Comparison

Scarlet>Fire vs Dead Sets

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

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
Read full description

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.

About

Dead Sets

Features
Read full description

Every Grateful Dead setlist. And now, the music. Dead Sets is the fastest way to dive into the Dead's live catalog: 1,600+ shows from 1972 to 1995, every setlist searchable by song, venue, city, or year — entirely offline, no account, no ads. LISTEN — Almost every show links to its recordings in the archive.org Grateful Dead collection. Dead Sets auto-picks the best-rated soundboard and streams it right on the setlist page — or flip between every tape of the night, soundboards, audience recordings, and matrixes, even mid-song. The mini-player follows you through the app, and playback continues with the screen locked. SEARCH — Type "Scarlet Begonias" and see every performance. Filter by year, state, or country. Tap any song in a setlist to trace it across two decades. TODAY IN DEAD HISTORY — What did the band play on this date in '77? In '89? One tab, every year. SAVED — Heart your favorite shows, and mark the ones you attended with a ticket stub. Your whole trip, tallied, stored only on your device. CHAT WITH A DEAD HEAD (subscription) — A virtual dead head who's seen 300+ shows and followed the whole Europe '72 tour. Ask him anything — "best Dark Star of '73?", "what happened today in Dead history?" — and tap the shows he mentions to jump right to them. $1.99/month after a 7-day free trial, 30 messages a day, cancel anytime. Setlist data from the Grateful Dead Setlist Archive (cs.cmu.edu), cross-checked against archive.org and setlist.fm, with hundreds of hand-restored corrections. Recordings stream from the archive.org Grateful Dead collection, where the band has long blessed fan recordings. Not affiliated with Grateful Dead Productions. Just built by someone who gets it. Terms of Use: https://bowtiedjungle.dev/terms Privacy Policy: https://bowtiedjungle.dev/privacy

Screenshots

Scarlet>Fire4 screens
Dead Sets4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Scarlet>Fire at none against Dead Sets's 1. Dead Sets's advantage is update cadence (every 2 days vs weekly). On price, ads, device support 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Dead Sets sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $1.99 per month. Scarlet>Fire asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Scarlet>Fire ships an update weekly, Dead Sets every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and September 15, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Scarlet>Fire versus Dead Sets: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterScarlet>FireDead Sets
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.9 (15 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings15 — better—
Update frequencyWeeklyEvery 2 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.115.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size56 MB13 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJESSE JOHNSTON BISIGNANOMatt Selph

In-app purchases

None

Scarlet>Fire

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Dead Sets

Subscriptions1
  • Dead Sets7 Days trial$1.991 Month

Questions

Is Scarlet>Fire free?
Scarlet>Fire is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Dead Sets free?
Dead Sets is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Scarlet>Fire or Dead Sets have ads?
Neither Scarlet>Fire nor Dead Sets shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Scarlet>Fire or Dead Sets?
Scarlet>Fire ships an update weekly, and Dead Sets every 2 days. Most recently, Scarlet>Fire was updated on September 21, 2026 and Dead Sets on September 15, 2026.

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