Comparison

Cesure vs spool.

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

Head to head
About

Cesure

Features
Read full description

Cesure is a guitar tab player and editor for iPhone, iPad and the web. Open a tab, play it, slow it down, and correct what is wrong — with one account across all your devices. READ Four views of the same score: tablature, standard notation, notation + tab, and piano roll. Open your Guitar Pro (.gp, .gp3, .gp4, .gp5), MIDI, MusicXML and AlphaTex files, or pick a piece from the catalogue of public-domain classical music. PLAY & SLOW DOWN Play any score at the speed you need. Loop a range of measures and name the loop to find it again; the Speed Trainer raises the tempo pass after pass, up to the real one. CORRECT A real editor: several tracks, repeats, two voices, playing techniques. Copy, paste and undo work in all four views, and every save is a version you can go back to. FROM A RECORDING - Chords: get the chord grid of any recording, computed on your device — free and unlimited. - Audio to Tab (AI): turn an MP3, WAV or M4A file into an editable tab, transcribed on our servers. A draft to correct, not a finished score. TOOLS - Chromatic tuner - Metronome - BPM detector — tap along, or let Cesure listen - Scale cheatsheet - Play together: create a room, share its six-character code, and playback stays in sync for everyone, with voice chat YOUR TABS STAY YOURS Cesure saves in .cesure, an open and documented file format, and exporting it is always free. Share a score with a link, and export it to PDF for free (with a small "Made with Cesure" line). FREE & PRO Reading, playing, editing and every tool are free. Cesure Pro is an optional subscription, with its price shown in the app, that unlocks: - Unlimited AI transcription (3 a month on the free plan) - Unlimited library (3 saved scores on the free plan) - WAV export - PDF without the watermark Cesure Pro is an auto-renewable subscription, monthly or yearly. It renews unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the period, and can be managed in your App Store account settings. Privacy Policy: https://cesure.app/privacy Terms of Use (EULA): https://cesure.app/terms

About

spool.

Create full songs on your phone with this pocket music studio. It offers a variety of sound engines, sampling capabilities, step sequencing, and a 4-track tape recorder for recording and mixing your music. Effects and MIDI controller support enhance the creative process.

Highlights
  • Multiple sound engines
  • Sampling and sequencing
  • 4-track tape recording
  • Extensive effects rack
  • MIDI controller support
  • Step sequencer
Features
Read full description

Make a whole song on your phone. Spool is a pocket music studio inspired by the joy of hardware grooveboxes — play, sample, sequence, and record to tape, all in one playful instrument. Fourteen sound engines. From punchy FM and fat subtractive Pulse to shimmering Cluster, plucked String, granular Cloud, the TALK vocoder, the WIDE stereo engine, THUMP bass, a Sampler, and two drum machines — each with its own animated, touchable visualizer and four hands-on controls. Sample anything. Record straight from the mic into the sampler or drum kits, trim it, and play it across the keyboard. Drums & beats. Build kits, chop a sample into a playable kit, and lock in grooves with the step sequencer. Playful sequencers. Pattern and arpeggiator to start; unlock Stream, Taps, and the bouncing-ball Gumball machine for happy accidents. Six minutes of 4-track tape. Record, overdub, varispeed (including reverse), scrub, and bounce your jam to a finished mixdown — export to WAV. Your tape is saved with your project. Effects & mixer. A deep rack — delay, spring reverb, drive, compressor, chorus, multimode filter, phaser, tremolo/auto-pan, beat-repeat stutter, and a pitch-shifter/harmonizer — many tempo-syncable. Plus a master EQ and brickwall limiter so it always sounds finished. Plays with your gear. Connect a USB or Bluetooth MIDI controller and play Spool like hardware. AUv3 plugin support is planned for a future update. Free to download and make music with a starter set of engines and sequencers. A single one-time Spool Pro purchase unlocks the full instrument — all engines, sampling, every effect and sequencer, unlimited projects, export, and MIDI. No subscription. Spool is an original, independent work by a solo developer — affiliated with no hardware maker.

Screenshots

Cesure4 screens
spool.4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: spool. at none against Cesure's shown. On price, in-app purchases, 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. Cesure sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and spool. sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
Cesure versus spool.: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCesurespool.
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (7 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—7 — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 days—
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesYes
Monetization—Free with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS16.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size103 MB2 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperXavier PELTIERKristopher Yang

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Cesure

Subscriptions2
  • Cesure Pro (monthly)$4.991 Month
  • Cesure Pro (yearly)$39.991 Year
1 purchases

spool.

One-time1
  • Spool Pro$9.99

Questions

Is Cesure free?
Cesure is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is spool. free?
spool. is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Cesure or spool. have ads?
Cesure shows ads; spool. does not.

Other comparisons