Comparison

LiveVault 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

LiveVault

Explore thousands of historic live Grateful Dead performances with this mobile streaming player. Discover new shows, browse by era, and curate your personal library of legendary concerts with gapless playback.

Highlights
  • Thousands of historic live Grateful Dead shows
  • Explore shows by era and year
  • Gapless audio playback
  • Robust song catalog
  • Personal library for favorite shows
  • On This Day discovery feature
Features
Read full description

Explore live Grateful Dead performances with LiveVault. Browse shows by date and era, discover performances of your favorite songs, and stream recordings hosted by the Internet Archive. LiveVault is free. Browse and play music without an account. Sign in to use Live Guide and My Trip, with no payment card or subscription required. FIND THE SHOW See shows performed on today's month and day, browse by year and era, and explore a curated catalog of 166 songs with their live performances. CHOOSE THE TAPE Inspect up to ten same-date recordings with SBD, AUD, or MTX labels, ratings, reviews, and download counts, then pick the one you want to hear. Choosing a source changes the recording and setlist. PRESS PLAY Full-show playback with background audio, lock-screen controls, queue and seek, and resume from your saved position. LIVE GUIDE Follow one shared daily episode built around the recordings. Narration alternates with selected Archive-hosted recordings in a visible timeline. Narration is AI-generated and may contain errors. Guide availability depends on the published episode catalog. Free with sign-in. MY TRIP Keep a personal listening trail across shows, songs, venues, years, and milestones, and revisit what you discover. You can turn listening-history collection off in settings. Free with sign-in. YOUR LIBRARY Save favorites, write notes, and build playlists. Previously saved shows remain playable on the device where you saved them. LiveVault is an unofficial, third-party streaming client. Music streams from the public catalog hosted by the Internet Archive (archive.org). LiveVault is not affiliated with the Grateful Dead, Grateful Dead Productions, Rhino, nugs.net, the Internet Archive, or any artist. Recording availability varies. AI-generated context may contain errors. Privacy Policy: https://www.livevaultapp.com/privacy Terms of Use: https://www.livevaultapp.com/terms

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

LiveVault4 screens
Dead Sets4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: LiveVault at none against Dead Sets's 1. Dead Sets's advantage is update cadence (every 2 days vs every 3 months). 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. LiveVault asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

LiveVault ships an update every 3 months, Dead Sets every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 5, 2026 and October 2, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
LiveVault versus Dead Sets: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLiveVaultDead Sets
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (20 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings20 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsEvery 2 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS16.415.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size59 MB13 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperLiveVault App, LLCMatt Selph

In-app purchases

None

LiveVault

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Dead Sets

Subscriptions1
  • Dead Sets7 Days trial$1.991 Month

Questions

Is LiveVault free?
LiveVault 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 LiveVault or Dead Sets have ads?
Neither LiveVault nor Dead Sets shows ads.
Which is updated more often, LiveVault or Dead Sets?
LiveVault ships an update every 3 months, and Dead Sets every 2 days. Most recently, LiveVault was updated on October 5, 2026 and Dead Sets on October 2, 2026.

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