Comparison

swmpc vs Music Diary

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

Head to head
About

swmpc

A fast and elegant music player client for Apple devices. It offers seamless library browsing, intuitive queue management, and full playlist support. Features AI-powered smart fill for playlist generation and is open source.

Highlights
  • Fast library browsing
  • Sane queue management
  • Full playlist support
  • Favorites access
  • AI-powered smart fill
  • Open source
  • Universal purchase
Features
Read full description

Tired of janky MPD clients? Same. `swmpc` is a fast, elegant MPD client built exclusively for iOS, iPadOS & macOS. A clean, native interface that feels right at home on your Apple devices. What you get: • Fast library browsing: Search artists, albums, and tracks instantly • Sane queue management: Add, remove, reorder. Drag and drop. No friction. • Full playlist support: Create, edit, delete, and populate playlists without fighting the UI • Favorites: Quick access to tracks you actually listen to • AI-powered smart fill: Generate playlists or queue tracks by genre or mood • Open source: Inspect it, fork it, contribute. It's your app too. • Universal purchase: One price. Get it for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Done.

About

Music Diary

Features
Read full description

Every song you love deserves more than a heart button. PlaylistNote is a music diary where you write your listening life down by hand — the playlists you dream up, the track a friend played you in the car, the album that carried you through March — and keep it forever, in your own words. Streaming apps track what you played. PlaylistNote keeps what it meant. There is no login, no linked account, no internet connection at all — just a beautiful notebook built for music, in four tabs: your library, your listen-later queue, your journal, and your stats. WHAT YOU GET • Playlists built by hand — name one "Rainy Sunday cooking", give it a vibe and a cover, and fill it song by song • Every song carries your words: artist, album, genre, a 1–5 star rating, an energy level, and the note only you understand • A Listen Later queue that remembers where each tip came from — friend rec, radio, a live show, a viral clip — so "what was that song?" never happens again • A listening journal with moods and star ratings: open it in a year and reread exactly how that track felt the first time • Stats that map your taste: top genres, most-added artists, playlists by vibe, and how generous your ratings really are • One-tap export of any playlist, your whole library, or your journal as clean text or CSV — your data walks out with you anytime PERFECT FOR • Concert-goers who want tonight's setlist and the feeling of the encore written down before it fades • Vinyl and CD listeners logging real listening sessions, not streaming plays • Anyone whose notes app is a graveyard of half-remembered song titles • Music lovers who journal — and want their diary to have a tracklist WHY NOT JUST A STREAMING APP OR A NOTES APP? A year-end stats reel tells you a number. A notes app loses songs in the scroll. PlaylistNote is built for the shape of music memory: songs belong to playlists, moods attach to dates, sources attach to discoveries — and it all adds up to charts of who you are as a listener. No streaming account required, ever. PRIVATE BY DEFAULT Everything you write stays on your iPhone. No account, no cloud, no tracking, no network access of any kind. Your music diary is yours alone — and the export button proves it. FULL ACCESS PlaylistNote Pro unlocks the whole studio: unlimited playlists, an unlimited Listen Later queue, an unlimited listening journal, every stats chart, and text + CSV export. Choose the weekly plan, the yearly plan, or pay once with lifetime — subscriptions auto-renew until cancelled. Start tonight: log the last song that gave you chills. Terms of Use: https://leanstudio.asia/terms-of-use Privacy Policy: https://leanstudio.asia/privacy-policy Support: support@leanstudio.asia

Screenshots

swmpc3 screens
Music Diary4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Music Diary at Free against swmpc's $8.99. Music Diary also leads on iOS requirement (17.0 vs 27.0). swmpc's advantage is update cadence (every 2 months vs every 4 months) and device support (3 vs 1). On 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Music Diary is free to download; swmpc costs $8.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

swmpc ships an update every 2 months, Music Diary every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on October 12, 2026 and October 11, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
swmpc versus Music Diary: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterswmpcMusic Diary
Price$8.99Free — better
Rating1.0 (2 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews60.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings2 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 months — betterEvery 4 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac — betteriPhone
Requires iOS27.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size22 MB6 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperCamille ScholtzLEAN ASIA CO., LTD

In-app purchases

None

swmpc

No in-app purchases

None

Music Diary

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is swmpc free?
swmpc costs $8.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Music Diary free?
Music Diary is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do swmpc or Music Diary have ads?
Neither swmpc nor Music Diary shows ads.
Which is updated more often, swmpc or Music Diary?
swmpc ships an update every 2 months, and Music Diary every 4 months. Most recently, swmpc was updated on October 12, 2026 and Music Diary on October 11, 2026.

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