Comparison

Guess the Notes vs OpenEar

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

Head to head
About

Guess the Notes

Train your ear to identify musical notes played on a guitar. The app offers three difficulty levels, providing increasing numbers of choices as you progress. Track your performance with visible correct and incorrect answer counts.

Highlights
  • Guitar note recognition
  • Three difficulty levels
  • Multiple choice answers
  • Performance tracking
  • Beginner, Intermediate, Expert modes
Features
Read full description

Use "Guess the Notes" to train your ears to recognize the notes played on a guitar You'll be able to choose between 3 difficulty levels. In the Beginner level, for every note played, you'll be presented with 2 choices of note names and you'll have to choose between those. For Intermediate level, you get 4 choices and for Expert 6 notes. You will also be able to see the total correct and incorrect answers on top of the screen! Have fun!

About

OpenEar

This app offers a variety of exercises designed to improve musicians' aural skills, focusing on tonal music. It helps users master recognizing musical patterns through exercises like scale degree and chord identification, and progression analysis.

Highlights
  • Scale Degree Identification
  • Chord Function Identification
  • Common Progressions
  • Chord Types
  • Scale Degrees with Chords
  • Triad Inversions
  • Intervals
Features
Read full description

OpenEar is the open source ear training app for musicians. It's goal is to provide a flexible variety of exercises with emphasis on tonal music so musicians will be able to master recognizing any musical pattern that might help them become better musicians. Currently includes the following exercises: 1. Scale Degree Identification 2. Chord Function Identification (identify chords in roman numeral analysis) - the only app in the world that allow this! 3. Common Progressions 4. Chord Types - including settings for root degrees per type so you can practice only common types in a tonal context 5. Scale Degrees with Chords - absolutely revolutionary exercise that help develop both scale degree and chord identification in tonal context. 6. Triad inversions - identify a position of a closed voiced triad 7. Intervals - the classic atonal intervals exercise. Not recommended for beginners as research shows that apart from advance usecases, intervals are not effective in developing good aural skills in tonal music. Check out our GitHub page for contribution and feedback: https://github.com/ShacharHarshuv/open-ear

Screenshots

Guess the Notes4 screens
OpenEar4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Guess the Notes at every 6 days against OpenEar's monthly. Guess the Notes also leads on iOS requirement (8.0 vs 14.0). OpenEar's advantage is review sentiment (63% vs 50%) and ratings volume (10 vs 3). 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Guess the Notes against 4.6 for OpenEar. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3 and 10 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 50% of Guess the Notes's written reviews are positive against 63% of OpenEar's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Guess the Notes ships an update every 6 days, OpenEar monthly. The most recent releases landed on October 2, 2026 and October 11, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Guess the Notes versus OpenEar: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGuess the NotesOpenEar
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (3 ratings) — better4.6 (10 ratings)
Positive reviews50.0% of reviews62.5% of reviews — better
Number of ratings310 — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 days — betterMonthly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS8.0 — better14.0
Further details — not scored
Size145 MB106 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperPixolity AB (Apps)Shachar Har-Shuv

Customer experience

Guess the Notes

All ratings3 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews4 reviews
Positive50.0%
Neutral50.0%
Negative0.0%

OpenEar

All ratings10 ratings
Positive90.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative10.0%
Written reviews8 reviews
Positive62.5%
Neutral0.0%
Negative37.5%

In-app purchases

None

Guess the Notes

No in-app purchases

None

OpenEar

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Guess the Notes free?
Guess the Notes is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is OpenEar free?
OpenEar is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Guess the Notes or OpenEar?
Guess the Notes is rated higher. Guess the Notes averages 4.7 out of 5 from 3 ratings, while OpenEar averages 4.6 from 10 ratings.
Do Guess the Notes or OpenEar have ads?
Neither Guess the Notes nor OpenEar shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Guess the Notes or OpenEar?
Guess the Notes ships an update every 6 days, and OpenEar monthly. Most recently, Guess the Notes was updated on October 2, 2026 and OpenEar on October 11, 2026.

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