Ultimate Guitar vs Guitar Sight Reading Trainer
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Ultimate Guitar
Access the world's largest library of guitar, bass, and ukulele chords, tabs, and lyrics. Learn your favorite songs with interactive lessons, backing tracks, and a built-in tuner. Create and share your own tabs, and play along with original song sounds.
- Largest catalog of chords, tabs, and lyrics
- Interactive lessons for all skill levels
- Play songs with original sound and backing tracks
- Create and upload personal tabs
- Built-in guitar tuner and metronome
- Offline access to favorite tabs
- Left-handed mode and customizable display
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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
Guitar Sight Reading Trainer
Enhance your music reading skills with this app, focusing on fretboard note identification and positional playing. It offers various practice modes, supports numerous scales and tunings, and tracks your progress. Ideal for guitarists looking to improve their ability to read sheet music.
- Note identification on fretboard
- Positional playing focus
- Practice and test modes
- Key signature and scale support
- Customizable fret groups
- Alternate tuning support
- Left-handed guitar support
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Sight-reading skills open the door to reading written music and familiarizing yourself with various music styles. Sight-reading is not a daunting task, and with sufficient practice, anyone can develop this valuable skill. Our app is designed to help you quickly identify notes across every part of the fretboard, with a special focus on positional playing. By enhancing your sight-reading abilities, you'll find it easier to focus on other musical aspects like harmony and rhythm. Features: PRACTICE & TEST MODE - Four different modes of use: 1. Locate notes on the fretboard based on the notes in staff. 2. Locate notes on the fretboard based on note name and pitch. 3. Find the names of notes on the staff (without the fretboard) 4. Identify the names of notes presented on the fretboard. - Automatic detection of problematic notes. KEY SIGNATURES & SCALES - Key signature support, from 1 to 6 sharps or 1 to 6 flats. - Automatic selection of the enharmonic notes for each scale to prevent double sharps or double flats in the key signature. - Scales include major, minor, melodic minor, harmonic minor, blues, pentatonic, and all modal scales. FRETS, STRINGS & NOTE SELECTION - Frets are grouped to limit the number of notes to practice and test. - Predefined fret groups, e.g., 0-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, 0-12, 13-17, etc. - You can define custom fret groups. - The highlighted fret group is displayed on the fretboard. - Your sight-reading progress is tracked per fret group. - The longest streak record per fret group measures your sight-reading accuracy. - You can select specific strings for the highlighted area. - Test notes can be limited to naturals or notes from a selected scale. READ AHEAD - Reading ahead is a crucial skill for effective sight-reading. - You can adjust the number of notes to read ahead. OTHER - More than 15 alternate guitar tunings e.g., drop D, NST (new standard tuning) and all fourths tuning. - Support for left-handed guitars. - Option to display the fretboard in perspective (in landscape mode). - A universal app compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. - Supports all screen sizes. - No ads or in-app purchases. - Dark mode support (iOS 13+). - Tested on iOS and iPadOS 26.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Guitar Sight Reading Trainer at 91% against Ultimate Guitar's 34%. Guitar Sight Reading Trainer also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 12) and ads (none vs shown). Ultimate Guitar's advantage is price (Free vs $1.99) and update cadence (every 6 days vs every 3 months). On 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
Ultimate Guitar is free to download; Guitar Sight Reading Trainer costs $1.99 up front. Ultimate Guitar sells 9 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month. Guitar Sight Reading Trainer asks for nothing beyond the download.
Guitar Sight Reading Trainer holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Ultimate Guitar has 477K ratings behind it against 16, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 34% of Ultimate Guitar's written reviews are positive against 91% of Guitar Sight Reading Trainer's.
Ultimate Guitar ships an update every 6 days, Guitar Sight Reading Trainer every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and September 18, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Ultimate Guitar | Guitar Sight Reading Trainer |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $1.99 |
| Rating | 4.7 (477K ratings) | 4.9 (16 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 33.8% of reviews | 90.6% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 477K — better | 16 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 days — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Freemium — better | Paid |
| Best chart rank | #7 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 16.1 — better | 17.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 228 MB | 11 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Ultimate Guitar | Rolfs Apps |
Customer experience
Ultimate Guitar
Guitar Sight Reading Trainer
User reviews
Ultimate Guitar
From 477K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Great resource for learning guitar
- 👍 Huge library of songs and tabs
- 👍 Helpful features like auto-scroll and transposition
- 👍 Supportive community
- 👍 Useful tools like tuner and metronome
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent crashes and bugs
- 💰 Aggressive upselling and paywalls
- 🔒 Difficulty canceling subscriptions
- 🤔 Inconsistent quality of user-generated tabs
- 🤔 Confusing pricing and subscription model
Guitar Sight Reading Trainer
From 16 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Great for sight reading
- 👍 Helps with fretboard memorization
- 👍 Customizable settings
- 👍 Horizontal view is innovative
- 👍 Developer responsiveness
Room to improve
- 🤔 Limited to single notes
- 🤔 Sound quality not realistic
- 🤔 UI could be improved
- 🤔 Fretboard presentation not realistic
- 🤔 Fret grouping awkward
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
Guitar Sight Reading Trainer
Reported bugs
3 issues- Sound does not work (resolved by turning off mute)
- Bug for lefties: string isolation incorrect
- App does not launch on iPhone 3g
Requested features
34 requests- Ukulele version
- See whole fretboard at once in landscape
- Disable timer altogether
- Choose any range of fretboard for testing
- Use sheet music for actual sight reading
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- Standalone chord trainer
- Real guitar interface to play notes
- Option to see whole fretboard at once
- Pause button
- Smarter re-testing of weak points
- Play answers back on a real guitar without touching screen
- Generate short musical phrases for sight reading
- Add intervals mode
- Chords or double stops
- Scales mode
- Save and restore settings
- Better visualization of stats
- Tweak random generator to avoid repeated notes
- Concentrate on problem notes
- Moveable SOL-FA
- Option to only display note on selected string
- Melody trainer
- Easier to touch open string options
- Bass guitar version
- Fretless bass version
- Option to leave sharps and flats off
- Review lesson showing notes on certain strings
- Test on more than one note at a time
- Pick a key or scale to be tested in
- Dark mode
- Advanced analytics dashboard
- Option to change fretboard presentation
- Bass guitar support (5 string)
- Switch to bass clef
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 Pro7 Days trial$39.991 Year
- UG Pro+ (1 Year)7 Days trial$39.991 Year
Guitar Sight Reading Trainer
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Ultimate Guitar free?
Is Guitar Sight Reading Trainer free?
Which has better reviews, Ultimate Guitar or Guitar Sight Reading Trainer?
Do Ultimate Guitar or Guitar Sight Reading Trainer have ads?
Which is updated more often, Ultimate Guitar or Guitar Sight Reading Trainer?
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