Comparison

DeadGraph vs The Dead Archive

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

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • 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)
Features
Read full description

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

About

The Dead Archive

Features
Read full description

Every Grateful Dead concert from 1965 to 1995: setlists, community-ranked best versions, and streaming straight from Archive.org's live music collection. Browse by era, year, or venue. Read the setlist for any night, see where a song debuted and where it peaked, and play full shows with background audio, lock-screen controls, AirPlay, and Bluetooth in the car. On This Day surfaces the shows the band played on today's date. Heady Picks collects the versions the community voted best. Tributes adds Jerry Garcia Band and other related acts. Sign in to save shows and songs, keep listening history, and join the board: a shared feed of comments on shows, songs, and exact moments in a recording. Notifications are optional and off by default. Audio streams from Archive.org, home of the band's taper-friendly live collection. The app hosts no recordings.

Screenshots

DeadGraph4 screens
The Dead Archive1 screens

Verdict

The call

DeadGraph and The Dead Archive are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 7, 2026 and October 4, 2026 respectively.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
DeadGraph versus The Dead Archive: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDeadGraphThe Dead Archive
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 daysEvery 2 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.115.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size54 MB7 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperMyron KochJohn D'Attoma

In-app purchases

None

DeadGraph

No in-app purchases

None

The Dead Archive

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is DeadGraph free?
DeadGraph is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is The Dead Archive free?
The Dead Archive is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do DeadGraph or The Dead Archive have ads?
Neither DeadGraph nor The Dead Archive shows ads.
Which is updated more often, DeadGraph or The Dead Archive?
DeadGraph ships an update every 2 days, and The Dead Archive every 2 days. Most recently, DeadGraph was updated on October 7, 2026 and The Dead Archive on October 4, 2026.

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