HEXBEAT vs Beep Boop
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
HEXBEAT
Read full descriptionHide full description
Make music like a pro โ right from your iPhone or iPad. HEXBEAT is a fully-featured iOS synthesizer and beat machine for musicians, producers, and beatmakers who want studio-quality sound in their pocket. No samples, no imports โ every sound is generated in real time using advanced audio synthesis. STEP SEQUENCER Build rhythmic patterns with a 16-step grid sequencer and 8 programmable drum tracks including kick, snare, hi-hat, clap, 808 bass, tom, and cymbal. Fine-tune your groove with BPM control from 60โ200 and swing up to 100%. Save up to 64 patterns across 8 banks and 8 slots each. SYNTH PAD Play melodies with a responsive XY touch pad. Choose from 8 musical scales including Major, Minor, Dorian, Pentatonic, and more. Slide your finger to control filter brightness and pitch simultaneously โ up to 5 simultaneous notes for expressive, real-time performance. POWERFUL SOUND SYNTHESIS Shape your sound with 6 oscillator types (Sine, Square, Sawtooth, Triangle, Noise, Super Saw), full ADSR envelopes for amplitude and filter, a resonant low-pass biquad filter, and a 4-waveform LFO with destinations including pitch, cutoff, volume, pan, and PWM. 8-CHANNEL MIXER Mix your tracks withper-channel volume faders, pan control, mute/solo buttons, reverb and delay sends, and real-time peak meters. A master channel with limiter keeps your mix clean and loud. BUILT-IN FX RACK Add depth and character with Reverb (5 room presets from Small Room to Cathedral), Delay with tempo sync, multi-preset Distortion, and a 10-band parametric EQ. BUILT FOR LOW LATENCY HEXBEAT runs at 44.1kHz with 32-bit internal processing and configurable buffer sizes down to 128 samples โ delivering under 10ms latency for live performance feel. Whether you're sketching beats on the subway, performing live on stage, or producing tracks at home, HEXBEAT gives you the tools to create. Compatible with iPhone and iPad.
Beep Boop
Read full descriptionHide full description
Beep Boop is a step sequencer made like an instrument. Seven spaces, one for each thing you do, and one row of keys under them: TEMPO, KEEP, PLAY, PRINT and SWING. A notched lever under the window moves between spaces. Press play. A beat is already there. DRUMS Kick, snare, clap, hat, open hat, tom, rim and percussion on one dial. Eight sounds for each, on a small wheel you roll with a thumb. Sixteen step keys that light from inside; hold one to accent it. Four bar keys hold up to four bars. RANDOM deals a groove in your own sounds, and CLEAR takes it back. Tempo from 40 to 300, and swing. SYNTH Six anthem leads, a bass and a pad, on a grid of square keys lit from inside. Every row is a note in one key, engraved beside it, so every tune you draw sounds right. Slide along a row for a long note. Draw across the rows for a run. Drag across lit keys to put them out, and CLEAR empties the tune. SOLO quiets the beat. PADS Twelve pads to play over the beat. Hold a pad and move your finger up or down to tune it a semitone at a time. SPREAD lays one sound across all twelve in SYNTH's key, so any pattern your fingers make is a melody. Touch REC, then a pad, and record up to ten seconds; set where the take starts and ends. On LOOP, every pad you strike is written into the loop; on ONCE, you play over it and nothing is added. KEEP stores the bar you play. TRACK Keep up to 64 loops, beats and melodies, on two shelves, with a wheel to turn through the rows. Carry them onto four lanes of up to sixteen bars, or drop one on the trash. Touch a lane's lamp to mute it. SOUNDS Choose a sound on the same wheel, then shape it with ten knobs, or drag across the pad beneath them to move two at once. TEAR takes it from clean to destroyed: a folded wave, fewer bits, a metallic ring, then fragments of it frozen and repeated. MOTION makes a drum rise or fall like a tape stop; RATE repeats it up to 40 times a second. RANDOM deals a new sound. KEEP files it among your own, ready on DRUMS, SYNTH and PADS. PRINT The space you are on prints as a receipt with a code on it. Tear it off to share it. Anyone with Beep Boop can scan the code with the Camera and play what you made. LIBRARY Everyone's beats, newest first or most kept. Touch a receipt to hear it at its own tempo; touch it again to put it on your keys. KEEP your own into YOURS and flick its switch to PUBLIC to share it with the world. Every receipt has a flag to report it or block its maker. SHARE sends anything in YOURS as MIDI and WAV. YOUR NAME The first time you keep something, choose a producer name or turn up a ridiculous one, and make a figure of dots with two knobs. Both are yours for good, shown on what you share; your figure dances beside the tempo. MADE FOR THE HAND Every key answers the moment it is touched. Every step lands on its exact sample, counted by the audio engine, never by a timer. On iPhone, each key, dial and switch has its own feel. On iPad, turned on its side, the panel becomes a console. WHAT STAYS YOURS Playing, recording and printing need no account. Your recordings never leave your iPhone or iPad. To share in the library you sign in with Apple once; Beep Boop asks Apple for no email and no name, and keeps only a random account number, your producer name and figure, and what you post, keep, report or block. Delete your account at the foot of YOURS. PRICE Playing, printing, scanning and browsing the library are free. Keeping loops, sounds and receipts, and building tracks, are the plan: a 7-day free trial, then US$1 a month, or US$10 once for life. The free trial comes with the monthly plan, once per Apple ID. Payment is charged to your Apple ID at the end of the trial. The subscription renews automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period; manage or cancel it in your App Store account settings. The life unlock is one payment and never renews. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Beep Boop at daily against HEXBEAT's every 8 months. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS
Both are free to download. HEXBEAT sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Beep Boop sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $1.00 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
HEXBEAT ships an update every 8 months, Beep Boop daily. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | HEXBEAT | Beep Boop |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 8 months | Daily โ better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.6 | 17.0 โ better |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 19 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Gregory Hogan | Eugene D'Hage-Craig |
In-app purchases
HEXBEAT
- HEXBEATOTP$7.99
Beep Boop
- BeepBoop Monthly7 Days trial$1.001 Month
- BeepBoop For Life$10.00





