Comparison

Piano Ear Training vs Active Ear

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

Head to head
About

Piano Ear Training

Develop your musical ear with interactive exercises for intervals, chords, scales, and melodies. Personalize your training to focus on specific areas and track your progress. Ideal for musicians of all levels, from beginners to advanced.

Highlights
  • Interval training
  • Chord distinction
  • Pitch training
  • Melodic dictation
  • Chord progression exercises
  • Personalized training levels
  • Progress tracking
Features
Read full description

• Suitable for beginners to advanced musicians with all the essential ear training exercises in various levels. • Quickly develop aural skills by personalising your training by focusing on specific chords, intervals, progressions, scales etc. • Track progress as you improve efficiently in each ear training discipline. • A simple intuitive design enables you quickly enjoy ear training and follow the help and tutorials to get most out of the ear trainer. • Configurable piano which strongly aids connection between visual and aural skills and musical instruments. • Most popular and extensive ear training with over 1 millions users. • Highly recommended by professional and student musicians in top musical schools contributing to the design for their own use. • Ideal for all musicians as you can easily change the instrument sounds. Exercises: ***** interval training ***** Being able to determine intervals between notes in the key skill to playing by ear. Challenge your expertise by changing the base note or playing the notes together. This is made easy as it associates an interval with a well known song. ***** chord distinction ***** Can you distinguish between a Major from a Minor chord for example? There are 100s of chords to differentiate. You can help your understanding by selecting arpeggio mode to aid chord distinction and selecting highlight to visualise the construction of the chords. You can challenge yourself by changing the key of the chord. Work your way quickly and steadily through the levels. Another exercise to help you fully understand musical theory and composition. ***** higher lower ***** Given 2 notes, can you identify whether the second note is higher or lower in pitch than the first note? Musicians can train their ears to recognise different pitches. Whilst this is a beginners exercise, you can challenge yourself by reducing the range of the 2 notes played. ***** pitch training ***** After hearing a pitch, can you accurately play that same pitch on the piano? This exercise allows your to zoom in on the note using relative pitch skills, and will record how many notes it takes for you to correctly identify. You can easily adjust the difficult by setting a time interval between listening and playing. ***** interval comparison ***** Given 2 intervals, can you determine whether the second interval is wider or narrower in distance? ***** pitch identification ***** A popular test that comes up in music grade aural exams. Given a chord can you identify a specific note/pitch within it? For example, given a C Major chord, can you find the highest note? ***** melodic dictation ***** Listen to a melody and then play it back on the piano. You can make it easier by adjusting the speed and focusing on a few notes at a time. ***** chord progression ***** Can you distinguish a I - IV - V - I progression from a I - V- IV - I? Contains all the most common chord progressions which you will find in nearly all the most popular songs. ***** scale identification ***** Listen to a scale and can you then identify it as a Major scale, Harmonic Minor or Natural Minor for example? ***** absolute pitch ***** Given the same note played at different octaves, can you identify its pitch? Includes a Learning mode to imprint the pitches into the brain.

About

Active Ear

Develop your musical ear with a comprehensive ear training app. It offers various exercises to help musicians identify pitches, intervals, chords, and progressions. Customize your learning with practice modes and test your knowledge with quizzes.

Highlights
  • Pitch Recognition
  • Interval Training
  • Chord Quality Identification
  • Bassline Training
  • Progression Training
  • Chord Inversions
  • Customizable Practice Mode
  • Quiz Mode
Features
Read full description

Active Ear is for musicians of all skill levels and instrument types. With dozens of exercises ranging from beginner to advanced, Active Ear focuses on teaching you to identify pitches, intervals, chords, and progressions using only your Ear. The Practice Mode of the app allows you to customize the challenges to focus only on areas you're interested in improving. Once you're confident with the Practice Mode, you test yourself in the Quiz Mode of the app to see how well you understand the concepts. Active Ear Comes with six Ear Training Programs: -
Pitch Recognition -
Interval Training -
Chord Quality -
Bassline Training
 -
Progression Training
 - Chord Inversions

Screenshots

Piano Ear Training4 screens
Active Ear4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Active Ear at none against Piano Ear Training's 2. Active Ear also leads on ads (none vs shown) and review sentiment (94% vs 59%). Piano Ear Training's advantage is ratings volume (189 vs 50). On price, update cadence, 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. Piano Ear Training sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Active Ear asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Active Ear holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 189 and 50 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 59% of Piano Ear Training's written reviews are positive against 94% of Active Ear's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Piano Ear Training ships an update every 5 weeks, Active Ear monthly. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and June 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Piano Ear Training versus Active Ear: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPiano Ear TrainingActive Ear
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.5 (189 ratings)4.7 (50 ratings) — better
Positive reviews58.9% of reviews93.8% of reviews — better
Number of ratings189 — better50
Update frequencyEvery 5 weeksMonthly — better
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS14.0 — better15.1
Further details — not scored
Size61 MB23 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLearn To Master LtdMCPHERSON'S MUSIC LLC

Customer experience

Piano Ear Training

All ratings189 ratings
Positive86.2%
Neutral7.4%
Negative6.3%
Written reviews56 reviews
Positive58.9%
Neutral12.5%
Negative28.6%

Active Ear

All ratings50 ratings
Positive94.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative6.0%
Written reviews32 reviews
Positive93.8%
Neutral0.0%
Negative6.3%

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Piano Ear Training

Subscriptions2
  • Premium Version$2.991 Month
  • Annual Premium Version7 Days trial$24.991 Year
None

Active Ear

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Piano Ear Training free?
Piano Ear Training is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Active Ear free?
Active Ear is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Piano Ear Training or Active Ear?
Active Ear is rated higher. Piano Ear Training averages 4.5 out of 5 from 189 ratings, while Active Ear averages 4.7 from 50 ratings.
Do Piano Ear Training or Active Ear have ads?
Piano Ear Training shows ads; Active Ear does not.
Which is updated more often, Piano Ear Training or Active Ear?
Piano Ear Training ships an update every 5 weeks, and Active Ear monthly. Most recently, Piano Ear Training was updated on September 21, 2026 and Active Ear on June 10, 2026.

Other comparisons