream your favorite shows from over 5,000 bands * Save your favorite bands and shows for quick access * Easily access your recently played shows * Background streaming with Bluetooth and AirPlay compatibility * Powerful search and filtering options * Build playlists and share them with your friends * Build a play queue, reorder your queue, and make it a new playlist * Offline listening - save your data plan while listening to your downloaded shows while away from WiFi.
DEADSHOWZ
Explore a comprehensive Grateful Dead concert database with advanced search capabilities. Find shows by venue, song, date, or guest artist, and create custom playlists. Stream concerts directly from the app.
- Searchable Grateful Dead concert database
- Multi-criteria search with AND/OR/NOT qualifiers
- Custom playlist creation
- Track attended shows
- Song, venue, and artist statistics
- Direct concert streaming
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DEADSHOWZ 2.0 is the most powerful Grateful Dead concert reference tool ever to fit in your pocket — more than 2,350 shows spanning 1965 to 1995, searchable from any angle! Stack any search criteria you want: song, venue, city, state or country, date or year, guest artist, setlist position, one song into another, bustouts, shows you attended, your favorites. Combine them with AND, OR and NOT. Every show at Madison Square Garden. Every one that featured Bertha. Every one on a Tuesday. Or all three at once — and the count updates as you build, before you ever run the search. Long-press any song, venue, city, state or guest artist to open its Deep Dive — total performances, first and last, peak year, most-played songs, segue partners, bustout gaps, and every song that debuted or was played for the last time there. Tap a count and you get the shows behind it, and Back brings you right back to where you were. Found something interesting? Send it into Search with its conditions already filled in and keep narrowing. Winterland in '77 becomes Winterland in '77 including Playing In The Band in two taps. Mark the shows you attended, tag your favorites, and build playlists in any order you like. Send a playlist, your Favorites, or your Attended list to a friend with one tap — no account, no server, straight from you to them. Make it yours: twelve backgrounds, six typefaces, your own text color and size, and alignment settings for nearly every list. And where a recording exists, you can stream the whole concert with a single tap — a handy bonus atop the deepest Grateful Dead reference tool in your pocket. Recordings come from public archives, are never stored on your device, and what's available varies from show to show. No subscription, no ads, no account required, nothing ever collected. Just good, clean, musical fun! Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow called DEADSHOWZ "a very worthy venture celebrating the music of our lives." We're sure you're gonna agree... ...Nothin' left to do but smile, smile, smile!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Taper's Section at Free against DEADSHOWZ's $2.99. Taper's Section also leads on iOS requirement (12.0 vs 16.0). On rating, review sentiment, ratings volume and update cadence 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
Taper's Section is free to download; DEADSHOWZ costs $2.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.5 for Taper's Section against 4.4 for DEADSHOWZ. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 40 and 17 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 90% of Taper's Section's written reviews are positive against 86% of DEADSHOWZ's.
Taper's Section ships an update every 3 months, DEADSHOWZ every 4 months. Both last shipped on October 24, 2026.
| Parameter | Taper's Section | DEADSHOWZ |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $2.99 |
| Rating | 4.5 (40 ratings) — better | 4.4 (17 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 90.0% of reviews — better | 85.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 40 — better | 17 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months — better | Every 4 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 16.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 55 MB | 59 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Franklin Kesler | SYKODELIC, LLC |
Customer experience
Taper's Section
DEADSHOWZ
In-app purchases
Taper's Section
No in-app purchases
DEADSHOWZ
No in-app purchases








