EarForge vs Active Ear
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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
Active Ear
Develop your musical ear with a comprehensive ear training app. It offers various exercises to help musicians identify pitches, intervals, chords, and progressions. Customize your learning with practice modes and test your knowledge with quizzes.
- Pitch Recognition
- Interval Training
- Chord Quality Identification
- Bassline Training
- Progression Training
- Chord Inversions
- Customizable Practice Mode
- Quiz Mode
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Active Ear is for musicians of all skill levels and instrument types. With dozens of exercises ranging from beginner to advanced, Active Ear focuses on teaching you to identify pitches, intervals, chords, and progressions using only your Ear. The Practice Mode of the app allows you to customize the challenges to focus only on areas you're interested in improving. Once you're confident with the Practice Mode, you test yourself in the Quiz Mode of the app to see how well you understand the concepts. Active Ear Comes with six Ear Training Programs: - Pitch Recognition - Interval Training - Chord Quality - Bassline Training - Progression Training - Chord Inversions
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Active Ear at none against EarForge's 2. Active Ear also leads on review sentiment (94% vs 63%). EarForge's advantage is ratings volume (292 vs 50) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15.1). On price, rating, update cadence and ads 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. Active Ear asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for EarForge against 4.7 for Active Ear. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: EarForge has 292 ratings behind it against 50, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 63% of EarForge's written reviews are positive against 94% of Active Ear's.
EarForge ships an update every 5 weeks, Active Ear monthly. The most recent releases landed on September 8, 2026 and June 10, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | EarForge | Active Ear |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (292 ratings) | 4.7 (50 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 62.7% of reviews | 93.8% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 292 — better | 50 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 15.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 93 MB | 23 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Patcharapon Phasukdee | MCPHERSON'S MUSIC LLC |
Customer experience
EarForge
Active Ear
In-app purchases
EarForge
- Monthly Subscription$3.991 Month
- Yearly Subscription$19.991 Year
Active Ear
No in-app purchases
