Tonic vs EarForge
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Tonic
This app uses augmented reality to display over 130 chords directly on your piano. It guides you on finger placement, making it easier to learn and play chords, especially for those who don't read traditional sheet music. Ideal for musicians of all levels.
- Augmented reality chord display
- Over 130 chords
- Finger placement guidance
- Flat/sharp display modes
- Works with various piano sizes
- 3 octave options
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Tonic is the world's first AR chord dictionary. Chords are amazing. But for musicians who aren't jazz aficionados, finding a chord from a lead sheet is often frustrating and time consuming. And for the many talented musicians who don't read sheet music, chord dictionaries with music notation don't make things any easier. Tonic is the solution. Using AR, Tonic lets you easily view over 130 chords on your own piano. It tells you exactly where to place your fingers to play almost any chord. Great for students, professionals, or anyone interested in music. Features: - Over 130 chords with music notation - Flat/sharp display modes - Works with 88, 76, 61, 49, and 25 key pianos - 3 octaves to choose from - An adorable app icon
EarForge
This app offers a structured ear training program designed to improve your sense of pitch and ability to recognize musical notes and chords. It features progressive lessons, personalized quizzes, and detailed progress tracking. Advanced users can create custom training sessions for specific musical elements.
- 30-level note recognition program
- Chord identification lessons
- Customizable note and chord training
- Progress tracking with profile statistics
- Ad-free experience (PRO)
- Exclusive themes (PRO)
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— Featured in App of the Day and one of Apple's "Apps We Love", "Our latest Favourites" and "Turn Learning Into a Game" more than 100 countries including United States, United Kingdom and China! — EarForge is an app that can help you achieve the perfect ears and improve your sense of pitch with our well-designed training program. FEATURES - Lessons NOTES Enjoy our 30-level well-designed program. Develop your skill to recognize different notes. Great for beginners and any musicians. - Lessons CHORDS Given a single chord. Your goal is to identify the chord that you heard. - Quiz Unlock the quiz to challenge yourself in the next level. - Profile You can find your stat here. Check out your note accuracy, what you’re good at and what to improve. And track your progress with Facebook login, Google login or sign in with apple. EarForge PRO — a paid subscription feature * - Training NOTES You can program your own specific notes, sounds and octaves. This training mode will help you focus on the notes you want to learn and practice. - Training CHORDS You can program on specific chord keys, chord types and octaves. Listen to the chord and try to guess the correct answers. - Custom NOTES LESSON Keep practicing and create your own notes lesson. Select at least 3 notes you want to learn. This lesson will collect stats but not collect stars. - Custom CHORDS LESSON Keep practicing and create your own chords lesson. Select chord keys and select at least 3 chord types. This lesson will collect stats but not collect stars. - Exclusive themes It's beautiful and more delightful to use. - No ads Ad-free, no interruptions. * EarForge PRO subscription price is $2.99/month or $19.99/year. (Pricing may be converted to your local currency.) Payment will be charged to your iTunes account. Your subscription will auto-renew within 24 hours before the end of the current period and you can turn off auto-renewal at any time in the account settings. See our Privacy Policy at https://earforge.blog/privacy-policy/ and Terms of Service at https://earforge.blog/terms-of-service/ Feedback is always welcome, please let we know in the comment. Start forging your ears now! Learn Perfect pitch / Relative pitch / Absolute pitch / Ear training
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: EarForge at 4.6 against Tonic's 4.0. EarForge also leads on review sentiment (63% vs 39%). Tonic's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2) and update cadence (weekly vs every 5 weeks). On price, ratings volume, ads and device support 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. EarForge sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Tonic asks for nothing beyond the download.
EarForge holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 204 and 293 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 39% of Tonic's written reviews are positive against 63% of EarForge's.
Tonic ships an update weekly, EarForge every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 21, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Tonic | EarForge |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.0 (204 ratings) | 4.6 (293 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 38.6% of reviews | 62.7% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 204 | 293 — better |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 5 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 11.0 — better | 13.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 13 MB | 93 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Coda Labs Incorporated | Patcharapon Phasukdee |
Customer experience
Tonic
EarForge
Bugs and requests
Tonic
Reported bugs
26 issues- Calibration doesn't work
- Dots move perpendicular to what they should
- App thinks piano is rotated 90 degrees
- App won't pick up the piano
- Keys never show
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- Dots overlap and don't align for each key
- Dots slide around after calibration
- Target for placing a dot can become permanently rotated
- Second marker/target never appears
- Blue circle pops up floating around
- Target doesn't pop up for alignment
- Notes don't align perfectly
- G# is completely off
- Diminished triads and augmented triads switched in notation
- Highest key not detected
- Second target won't appear on screen
- Dots are not centered on the keys correctly
- Doesn't detect highest key on 61 key pianos
- First target aligns perfectly but second target doesn't show up
- Second dot will not appear during alignment
- No second target to align
- Can't calibrate, second target doesn't appear
- Calibration dot gets stuck in one place
- Second target doesn't appear for alignment
- Hard to calibrate properly
- AR is not perfect
Requested features
10 requests- Fix calibration tool
- Make YouTube video with instructions
- Add more chords (9ths, 11ths, 13ths, jazz chords)
- Add chord inversions
- Support for smaller keyboards
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- Display all key names
- Add basic music playing/ar tutorial
- Specify number of keys for unconventional keyboards
- Auto-calibrate by detecting keyboard
- Allow searching all chords and inversions
EarForge
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Tonic
No in-app purchases
EarForge
- Monthly Subscription$3.991 Month
- Yearly Subscription$19.991 Year









