Music Visualizer vs Refract
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Music Visualizer
Transform your audio into dynamic visualizers and music videos. Generate original songs with AI, add custom lyrics, and export content quickly for social media. Perfect for musicians and content creators.
- Create reactive music visualizers
- Generate original songs with AI
- Add custom lyrics and titles
- Multiple visual styles
- Export high-quality videos
- Designed for social media
Read full descriptionHide full description
Turn any song into a music video that moves to every beat. Import your track, pick a visual style, add synced lyrics, and export a video that's ready to share. No song yet? Describe an idea and Tunely's AI creates an original song for you, then turns it into a video too. MAKE A MUSIC VIDEO FROM YOUR AUDIO • Import songs, beats, demos, and voice recordings • Choose from beat-reactive visual styles like Neon Terrain, Spectrum City, Aurora Ribbon, and Star Forge • Visuals respond to the bass, the beat, and the shape of your song as it plays • Lyrics are detected from your track and synced to the music, and you can edit any line • Add your song title and artist name • Export square, widescreen, or vertical videos for any feed, channel, or story CREATE ORIGINAL SONGS WITH AI • Describe any idea, like "a country song about my dog" or "a birthday song for my wife" • Or start from a theme: love, birthday, party, breakup, confidence, diss track, and more • Write your own lyrics, or let AI write them for you • Every new song is ready to visualize the moment it's done ON IPHONE, IPAD, AND MAC Your projects stay in your library, so you can come back, try a new style, and export again anytime. FREE AND PREMIUM Create and export videos for free in 720p with a small Tunely watermark. Tunely Plus adds AI song creation, watermark-free HD export, and lyrics in your exported videos. Tunely Pro adds 4K export and more AI songs each month. SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION Tunely subscriptions automatically renew unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Payment will be charged to your Apple ID account at confirmation of purchase. Manage or cancel your subscription anytime in Settings > Apple ID > Subscriptions. Terms of Use: https://tunely.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://tunely.com/privacy
Refract
Create dynamic music videos from any audio track using your own photos, text, and effects. This app analyzes music to choreograph visuals in real-time, offering a full timeline editor and export options for major social platforms.
- Beat-synced visualizers
- Customizable effects and overlays
- Full multi-track timeline editor
- Import audio from various sources
- One-tap presets for social platforms
- Offline processing and export
Read full descriptionHide full description
TURN ANY TRACK INTO A VIDEO THAT MOVES WITH IT An audio visualizer and music video maker: beat-synced visualizers, your photos, text and effects, exported for Reels, Shorts, TikTok and YouTube. Refract is an audio-reactive video studio for your iPhone. Load a song and a real-time engine listens to its beat, bass and energy, then choreographs every layer to the music. No keyframes. No guesswork. No template that ignores your track. No account, no sign-in. Your music and your videos never leave your phone. YOUR MUSIC, FROM ANYWHERE Pick a song from Files, iCloud Drive or Voice Memos. Take the soundtrack straight from a video you shot, in Photos or Files, or from a direct link to an audio or video file. Refract checks the video first, keeps only its sound, and lets you hear it before you begin. Keep that sound as its own audio file in one tap. A VISUAL ENGINE THAT LISTENS • 8 GPU-accelerated visualizers — Linear Spectrum, Waveform, Ring, Polar Bars, Dual Wave, Pulse, Streaks and Dots • 20 studio effects — Glow, VHS, CRT Scanlines, Film Grain, RGB Shift, Oil Paint, Fisheye, Wave Warp, Swirl, Posterize, Edge Detect and more • 8 particle overlays for depth, atmosphere and motion • 6 auto-choreographed looks — Neon Pulse, VHS, Poster, Liquid, Handheld, Drift — each a finished edit in a single tap • A text tool with 8 typefaces and 4 ink styles, and type that pulses with the bass A REAL TIMELINE, NOT A TEMPLATE Every layer lives on a full multi-track timeline. Move it, retime it, restyle it, bind any parameter to the audio, and watch the preview follow at 60 fps. Trim a five-minute track to its strongest thirty seconds, add precise fades, and export exactly that. READY FOR EVERY PLATFORM One-tap presets for portrait, square, tall and widescreen — 9:16, 1:1, 4:5 and 16:9 — with resolution, frame rate and quality set for you. Or take full manual control, up to 4K at 60 fps, at any length. LIGHT OR DARK Refract follows your iPhone's appearance, or stays in the one you choose. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Analysis and rendering happen on your phone's GPU. Nothing is uploaded, so creating and exporting work anywhere — on a plane, in a studio, offline. Refract counts which features get used, anonymously and with no identifier of any kind, so we can see what to improve. Unlimited projects and exports, every aspect ratio, your own photos and the full timeline editor — free. Refract Pro unlocks the entire catalogue, 4K at 60 fps, unlimited length and watermark-free export. Everything you make keeps working and keeps exporting, whichever you're on. Made for musicians, producers, DJs, podcasters and labels who need a release-ready visual for every track. Privacy Policy: https://greg-wolny.github.io/refract/privacy.html Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
Music Visualizer and Refract both sit at 4.9 stars, but that hides the real split: 100% of Refract's written reviews are positive against 88% of Music Visualizer's. Refract also leads on iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.4). Music Visualizer's advantage is ratings volume (17 vs 2) and device support (3 vs 1). On price, rating, update cadence 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. Music Visualizer sells 8 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and Refract sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Music Visualizer against 5.0 for Refract. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Music Visualizer has 17 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 88% of Music Visualizer's written reviews are positive against 100% of Refract's.
Music Visualizer ships an update every 4 days, Refract every 5 days. Both last shipped on October 29, 2026.
| Parameter | Music Visualizer | Refract |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (17 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 87.5% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 17 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 days — better | Every 5 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 26.4 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 37 MB | 12 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | William Richards | Greg Wolny |
Customer experience
Music Visualizer
Refract
In-app purchases
Music Visualizer
- Tunely Supporter Monthly$4.991 Month
- Tunely Plus7 Days trial$14.991 Month
- Tunely Pro7 Days trial$24.991 Month
Show 3 moreShow fewer
- Tunely Supporter Yearly$39.991 Year
- Plus Yearly7 Days trial$149.991 Year
- Pro Yearly7 Days trial$249.991 Year
- 20 Custom Songs$8.99
- 50 Custom Songs$19.99
Refract
- Refract Pro — Monthly$3.991 Month
- Refract Pro — Yearly7 Days trial$29.991 Year
Questions
Is Music Visualizer free?
Is Refract free?
Which has better reviews, Music Visualizer or Refract?
Do Music Visualizer or Refract have ads?
Which is updated more often, Music Visualizer or Refract?
Other comparisons















