Comparison

Cordata vs Sonarch

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

Head to head
About

Cordata

Features
Read full description

Cordata is a control point and discovery layer for a local hi-fi library. It drives HQPlayer or a UPnP/OpenHome renderer on your network and turns your own collection into something you actually explore โ€” not just a file list. Requires a renderer on your network: HQPlayer (Embedded or Desktop with Network Control), or any UPnP/OpenHome renderer โ€” a network streamer, a NAS running MinimServer/Asset, etc. Cordata is the remote and the brain; it doesn't replace your server. If you don't run one of these, this isn't the app for you (yet). Rediscover your own library โ€ข Home that fills in as you listen โ€” recently played, most played, forgotten favorites, rediscover, by decade โ€ข Radio: build an endless station from any track, artist, or album โ€” it starts instantly and never repeats an artist back-to-back โ€ข Surprise Me โ€” one tap to reshuffle and rediscover a large collection โ€ข Smart Mixes themed by mood, energy, and era See the truth about every file (with the optional, free companion sidecar) โ€ข Roon-style waveform seekbar โ€ข Dynamic Range, BPM, and musical key for the playing track โ€ข A provenance verdict that flags upsampled "hi-res" โ€” plus per-track spectrograms โ€ข Synced lyrics and high-resolution embedded artwork A listening history that's yours โ€ข A real dashboard: heat map, top artists/albums/tracks, sound-quality breakdown, streaks, trends โ€ข Time Machine โ€” what you played on this day in years past โ€ข Export your history, sync to ListenBrainz, import from Last.fm โ€” your taste graph stays portable Rich context, on device โ€ข Apple Music editorial notes, artist bios, similar artists, and the playlists that feature them (a permission โ€” no Apple Music subscription required) โ€ข Apple Intelligence album insights Ratings, play counts, and all your metadata sync privately across your devices via iCloud. Optional companion: a free, open-source sidecar you run alongside your library unlocks the file-analysis features above. Cordata works without it โ€” the companion just elevates it. SUBSCRIPTION Cordata โ€” Local: an auto-renewable subscription, $49.99/year, with a 2-month free trial. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. The subscription renews automatically unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period; your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the period. Manage or cancel anytime in your Apple Account settings. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://sixthstreet.github.io/cordata-site/privacy.html Just exploring? Tap "Try the Demo" to browse a sample library instantly โ€” no hardware or account required. Cordata is not affiliated with Signalyst (HQPlayer) or Apple.

About

Sonarch

Features
Read full description

Sonarch plays the music you already own. Point it at folders on your Mac, a drive on your network, or a cloud account, and it builds one library out of all of them. Nothing is streamed from us, nothing is counted, and nothing about what you play leaves your device unless you ask it to. MIXES, ENDLESS AND YOUR OWN Your Mac listens to 30 seconds of every track and works out what sounds alike, with no service involved. Play a ready mix named after its artists, or start one from any track, and it goes on for as long as you listen. Drift wanders as near or as far as you like; Similar holds one mood. Narrow a mix to the artists or genres you choose, save it, and come back where you left off. With Sync, your iPhone plays them too. ONE TRACK, HOWEVER MANY COPIES A track you have as FLAC and again as MP3, sitting in two different places, is one row in your library โ€” with every format and every place it lives behind it. EVERY FORMAT, GAPLESS BETWEEN THEM FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF, MP3, AAC and Ogg Vorbis, with ReplayGain so a library built from many sources plays at one loudness. An album ripped as one file with a CUE sheet shows up as its own tracks. The output can follow each track's sample rate, and crossfade and silence trimming are there when you want them. SOUND THAT FITS YOUR HEADPHONES Import the AutoEQ profile for your headphones and everything you play is corrected, with its own profile for each output. Hi-fi style bass and treble controls are kept per output too, and a peak limiter lets both play louder without clipping. BROWSE VIEWS THAT FOLLOW THEIR RULES Any view can be restricted to the locations you choose, and a browse view takes rules as well, composed in its own filter engine. Each one is live and stays where you left it. WHERE YOU LEFT OFF A browse, a playlist, every album and every saved mix each keep their own place, and quitting loses none of them. Bookmarks save any moment inside a track, to come back to later. WHAT YOU PLAYED, AND WHEN History keeps every play with the time it happened, counts a track that came around twice, and remembers the view each one was played from โ€” so it can be played again, or opened where it came from. FOLDERS, NETWORK SHARES AND CLOUDS Bandcamp, Dropbox, OneDrive, pCloud, S3 buckets, a WebDAV share or a Subsonic server, connected straight from your device with your own credentials. Your files never pass through our servers. Take what you want offline for the train. ACROSS YOUR DEVICES Sign in, and your likes, play history, tag corrections and playlists follow you between your devices. Pause on one and carry on from the same second on another. TAGS THAT STAY FIXED Correct a tag once and it survives every rescan โ€” written into the file where that is possible, kept by the library where it is not. ON THE MAC Send audio to another output with a keystroke, mid-track, without a trip into Settings. Schedule a start time and decide what happens when it ends. Drag in a ZIP from Bandcamp and it joins the library, with the shop's own tags stripped on the way past. ON IPHONE CarPlay, the Lock Screen and Control Center, through the system player rather than a second interface to learn. Control the Mac from your phone over the local network. ALSO An editable playing queue. Lyrics from your tags or from LRCLIB. Scrobbling to Last.fm and ListenBrainz. Stop after this track, album or artist, or pause after a set time. Genre categories worked out from your tags. Playlists, statistics, and sharing tracks as files. NO TELEMETRY, NO ACCOUNT NEEDED No analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising identifier and no third-party SDK of any kind. There is nothing counting what you play. An account is optional โ€” the player works perfectly without one.

Screenshots

Cordata4 screens
Sonarch4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Sonarch at none against Cordata's 1. Sonarch also leads on iOS requirement (18.0 vs 26.0). On price, update cadence, ads 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

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Cordata sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $49.99 per year. Sonarch asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences ยท 4 level
Cordata versus Sonarch: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCordataSonarch
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 3 daysEvery 3 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo โ€” better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac โ€” betteriPhone, Mac
Requires iOS26.018.0 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size15 MB39 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperParag PatelAliaksandr Siamionau

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Cordata

Subscriptions1
  • Cordata โ€” Local2 Months trial$49.991 Year
None

Sonarch

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Cordata free?
Cordata is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Sonarch free?
Sonarch is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Cordata or Sonarch have ads?
Neither Cordata nor Sonarch shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Cordata or Sonarch?
Cordata ships an update every 3 days, and Sonarch every 3 days. Most recently, Cordata was updated on October 25, 2026 and Sonarch on October 31, 2026.

Other comparisons