Ultimate Guitar vs Progressions
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Ultimate Guitar
Access a vast library of guitar, bass, and ukulele chords, tabs, and lyrics. Learn songs with interactive lessons, original sounds, and practice tools. Create and share your own tabs, or explore curated collections.
- Extensive chord, tab, and lyric library
- Interactive lessons and courses
- Original song sounds with Tonebridge
- User-created tab sharing
- Offline tab access
- Left-handed mode
- Built-in tuner and metronome
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Access the world's largest catalogue of guitar, bass & ukulele chords, tabs, and lyrics. Challenge yourself to learn your favourite songs and more! You have choices galore: • Search for songs by genre, rating, your ability, tuning level • Explore UG Tab collections. Use the finder for your faves, fall in love with something new, feel the nostalgic vibes. Search by themes like House or Acoustic, or check out the latest album releases. Find collections based on your interests such as Star Wars or funky Bollywood beats. • Focus on guitar techniques, find songs personal to you in collections from professional guitarists • Anytime you feel inspired to share a song, create and upload your shot on the spot. It’s that easy! Share the best parts of your performance with your like minded community of fellow musicians. • Reach your true musical potential – learn to play with UG Courses here. Access over 2500 lessons for any skill level and instrument type from guitar, drums to piano and more. Learn different styles and techniques with guidance from professional musicians. Progress at your own speed and on any device, anytime, anywhere. • Play 29K+ popular songs in their original sound with Tonebridge Guitar Effects And it doesn’t end there Check out all these features: • Explore guitar, bass & ukulele chords, tabs, and lyrics for songs in every genre • Watch videos of songs to refresh your memory or use as backing tracks • Compile your favourite tabs in playlists from our tab collections • Create ‘Personal’ tabs to edit chords, lyrics or change tabs to suit your needs • Option to Switch to left-handed mode • Set a font style and size to match the tab • Offline access to favourite tabs - available at all times • Enjoy dark mode for a gig With a Pro account: • Use interactive tabs to play songs note by note, at your own pace • Select the chord variation that best suits you from the world's biggest library of chords • Use ‘Simplify’ to make difficult songs easier • Jam with high quality tabs - over 29,000 that include backing tracks and synchronised lyrics • Hit the right tempo with metronome • Transpose songs to get just the right tone for you • Take advantage of autoscroll during your practice sessions • Achieve the right sound with the built-in guitar tuner • Share, print, and export your fave songs Problems or feedback? We are always eager to improve your Tabs experience and strive for excellence in doing so. Let us help you in person by contacting our development team at support.ios@ultimate-guitar.com, and we will endeavour to meet your needs. Please do not post bug reports or feature requests as an App Store review. Subscription information: • The "UG Pro + UG Courses + UG Sing" subscription gives you unlimited access to the app's premium content and features • The subscription price is $9.99/monthly, $59.99/yearly* • Payment will be charged to your iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase • Subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current period • Your account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period at the cost of the chosen package • Subscriptions may be managed, and auto-renewal may be turned off via ‘Account Settings’ on your device after purchase • There is no way to cancel your current subscription during its active period • Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription to that publication, where applicable. * Prices are equal to the value determined by ‘Apple's App Store Matrix’ as the equivalent of the subscription price in $USD. You can read our privacy policy at https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/about/privacy.htm You can read our terms of service at https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/about/tos.htm
Progressions
Generate unique chord progressions beyond traditional scales using mathematical algorithms. Control complexity and freedom to explore new harmonic territories. Features include arpeggiators, strumming patterns, and humanization for expressive musical output.
- Generate unique chord progressions
- Adjust complexity and freedom levels
- Block Chord, Arpeggiator, and Strummer modes
- Supports open and closed chords with selectable voicings
- Humanize chord and note timings
- Integrated ARP and STRUM pattern editor
- Sync multiple instances
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Progressions is an AUv3 MIDI plugin for your favourite DAW. It can be used to generate a unique set of chords that are unrelated to traditional scales, which become predictable and repetative over time. Instead, Progressions uses a unique way of mathermaically generating a series of related chords using only a root note and mode (major or minor). Chord sequences are limited by the selected complexity and freedom levels, which mimic the way traditional composers of old would wander away from tonality and back again. The complexity level start off at Basic, which uses only the most common chords (I, IV, V and relative minor ii, iii, and vi triads). As you progress through the levels, you can add parallel majors and minors, sus and dom chords etc. At level 3 we start to introduce 6th and 7th chords, and then 9ths chords, all the way to 11ths, 13ths, Quartals and all their variations. The freedom level allows us to specify how far to drift away from tonality (the root), even allowing you to create never ending randomized soundscapes. Progressions allows you to quickly randomize a toolbox of chords, that can be played in a variety of modes (block chords, arpeggiated, or strummed). These can be synced to a host application, triggered remotely or pieced together into a song. Song mode allow you to change play modes on the fly as well as being able to control many features of the app in real time. Progressions supports open and closed chords with selectable voicings. It has an intelligent algorithm that attempts to align top notes of chords, add additional bass, and open chord padding to give equal weight to chords with only 3 notes. You can even play with rootless voicings. The Humanize section allows you to control chord and note timings, as well as set velocity variations to ensure things don't get too robitic. Progressions also features an integrated arpeggiator and strummming pattern editor. You can load up to 6 arp and 6 strum patterns at the same time and seemlessly switch between them manually, remotely, or using song mode. If you run multiple instances, Progressions allows you to sync your chord pads, song chain, arpeggiator / strum patterns between instances. Progressions can be loaded as a MIDI plugin or as an Instrument for those programs that don't support MIDI plugins (such as GB). Additionally when loaded as an instrument, you can use either internal sounds (soundfonts) or send MIDI directly to other MIDI instruments. Features • Block Chord, Arpeggiator and Strummer modes. • Supports open and closed Chords. • Varying complexity levels of chords. • Freedom levels control how far from the root key you can go. • Rootless voicing mode. • Open chord padding support. • Additional bass note mode. • Supports all common chord types. • Edit the preferred chord list to exclude certain chord types. • Input MIDI control for chords and play modes. • Automatic top note alignment of chords. • Hold Pedal support. • Built in ARP and STRUM editor. • Humanize options for chord and note velocity and timings. • Comprehensive Song Mode with 256 steps and looping. • Randomize chord progressions, arps and strumming patterns. • Route Chord/Arp/Strum modes & MIDI thru to any of 4 output ports. • Supports soundfonts when loaded as an Instrument plugin. • Sync multiple instances of Progressions. • AUv3 compatible MIDI plugin supporting Sync to Host.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Ultimate Guitar at Free against Progressions's $6.99. Ultimate Guitar also leads on rating (4.7 vs 4.1) and ratings volume (482K vs 34). Progressions's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 12) and ads (none vs shown). On update cadence 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
Ultimate Guitar is free to download; Progressions costs $6.99 up front. Ultimate Guitar sells 9 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month. Progressions asks for nothing beyond the download.
Ultimate Guitar holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.1. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Ultimate Guitar has 482K ratings behind it against 34, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 34% of Ultimate Guitar's written reviews are positive against 67% of Progressions's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Ultimate Guitar ships an update weekly, Progressions every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and October 30, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Ultimate Guitar | Progressions |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $6.99 |
| Rating | 4.7 (482K ratings) — better | 4.1 (34 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 33.8% of reviews | 66.7% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 482K — better | 34 |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Best chart rank | #7 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.1 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 232 MB | 117 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Ultimate Guitar | 4Pockets.com |
Customer experience
Ultimate Guitar
Progressions
Bugs and requests
Ultimate Guitar
Reported bugs
4 issues- Autoscroll feature not working as expected
- Inability to change instruments in Guitar Pro tabs
- Tuner not accurately detecting strings
- Freezing and crashing on certain devices
Requested features
4 requests- Allow adjustable font size for printed tabs
- Improve search and navigation
- Add more advanced features for experienced users
- Provide better organization and categorization of content
Progressions
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Ultimate Guitar
- Ultimate Guitar Pro7 Days trial2 variants$9.991 Month
- Ultimate Guitar Pro Sale$9.991 Month
- Ultimate Guitar Pro$9.991 Month
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- UG Pro+ (1 Month)$9.991 Month
- Ultimate Guitar Pro Sale2 variants$22.991 Year
- Annual Pro Access$29.991 Year
- Ultimate Guitar Pro Sale$29.991 Year
- Ultimate Guitar Pro1 Month trial$39.991 Year
- UG Pro+ (1 Year)7 Days trial$39.991 Year
Progressions
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Ultimate Guitar free?
Is Progressions free?
Which has better reviews, Ultimate Guitar or Progressions?
Do Ultimate Guitar or Progressions have ads?
Which is updated more often, Ultimate Guitar or Progressions?
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