Wristrax vs Shelv Player
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Wristrax
Access and play your personal music library from your Apple Watch. Browse artists, albums, and playlists, then download and transfer tracks for offline listening without needing your phone.
- Offline Plex music playback
- Browse artists, albums, playlists
- Download tracks to phone
- Transfer music to Apple Watch
- Play music with connected AirPods
- Supports Play Now widget
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** Requires a Plex Media Server and a Plex account. Wristrax displays music from your own Plex library; no content is provided by the app. ** Plex and Plexamp are great. But what if you want to have your music on your Apple Watch? At the gym or while running, carrying your phone just to listen to music is not great. Wristrax finally brings offline playback to your Plex library. Browse artists, albums and playlists, download tracks to your phone, and transfer them to your Apple Watch. Here, you can browse your tracks and play them, for example with connected AirPods. Supports the Play Now widget. Files can be transcoded server-side for saving pace, or transferred as is. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Shelv Player
Stream and download your personal music library from a compatible server. Enjoy features like synced lyrics, smart mixes, and offline listening across multiple Apple devices.
- Stream personal music library
- Offline downloads
- Synced lyrics
- Smart mixes
- Gapless playback
- Cross-device queue sync
- CarPlay and AirPlay support
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Shelv is a native music player for Navidrome and Subsonic-compatible servers, on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV. Stream your own music library, download it for offline listening, add radio stations, and enjoy smooth playback with gapless, transcoding and smart pre-cache. Shelv is built around albums and artists, with smart mixes, synced lyrics, listening insights and optional Last.fm. Features: - Album and artist focused library - Artist pages with Top Songs, Albums, Singles & EPs and Live albums - Smart Mixes, Instant Mix and Infinity Mix - Random Albums and Shuffle All - Last.fm for mixes and Top Songs (optional) - Offline Downloads - Radio Stations - Listening Insights - Synced Lyrics with LRCLIB - Gapless Playback - Transcoding - ReplayGain - Smart Pre-cache - Queue Sync across devices - Scrobbling - Multiple Servers - CarPlay, Siri and Shortcuts - AirPlay - iCloud Sync Shelv requires your own Navidrome or Subsonic-compatible music server.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Shelv Player at none against Wristrax's 2. Shelv Player also leads on ratings volume (7 vs 1) and device support (4 vs 2). Wristrax's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 2 weeks). On price, rating, ads 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
Both are free to download. Wristrax sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $8.99 per year. Shelv Player asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Wristrax against 5.0 for Shelv Player. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Shelv Player has 7 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Wristrax ships an update weekly, Shelv Player every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Wristrax | Shelv Player |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) | 5.0 (7 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | — | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 7 — better |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, Apple Watch | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 13 MB | 25 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | +4 |
| Developer | Holger Schueler | Vasco Kugler |
Customer experience
Wristrax
Shelv Player
In-app purchases
Wristrax
- Annual Unlocked$8.991 Year
- Lifetime Unlimited$24.99
Shelv Player
No in-app purchases









