Comparison

Spectra vs Beatsy

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Spectra

Experience music visually with real-time audio spectrum analysis. Customize backgrounds, logos, and visualizer elements to create stunning animations. Export your creations in high resolution for sharing.

Highlights
  • Real-time 60fps audio visualization
  • Video export up to 4k 60fps
  • Customizable background images and presets
  • Logo image import
  • Extensive visualizer and particle customization
  • Import audio via share sheet
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

Enjoy music at a deeper level with realtime visualization! Spectra is a lightweight music & audio visualizer app that allows you to select and visualize audio in realtime, right on your phone or mac. Want to export your visualization? We have you covered. Simply click the "Create Video" button from within the app. No longer do you need expensive software to create those beautiful animations you've seen on the internet. Want to customize the background image or put a logo in the center? We made that available as well. In fact, you can customize just about all aspects of the visualizer. You can even import audio files from apps like iMessage or Mail using the share sheet. We want to keep improving the app so If you have any suggestions, be sure to leave a review and tell us what feature you're missing! The features: • Amazing, 60fps realtime visualization for any audio file or iTunes music (not Apple Music) song • Video exporting of your audio visualization (4k at 60fps) • Custom background image • Background presets • Background effects • Custom logo image • Visualizer customization • Particle customization • Video export settings • Video animation options • Presets • More to come!!! Here's how it works: The sound we hear is made up of many frequencies. The visualizer decomposes the audio input into its frequencies and displays the lower frequencies at the top/left of the audio spectrum and the higher frequencies at the bottom/right of the spectrum. This can create some cool-looking shapes that all correspond to the currently-playing audio track! Whether you're a producer that wants to see the frequency range of their song, an audiophile, or someone who wants to take a deeper look into their music, this app is definitely for you.

About

Beatsy

Experience music like never before by transforming your surroundings into dynamic visualizers. This app uses your device's microphone or music library to distort the world around you with ten unique, customizable effects. Capture and share your augmented reality creations.

Highlights
  • Augmented reality music visualizer
  • Distort world with microphone or music library
  • Ten customizable visualizers
  • Scale visualizers to epic sizes
  • Immersive 3D distortion with LiDAR
  • Capture and share photos/videos
Read full description

Turn your wall into a giant speaker or transform a road into a rolling wave of notes with Beatsy, a groundbreaking augmented reality music visualizer. Distort the world around you to your music or voice! Highlights: • Distort the world around you using microphone input or music from your library. • Ten unique and customizable visualizers. • Scale visualizers up to epic sizes. • On devices with a LiDAR sensor, try the immersive visualizers which let you distort the world in three dimensions. • Capture and share photos and videos of the effects in action. So get Beatsy and start experiencing sound in a whole new way!

Screenshots

Spectra4 screens
Beatsy4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Beatsy at Free against Spectra's $1.99. Beatsy also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 65%) and rating (4.9 vs 4.6). Spectra's advantage is ratings volume (1.5K vs 23) and chart position (#96 vs unranked). On update cadence, ads, in-app purchases 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Beatsy is free to download; Spectra costs $1.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Beatsy holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Spectra has 1.5K ratings behind it against 23, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 65% of Spectra's written reviews are positive against 100% of Beatsy's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 10, 2026 and September 26, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
Spectra versus Beatsy: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSpectraBeatsy
Price$1.99Free — better
Rating4.6 (1.5K ratings)4.9 (23 ratings) — better
Positive reviews65.3% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings1.5K — better23
Update frequencyFortnightlyFortnightly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidFree — better
Best chart rank#96 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS14.0 — better15.0
Further details — not scored
Size32 MB3 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSpectre Software Inc.Rare Realities, LLC

Customer experience

Spectra

All ratings1,529 ratings
Positive88.9%
Neutral2.7%
Negative8.4%
Written reviews294 reviews
Positive65.3%
Neutral8.5%
Negative26.2%

Beatsy

All ratings23 ratings
Positive95.7%
Neutral0.0%
Negative4.3%
Written reviews5 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Spectra

No in-app purchases

None

Beatsy

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Spectra free?
Spectra costs $1.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Beatsy free?
Beatsy is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Spectra or Beatsy?
Beatsy is rated higher. Spectra averages 4.6 out of 5 from 1.5K ratings, while Beatsy averages 4.9 from 23 ratings.
Do Spectra or Beatsy have ads?
Neither Spectra nor Beatsy shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Spectra or Beatsy?
Spectra ships an update fortnightly, and Beatsy fortnightly. Most recently, Spectra was updated on October 10, 2026 and Beatsy on September 26, 2026.

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