Otonic vs Hark
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Otonic
Enhance your musical abilities with a comprehensive ear training application. Features a level editor for personalized learning experiences and progression tracking.
- Fully featured ear training
- Level editor
- Progression editor
- Personalized learning
- Music skill enhancement
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Otonic is a fully featured Ear Training app with a level and progression editor.
Hark
This app trains musicians to identify notes within a musical key, focusing on their relationship to the tonic. It offers various training modes, including single notes, melodies, and chord progressions, with hands-free operation for convenient practice.
- Identify notes as scale degrees
- Hands-free training mode
- Multiple training modes (degrees, melodies, chords, progressions)
- Visual staff with colored notes
- Explore any note in any key
- Multiple instrument sounds
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Hark trains your ear the way musicians actually hear: every note as a degree of the key, not a distance from the note before it. A cadence — or a drone — puts the tonic in your ear. A note sounds. You answer on a ladder of degrees, with the home note at the bottom like the ground. Then the note walks home, step by step, back to the tonic, so you hear the pull instead of reading about it. That walk is the explanation. There is no lecture. FOUR KINDS OF TRAINING • Degrees — one note at a time, from two degrees up to all twelve • Melodies — short phrases, name every note in order • Chords in the key — I, IV, V and the rest, heard by function • Progressions — three and four chords in a row INSIDE • A ladder of seven colours: tonic gold, dominant blue, leading tone red • Notes on a staff, spelled the way the key spells them • The walk home after every answer • Hands-free: train with the screen off, on a walk or in the car. The key, the note, a pause for your answer, then the answer spoken aloud. • Explore: hold any degree in any key and listen. No score, no history. • Five instruments: piano, guitar, strings, choir, electric piano • Your map: accuracy by degree and by chord, and what your ear mixes up • Ten languages, and a ladder labelled with numbers, movable-do syllables or note names — Do–Si, Do–Ti, H and B where they belong FREE, FOR GOOD Five degree levels in C major — up to all seven degrees across two octaves — two melody levels, two chord levels, the first progression level, hands-free training, the staff, a week of statistics, and all of Explore: every degree in every key, there to listen to. No daily cap, no timers. HARK PRO — MONTHLY, YEARLY OR ONCE Training in all twelve keys, chromatic degrees, minor keys, three octaves, all seven chords with sevenths, progressions, melodies up to five notes, custom drills, and the full map of your ear with four weeks of history. Choose a monthly or yearly subscription, with a one-week free trial for eligible customers, or a one-time purchase for permanent Pro access. Only one free trial is available per subscription group. After the trial, the selected subscription renews at the price shown in the app. Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the current period ends. Manage or cancel them in your Apple Account subscription settings. To avoid a charge after a free trial, cancel at least 24 hours before it ends. The free levels stay free either way. NO ACCOUNT, NO ADS No sign-up, no ads, no streaks and no nagging. Your individual answers and detailed training history stay on your device. The app sends a limited set of usage events with a random installation identifier, including session summaries and purchase or free-trial events, to help us understand how it works. The privacy policy lists what is sent. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://hark-ear.pages.dev/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
Otonic and Hark both sit at 5.0 stars, but that hides the real split: 100% of Hark's written reviews are positive against 67% of Otonic's. Otonic's advantage is ratings volume (4 vs 1) and device support (3 vs 1). On price, rating, update cadence and ads 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
Both are free to download. Otonic sells 3 one-off in-app purchases and Hark sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Otonic against 5.0 for Hark. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 4 and 1 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 67% of Otonic's written reviews are positive against 100% of Hark's.
Otonic ships an update every 5 days, Hark every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 6, 2026 and October 11, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Otonic | Hark |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (4 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 66.7% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 4 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 days | Every 4 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 59 MB | 11 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Alexander Blackwell | Ilia Usatov |
Customer experience
Otonic
Hark
In-app purchases
Otonic
- Otonic Pro$6.99
- Otonic Essential$19.99
- Otonic Pro$39.99
Hark
- Hark Pro$19.99









