Comparison

iReal Pro vs iWriteMusic

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

Head to head
About

iReal Pro

This app provides a virtual band accompaniment for musicians to practice with, offering realistic sounding instruments and a variety of styles. It also functions as a digital chord chart book, allowing users to create, edit, and share their own song charts.

Highlights
  • Virtual band accompaniment
  • Create, edit, and share chord charts
  • Thousands of downloadable songs
  • Chord diagrams and scale recommendations
  • Practice exercises and transposition
  • Export charts and audio
  • Cloud synchronization
Features
Read full description

iReal Pro is two things musicians love in one app: a realistic backing band that plays along with you, and a huge free library of chord charts you can pull up anytime — at practice, at a jam session, or on a gig. Need to transpose a song for a singer? Done. Want to practice with a full rhythm section behind you? Hit play. Named one of TIME Magazine's 50 Best Inventions and trusted by thousands of students, teachers, and pros at schools like Berklee College of Music — iReal Pro has been helping musicians get better since 2008. BAND • 50 accompaniment styles — Swing, Bossa Nova, Blues, Funk, Rock, Bluegrass, Reggae, Latin, Gypsy Jazz, Country, and more • Customize each style with acoustic or electric piano, Fender Rhodes, guitars, upright or electric bass, drums, vibraphone, organ • 40 additional styles — blues, salsa, Brazilian — available as in-app purchases BOOK • Download thousands of free chord charts shared by the iReal Pro community • Create your own charts in minutes with the built-in editor • Organize charts into playlists for gigs, sets, or lessons PRACTICE • Adjust tempo, loop difficult sections, transpose to any key • Automatic tempo increase and key cycling for focused practice • Global Eb, Bb, F, and G transposition for horn players REFERENCE • Guitar, ukulele, and piano fingerings for any chord • Tap any chord in your chart to see how it's played • Scale suggestions for improvisation SHARE • Share charts and playlists with other iReal Pro users • Export charts as PDF or MusicXML • Export backing tracks as audio or MIDI files • Sync across iPhone, iPad, and Mac with iCloud FOR TEACHERS • Create playlists of exercises or tunes for students • Use in the classroom, over live stream, or while screen-sharing lessons We're a small team of musicians who built this app because we needed it ourselves. We hope you enjoy using it as much as we do.

About

iWriteMusic

Create professional-quality sheet music efficiently on your smartphone. This app offers an intuitive interface and a powerful input system designed for small screens, making music notation accessible for musicians of all levels. Share your compositions as PDFs, JPGs, or MIDI files.

Highlights
  • Intuitive and simple user interface
  • Efficient One-Flick Entry System
  • Professional quality sheet music creation
  • Supports major notation elements
  • Useful playback options
  • Export to PDF, JPG, and MIDI
Features
Read full description

Music Writing is easy and fun when you use iWriteMusic! Ever wished you could quickly create sheet music in your small free time? Ever thought smartphones were too small to create sheet music? iWriteMusic enables efficient sheet music creation even on small smartphone screens. Unlike other cramped and cumbersome apps, it is designed meticulously for small screens,comprehensive suite of essential tools for concerts, lessons, and music classes! Best fit for professional musicians, music teachers and students. For songwriters, composers and arrangers. For both singers and instrumentalists (piano, violin, cello, guitar, flute, saxophone, trumpet, drums, etc.). Great for writing down ideas, creating lesson materials, creating lead sheets, or creating scores and parts for chorus groups, choirs, chamber orchestras, jazz bands, Latin bands, orchestras, and more. For daily practice, rehearsals, concerts, iWriteMusic will help you enrich your musical life! Check out 7 reasons to choose iWriteMusic. 1. You can understand this app almost instantly! Because of Truly Intuitive and Extremely Simple user interface, you barely need to read pages of manuals nor watching numbers of instruction videos. Unlike Finale, Sibelius and other similar apps, you just have a few things to learn to be able to use this app pretty well. 2.Double your productivity with our Highly Efficient Input System. If you’re already familiar with notation apps and looking for faster & more efficient entry system, try our innovative One-Flick Entry System along with Traditional Entry System to get your job done in no time! What is Traditional Entry System? - The choices will appear with ToolBox. - Select a value and the location separately. - Recommended to those who are not yet familiar with any music notation apps. What is OneFlick Entry System? - The choices will appear when you touch the screen. - Select a location and the value at once. - The selection will change as you slide your finger to left/right. - Recommended to those who are familiar with music notation apps and looking for faster and more efficient entry system. 3. Creates beautiful sheet music - absolutely professional quality! - rich options for page layout adjustment - easy parts creation - easy score/parts management - direct print-out via AirPrint 4. Supports most of major notation elements - multi-track writing - multi-voice writing - percussion/drums notation - chord symbols and lyrics - multi-bar rest - time change - key change - clef change - tempo change - grace note - articulations and dynamics marks - easy song transpose - partial transpose and many more! 5. Useful playback options for practice - mixer with solo, mute and voice select - loop and swing options 6. Data & sheet music sharing - exports/Imports iWriteMusic data file - exports PDF or JPG - exports Standard MIDI file which can be imported by other apps such as GarageBand 7. Extremely Compact Size (15 MB) You can save your device storage space for photos and other apps. ATTENTION: Latency during playback and drawing may occur by device capacity or number of tracks and background applications.

Screenshots

iReal Pro4 screens
iWriteMusic4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: iWriteMusic at $9.99 against iReal Pro's $21.99. iReal Pro's advantage is rating (4.9 vs 4.5) and ratings volume (11K vs 181). On update cadence, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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

iReal Pro costs $21.99 and iWriteMusic $9.99 up front. iReal Pro sells 3 one-off in-app purchases and iWriteMusic sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

iReal Pro holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: iReal Pro has 11K ratings behind it against 181, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 83% of iReal Pro's written reviews are positive against 73% of iWriteMusic's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

iReal Pro ships an update every 3 weeks, iWriteMusic every 4 weeks. Both last shipped on October 26, 2026.

Scorecard5 real differences · 6 level
iReal Pro versus iWriteMusic: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameteriReal ProiWriteMusic
Price$21.99$9.99 — better
Rating4.9 (11K ratings) — better4.5 (181 ratings)
Positive reviews83.3% of reviews — better73.3% of reviews
Number of ratings11K — better181
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeks — betterEvery 4 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#8 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS16.616.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size179 MB19 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTechnimo LLCiWriteMusicProject

Customer experience

iReal Pro

All ratings11,148 ratings
Positive97.5%
Neutral1.2%
Negative1.3%
Written reviews1,010 reviews
Positive83.3%
Neutral8.0%
Negative8.7%

iWriteMusic

All ratings181 ratings
Positive90.1%
Neutral4.4%
Negative5.5%
Written reviews150 reviews
Positive73.3%
Neutral8.0%
Negative18.7%

Bugs and requests

iReal Pro

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Occasional skipping or timing issues with playback
  • Trouble with registration and login process
  • Compatibility issues with newer devices or operating systems

Requested features

7 requests
  • Add ability to write rhythm notation
  • Integrate with Real Books
  • Improve sound quality and add more instrument options
  • Add melodies and lyrics support
  • Improve chord editing and customization
Show 2 more
  • Add more styles and grooves
  • Improve sync and backup functionality across devices

iWriteMusic

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

3 purchases

iReal Pro

One-time3
  • Blues style backing tracks$6.99
  • Salsa style backing tracks$6.99
  • Brazilian backing tracks$6.99
1 purchases

iWriteMusic

One-time1
  • Advanced File Management$0.99

Questions

Is iReal Pro free?
iReal Pro costs $21.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Is iWriteMusic free?
iWriteMusic costs $9.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, iReal Pro or iWriteMusic?
iReal Pro is rated higher. iReal Pro averages 4.9 out of 5 from 11K ratings, while iWriteMusic averages 4.5 from 181 ratings.
Do iReal Pro or iWriteMusic have ads?
Neither iReal Pro nor iWriteMusic shows ads.
Which is updated more often, iReal Pro or iWriteMusic?
iReal Pro ships an update every 3 weeks, and iWriteMusic every 4 weeks. Most recently, iReal Pro was updated on October 26, 2026 and iWriteMusic on October 26, 2026.

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