Comparison

Drum Journal vs Ghost Beat

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

Head to head
About

Drum Journal

This app provides real-time feedback on your drumming practice using your device's microphone. It allows you to slow down or loop sections of YouTube drum videos and automatically tracks your practice sessions to help you monitor progress.

Highlights
  • Microphone-based sticking feedback
  • YouTube video playback with speed control
  • Section looping for practice
  • Automatic practice session tracking
  • Community-shared exercises
  • Progress monitoring and streaks
Features
Read full description

Your exercises, your lessons, your rudiments: one list, ready to go. Drum Journal remembers where you left off, keeps the tempo, and gets out of your way. Press start, practice. YOUR ROUTINE, READY TO GO Open the app. The routine you built is queued, timed, and ready to run. Warm-up, rudiments, the YouTube lesson you're working on, laid out the way you want them. No deciding what to play tonight. REAL FEEDBACK ON YOUR TIMING The built-in sticking coach uses your device's microphone to hear you play on a practice pad. Real feedback on your timing, dynamics, and consistency, built into your routine, not a separate tool. PLAY TO A GROOVE, NOT JUST A CLICK Pick a mood and a backing track plays behind the metronome, automatically matched to your tempo. Rudiment practice stops feeling clinical and starts sounding like a room. LEARN ANY SONG AT YOUR OWN SPEED Drop any YouTube drum lesson into your routine. Slow it down, loop the hard bar, mark the section that's killing you. Drum Journal sits on your music stand and stays out of your way. SEE HOW YOU'RE GETTING BETTER Every session logs automatically. Streaks, time on each rudiment, whether your timing is tightening week over week. Show up daily and watch the data confirm what your hands already feel. EXERCISES FROM OTHER DRUMMERS Browse exercises shared by other drummers. Pick what fits your level, drop it into your routine. FREE TO PRACTICE. PRO TO SEE IF IT'S WORKING. Everything you need to build and run your routine is free: exercises, the sticking coach, YouTube practice, streaks, session logs, and background music in the Drift mood. Drum Journal Pro unlocks advanced analytics — see whether your timing is actually tightening, whether one hand plays inconsistent flams, whether your routine is moving the needle. Pro also unlocks the full background-music mood pack, per-exercise history, community sharing, and data export. The practice is simple. Showing up is hard. Drum Journal makes showing up the easy part. SUBSCRIPTION DETAILS Drum Journal Pro is available as a monthly, annual, or lifetime subscription. Payment is charged to your Apple ID account at confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions automatically renew unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can manage and cancel subscriptions in your Apple ID account settings. Any unused portion of a free trial, if offered, is forfeited upon purchasing a subscription. Privacy Policy: https://drumjournal.com/privacy Terms of Use: https://drumjournal.com/terms

About

Ghost Beat

This app challenges your internal rhythm by making metronome beats disappear. It helps you maintain tempo by ear and provides a score based on your accuracy. Features include customizable beat patterns, random mutes, and a speed trainer.

Highlights
  • Disappearing beat patterns
  • Random beat muting
  • Accurate timing score with deviation
  • Automatic speed trainer
  • Practice tracking and history
  • Multiple click sounds and pitch shifting
  • Support for various time signatures and subdivisions
Read full description

A metronome can keep time for you. Ghost Beat helps you learn to keep it yourself. Ghost Beat alternates between audible clicks and silent bars, giving you room to feel the tempo on your own. When the click comes back, you can hear how well you held it. Use it for drum practice, warm-ups, or working through a tricky rhythm. PRACTICE WITH AND WITHOUT THE CLICK Choose your tempo, time signature, subdivisions, and accents. Set how many bars play and how many stay silent, or use Random Mute to make individual beats disappear. Add spoken counts alongside the click and adjust their volumes separately. BUILD A PRACTICE HABIT Set a daily goal and follow your progress through the day. See your recent practice history, streaks, and weekly totals. Optional on-device detection can count your playing even when you don't need the metronome. Detection requires Ghost Beat to be open and active. START HANDS-FREE Use Start on Sound to begin without reaching for the screen. Calibrate microphone sensitivity for your room and playing, and choose whether silence should stop the metronome automatically. MAKE YOUR OWN ROUTINES Chain exercises with their own tempos, ghost patterns, and time signatures. Choose timed or bar-based steps, loop your routine, and save presets for setups you use often. Free tempo ladders help you work toward a target speed. CHECK YOUR TIMING Tap along in Tap Accuracy mode to see how consistently you land on the beat. Timing grades and deviation measurements give you something concrete to work on next time. PICK UP ON ANOTHER DEVICE Optional private iCloud sync keeps your routines, presets, practice history, daily goal, and saved notes together across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. You don't need a separate Ghost Beat account. FREE TO START The free app includes ghost bars, Random Mute, tempo ladders, daily goals, recent practice stats, up to 4 routines with 6 steps each, and 3 presets. GHOST BEAT PRO A one-time in-app purchase unlocks unlimited routines, routine steps, and presets, plus adjustable click pitch, progressive fade, extended practice statistics, and notes for your routines and presets. No subscription. YOUR PLAYING STAYS YOURS Microphone audio is analyzed live on your device. It is never recorded or uploaded. There are no ads. Ghost Beat uses app-session analytics, separate from your practice content. See the privacy policy for details. Questions or feedback? Reach out at support@ghostbeat.cc.

Screenshots

Drum Journal4 screens
Ghost Beat4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Drum Journal at weekly against Ghost Beat's every 3 months. Ghost Beat's advantage is monetization model (free vs freemium). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume 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. Drum Journal sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and Ghost Beat sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Drum Journal against 5.0 for Ghost Beat. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 8 and 5 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Drum Journal ships an update weekly, Ghost Beat every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Drum Journal versus Ghost Beat: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDrum JournalGhost Beat
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (8 ratings)5.0 (5 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings8 — better5
Update frequencyWeekly — betterEvery 3 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Mac — better
Requires iOS17.016.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size105 MB11 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperPorath ConsultingLANCE LAVERNE PEDERSON

Customer experience

Drum Journal

All ratings8 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews4 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Ghost Beat

All ratings5 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews5 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

5 purchases

Drum Journal

Subscriptions4
  • Pro Monthly$4.991 Month
  • Pro Monthly7 Days trial$4.991 Month
  • Pro Annual$34.991 Year
Show 1 more
  • Pro Yearly7 Days trial$34.991 Year
One-time1
  • Pro Lifetime$69.99
1 purchases

Ghost Beat

One-time1
  • Ghost Beat Pro$4.99

Questions

Is Drum Journal free?
Drum Journal is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Ghost Beat free?
Ghost Beat is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Drum Journal or Ghost Beat?
Drum Journal and Ghost Beat are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 8 and 5 ratings respectively.
Do Drum Journal or Ghost Beat have ads?
Neither Drum Journal nor Ghost Beat shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Drum Journal or Ghost Beat?
Drum Journal ships an update weekly, and Ghost Beat every 3 months. Most recently, Drum Journal was updated on October 16, 2026 and Ghost Beat on October 10, 2026.

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