Acaville vs BrainBud
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Acaville
Stream contemporary a cappella music, interviews, and tips 24/7. Access podcasts and read blog content related to the a cappella community. This app is a dedicated hub for all things a cappella.
- 24/7 a cappella music streaming
- Listen to a cappella podcasts
- Read a cappella blog content
- Interviews and tips
- Dedicated a cappella community hub
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From The Bobs to The Bubs, from Pentatonix to Divisi, Acaville is your home for contemporary a cappella music, interviews, tips, and information. Use the app to stream Acaville, listen to podcasts, review the blog, and more. We're always on, streaming 24 hours a day!
BrainBud
This app acts as a central controller for other music creation applications, allowing you to manage keys and scales simultaneously. It integrates with a variety of Bud apps via MIDI, enabling synchronized changes and broadcasting of musical parameters. Experiment with randomization and automate settings through its AUv3 plugin.
- Centralized key and scale control
- MIDI out to multiple Bud apps
- Budcast for parameter broadcasting
- Randomize musical parameters
- AUv3 plugin for automation
- Requires other Bud apps to function
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BrainBud controls the keys and scales of the Bud apps all at once. Connect BrainBud’s MIDI out to MIDI inputs of: - SnakeBud - PolyBud - MelodyBud - ShiftBud - ScaleBud 2 - In Theory - Textquencer - Binarhythmic - Auto Bass - BounceBud - MuseBud - Kebarp - FuncBud - Note to Be You can also broadcast the current key/scale to the newly connected apps with Budcast button. If you’d like to experiment, you can try the randomise button. With the AUv3 plugin, you can change the BrainBud's parameters or even automate them with AU parameters. For using the AUv3 plugin make sure you have an AUv3 host app such as AUM, Cubasis, Nanostudio, apeMatrix. BrainBud is a MIDI based app and requires other Bud apps present in order to work right. If you don't have any other Bud apps mentioned above, you can't make a use of BrainBud. BrainBud doesn't produce any kind of sound on its own.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Acaville at Free against BrainBud's $2.99. BrainBud's advantage is review sentiment (100% vs 67%) and update cadence (every 2 months vs every 23 months). On rating, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases 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
Acaville is free to download; BrainBud costs $2.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Acaville against 5.0 for BrainBud. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 2 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 67% of Acaville's written reviews are positive against 100% of BrainBud's.
Acaville ships an update every 23 months, BrainBud every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 12, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Acaville | BrainBud |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $2.99 |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 66.7% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 23 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Best chart rank | — | #197 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.2 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 4 MB | 15 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Chord Innovations | Cem Olcay |
Customer experience
Acaville
BrainBud
In-app purchases
Acaville
No in-app purchases
BrainBud
No in-app purchases
