Dead Shows vs DeadGraph
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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 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.
DeadGraph
Explore over 2,250 Grateful Dead shows with detailed soundboard, audience, and matrix recordings. Ask natural language questions to find specific songs, guest appearances, or show details, and then play the selected performance. Enjoy visualizers and seamless playback across devices.
- Access 2,250+ Grateful Dead shows
- Natural language AI querying
- Detailed recording information
- Interactive show vault map
- Eight built-in visualizers
- CarPlay and AirPlay support
- Offline downloads (Pro)
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The shows. The songs. 1965-1995. 2,250+ Grateful Dead shows, with their soundboards, audience tapes and matrixes, straight from the Internet Archive. DeadGraph is a player for them, and a way to ask questions about them in plain language. ASK, DO NOT SEARCH "Longest Dark Star in 1972." "Shows where Branford sat in." "What did they open with at Cornell." Type it the way you would say it to a friend who knows, or just ask Siri: "Play Cornell 77 on DeadGraph." DeadGraph reads setlists, transitions, guest sit-ins and run histories, and answers with the show, then plays it. RECORDINGS, HONESTLY LABELED Many nights survive in several versions. DeadGraph lists the ones it has for each night with the source, the taper or transferer credit and the community rating, so you can pick the Miller transfer or the Betty board on purpose rather than by accident. THE VAULT, AT A GLANCE Thirty one rings, one per year, each show in DeadGraph a mark on its ring. Touch a year to go there. It is a map of the thing rather than a list of it. A LIGHT SHOW Eight visualizers built to be watched, not to fill space: liquid light, mandalas, prism folds, wormholes. Build your own color palettes, let it cycle through them on a timer, or leave it running on its own with no music at all, as a decoration. Works on the TV through AirPlay. BUILT FOR HOW PEOPLE ACTUALLY LISTEN CarPlay. AirPlay and Bluetooth output switching without leaving the app. Playlists. Background playback. Lock screen and Now Playing controls. iPhone, iPad and Mac, including landscape on the couch. FREE, AND MEANT TO STAY WORTH USING Browsing, listening, playlists and the whole light show are free. Free accounts get five AI questions a day. Pro raises that to five hundred and adds offline downloads, plus more playlists and chat threads, at 7.99 a month or 79.99 a year. Recordings are streamed from archive.org, where the taping community has kept them for decades. DeadGraph is not affiliated with the Grateful Dead or Rhino Entertainment. Terms of Use: https://deadgraph.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://deadgraph.com/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is monetization model: Dead Shows at free against DeadGraph's freemium. On price, rating, ratings volume and ads 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 — 5.0 for Dead Shows against 5.0 for DeadGraph. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 1 respectively.
| Parameter | Dead Shows | DeadGraph |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 1 |
| Update frequency | — | Every 2 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 | 15.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 31 MB | 54 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Christopher Johnston | Myron Koch |
Customer experience
Dead Shows
DeadGraph
In-app purchases
Dead Shows
No in-app purchases
DeadGraph
No in-app purchases







