Scarlet>Fire vs Dead Shows
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Scarlet>Fire
Access a vast archive of live Grateful Dead performances. Organize your favorite shows and songs, discover curated lists, and share your listening journey with friends. Enjoy seamless playback and explore the band's entire catalog.
- Stream every Grateful Dead show
- Organize favorite shows and songs
- Powerful sorting and filtering
- Discover curated lists and radio mode
- Track listening history
- Share shows and collections
- Seamless gapless playback
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Stream Every Grateful Dead Show Ever Recorded Dive into 30 years of live Grateful Dead performances. Every show. Every venue — right in your pocket. EXPLORE THE ARCHIVE - Browse: Listen to thousands of shows from the Internet Archive, organized and ready to stream. Explore top-rated shows and discover the best individual song performances across the entire catalog. - Curate: Playlists and Shows Collections let you organize and save your favorite songs and shows - Powerful sorting & filtering: Find exactly what you're looking for with powerful filters for year, era, or official release series (i.e. Dave's Picks), or sort by popularity or date. - Explore each song: See every performance of a song in one place, go through them in chronological order, or sort by rating to find the very best versions. TRACK & SHARE YOUR JOURNEY - Your library: Save your favorite shows and songs to your library - Play counts: See your play counts and listening history for individual shows and song performances - Share: Send your friends shows, songs, collections, and playlist via text message, link, and more - Public profiles: Let your friends see your recent listens, top 10 lists, and saved shows/songs. Follow them back to see what they're into. - Activity feed: See what your friends are listening to, saving, and creating DISCOVER - Show of the day: A fresh classic to explore daily - Classic shows: A curated list of legendary performances - Radio mode: An endless stream of top-rated performances, handpicked from across the band's entire catalog. Just press play and let the Dead take the wheel. - Shuffle mode: Shuffle play your saved songs and shows. - Popular collections & playlists: View the most saved Show Collections and Playlists from across the community BUILT FOR LISTENING - Gapless playback for seamless song transitions - Choose your favorite archive source - Background video visualizers - No account required, only sign in if you want to back up your favorites to the cloud or use social features Whether you're a longtime Deadhead or just discovering the magic, this is your gateway to the greatest band in history.
Dead Shows
Discover and stream Grateful Dead concerts from the Internet Archive. Explore shows by date, venue, or song, and compare setlists. Enjoy gapless playback and offline listening options.
- Today in Grateful Dead History feature
- Search by date, venue, city, song, or guest
- View and compare setlists
- Choose recording quality (soundboard, matrix, audience)
- Gapless playback
- Offline listening
- Favorite shows and songs
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I built Dead Shows for myself, for the way I listen to the Grateful Dead. Most days I don't want to pick a show. I just want something fresh. So the app opens to Today in Grateful Dead History: every concert the band played on this date, going back to 1965. Tap one and you're listening. It's the easiest way I've found to hear something different every day, and it never runs out. Some days I do want to nerd out. Track down a specific MSG, chase a particular Scarlet > Fire, see who sat in on a given night. So there's real search too, by date, venue, city, song, or guest. Expand any show to read its full setlist without leaving the list, and compare setlists side by side. Everything streams free from the Internet Archive's Grateful Dead collection, the same tapes traders have passed around for decades. For each show you can pick your recording, soundboard, matrix, or audience, or let the app choose the best-rated one. Playback is gapless, so the segues stay intact. It runs in the background with lock-screen controls, and you can download shows to listen offline. Favorite the shows and songs you keep coming back to. Whatever you played last is always a tap away. Dead Shows is an independent app. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Grateful Dead or the Internet Archive. Recordings stream from the Internet Archive under the band's longstanding taping policy.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ratings volume: Scarlet>Fire at 17 against Dead Shows's 2. On price, rating, review sentiment and update cadence 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Scarlet>Fire against 5.0 for Dead Shows. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Scarlet>Fire has 17 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
Scarlet>Fire ships an update weekly, Dead Shows fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Scarlet>Fire | Dead Shows |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (17 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 17 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Fortnightly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 | 15.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 56 MB | 31 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | JESSE JOHNSTON BISIGNANO | Christopher Johnston |
Customer experience
Scarlet>Fire
Dead Shows
In-app purchases
Scarlet>Fire
No in-app purchases
Dead Shows
No in-app purchases






