Comparison

Deadsound vs Dead Sets

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

Head to head
About

Deadsound

Access and stream over 17,000 Grateful Dead live recordings. Search shows by date, venue, song, or source, and build a personal library of your favorite performances. Enjoy offline playback and daily historical discoveries.

Highlights
  • Search 17,000+ Grateful Dead recordings
  • Filter by date, venue, song, or source
  • Intelligent caching for offline playback
  • Background playback with lock screen controls
  • Gapless audio
  • Favorite and track listened shows
  • Daily historical discoveries
Read full description

Every Dead show. One app. We built Deadsound because finding the best tapes on should be easy. Now you can search 17,000+ Grateful Dead recordings by date, venue, song, or source, and start listening in seconds. FIND ANYTHING Search by setlist to find every "Dark Star," or every show where they played "Dark Star" plus "Estimated" and also "Blow Away." Filter by Charlie Miller transfers or Betty Boards, or by AUD/SBD/Matrix. Narrow by year, city, or venue. LISTEN ANYWHERE Intelligent caching means your music keeps playing even when your signal doesn't. Full background playback with lock screen controls, all with gapless audio. BUILD YOUR LIBRARY Favorite the shows that matter. Track what you've heard. Pick up where you left off. DISCOVER DAILY See what happened today in Dead history. A new discovery every day. Completely free. No ads. No subscription. The music belongs to everyone. Streams from Archive.org. Not affiliated with the Grateful Dead.

About

Dead Sets

Features
Read full description

Every Grateful Dead setlist. And now, the music. Dead Sets is the fastest way to dive into the Dead's live catalog: 1,600+ shows from 1972 to 1995, every setlist searchable by song, venue, city, or year — entirely offline, no account, no ads. LISTEN — Almost every show links to its recordings in the archive.org Grateful Dead collection. Dead Sets auto-picks the best-rated soundboard and streams it right on the setlist page — or flip between every tape of the night, soundboards, audience recordings, and matrixes, even mid-song. The mini-player follows you through the app, and playback continues with the screen locked. SEARCH — Type "Scarlet Begonias" and see every performance. Filter by year, state, or country. Tap any song in a setlist to trace it across two decades. TODAY IN DEAD HISTORY — What did the band play on this date in '77? In '89? One tab, every year. SAVED — Heart your favorite shows, and mark the ones you attended with a ticket stub. Your whole trip, tallied, stored only on your device. CHAT WITH A DEAD HEAD (subscription) — A virtual dead head who's seen 300+ shows and followed the whole Europe '72 tour. Ask him anything — "best Dark Star of '73?", "what happened today in Dead history?" — and tap the shows he mentions to jump right to them. $1.99/month after a 7-day free trial, 30 messages a day, cancel anytime. Setlist data from the Grateful Dead Setlist Archive (cs.cmu.edu), cross-checked against archive.org and setlist.fm, with hundreds of hand-restored corrections. Recordings stream from the archive.org Grateful Dead collection, where the band has long blessed fan recordings. Not affiliated with Grateful Dead Productions. Just built by someone who gets it. Terms of Use: https://bowtiedjungle.dev/terms Privacy Policy: https://bowtiedjungle.dev/privacy

Screenshots

Deadsound4 screens
Dead Sets4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Deadsound at none against Dead Sets's 1. Dead Sets's advantage is update cadence (every 2 days vs fortnightly). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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. Dead Sets sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $1.99 per month. Deadsound asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Deadsound ships an update fortnightly, Dead Sets every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on September 19, 2026 and September 15, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Deadsound versus Dead Sets: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDeadsoundDead Sets
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (5 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings5 — better—
Update frequencyFortnightlyEvery 2 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS15.115.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size44 MB13 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperJames BarnesMatt Selph

In-app purchases

None

Deadsound

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Dead Sets

Subscriptions1
  • Dead Sets7 Days trial$1.991 Month

Questions

Is Deadsound free?
Deadsound is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Dead Sets free?
Dead Sets is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Deadsound or Dead Sets have ads?
Neither Deadsound nor Dead Sets shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Deadsound or Dead Sets?
Deadsound ships an update fortnightly, and Dead Sets every 2 days. Most recently, Deadsound was updated on September 19, 2026 and Dead Sets on September 15, 2026.

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