Comparison

Nocturne LoFi vs ThunderBeast

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

Head to head
About

Nocturne LoFi

Create personalized soundscapes for focus, relaxation, or sleep with generative music. Explore diverse immersive worlds and customize your audio experience with real-time controls. Save and share your creations, or use it as an instrument for music production.

Highlights
  • Generative real-time music mixing
  • Immersive sound worlds with distinct identities
  • Customizable mood, rhythm, and tone controls
  • Focus timer and sleep fade functionality
  • Background playback and system controls
  • Save and sync custom sound combinations
  • Export audio as M4A files
  • AUv3 instrument extension for music creators
Features
Read full description

Nocturne LoFi is an immersive generative LoFi and ambient music studio for focus, reading, rest, sleep, and late-night creativity. Choose a scene and let its beats, melodies, and environmental textures evolve in real time. Nocturne does not simply repeat one short recording, so each session feels familiar without sounding exactly the same. 【11 IMMERSIVE SCENES】 Travel from Rainy Desk, Late Night Study, Midnight Café, and Night Train to VHS Memory, Forest Cabin, Space Radio, Harbor Dawn, Sunday Morning, Thunderstorm, and Rainy Day. Every scene has its own musical structure and atmosphere. Shape mood, BPM, tone, space, motion, stereo width, and ambience, or generate a fresh variation. Save favorite combinations and return directly to their scenes in Immersive Mode. 【BUILD YOUR OWN SCENES】 Import audio into the shared library, stack up to three layers, and adjust each layer’s volume, pan, and playback speed. Blend your sounds with a generated Nocturne bed to create a personal atmosphere. Choose a built-in vector cover or import, crop, and preview your own image. Pick a clock position, then enjoy your custom scene alongside the built-in scenes on the Home screen and in Immersive Mode. 【SHIMMER AND SOUND SHAPING】 Built-in Shimmer adds a bright, floating upper tail to the sound. Control Amount, Pitch, Decay, Tone, and Modulation, then combine it with warmth, drift, reverb, and the rest of Nocturne’s sound controls. 【FOCUS, SLEEP, AND BACKGROUND PLAYBACK】 Choose a 25-minute focus session, 45-minute deep-work session, or 60-minute sleep timer. Timers continue on the Lock Screen and in the background, pause playback when complete, and gently fade the volume near the end of Sleep Mode. Control playback from the Lock Screen, Control Center, headphones, and Now Playing. Supported iPhone models also show playback and timer status in Dynamic Island, while the Home Screen widget keeps the current scene and BPM visible. 【AUv3 FOR MUSIC CREATORS】 Nocturne LoFi includes both an AUv3 instrument and the Nocturne LoFi FX audio effect for compatible hosts such as GarageBand and AUM. The instrument supports built-in scenes and shared user audio, MIDI performance, host sync, a variable-length step sequencer, swing, ties, per-step velocity, triplet rates, and host project state restoration. Nocturne LoFi FX processes host input with tape warmth, Drive, Tone, Tape Age, Wow, Flutter, Dust, stereo width, Shimmer, and a tempo-aware sequencer. It also supports automatable parameters and effect bypass. The standalone app can discover and load compatible third-party AUv3 effects—including their custom interfaces—so you can build an effects chain around Nocturne. 【EXPORT AND SHARE YOUR SOUND】 Render the current scene as a stereo M4A file, or add it directly to the shared AUv3 audio library for continued use in the instrument and your custom scenes. 【ONE PURCHASE, COMPLETE EXPERIENCE】 Nocturne LoFi is a one-time purchase with no subscription. One purchase unlocks every scene, generative music, custom scenes, timers, audio export, iCloud sync, and AUv3 features.

About

ThunderBeast

Read full description

Rain, wind and thunder, all synthesized in real time. No samples, no loops. Every storm ThunderBeast makes is a storm happening for the first time. EIGHT CITIES, EIGHT SKIES A New York night storm. London drizzle. A Miami squall. Seattle mist. The Bangkok monsoon. A Reykjavik gale. An evening shower in Kyoto. A Cape Town storm front. Choose a preset and the scenery, the weather and the colour of the panel change together, so the city you are listening to is the city in front of you. TEN WEATHER CONTROLS Precipitation and drop size shape the rain; wind speed, gust and turbulence move the air. Storm rate decides how often lightning happens and storm energy decides how heavy each strike lands, while cell distance walks the storm from directly overhead out to the horizon. Humidity and pressure change the whole feel of the sky, and width and gain finish it. FOUR KINDS OF LIGHTNING A crack at close range, thunder that rolls, strikes that repeat, a sheet of light across the whole sky - each one carrying the swell that comes back off the landscape. The bolt is drawn on screen as it happens and changes colour as the storm moves away. No two strikes are ever the same. PLAYABLE WEATHER Play from C2 up and the rain rings at that pitch. Chords and melodies come out of the falling rain. Play below C2 and lightning strikes instead: pitch sets the distance, velocity sets the weight. Twelve hardware controller presets are built in; the mod wheel is storm energy and the sustain pedal is lightning. STANDALONE AND AUv3 Use it on its own, or as an AUv3 plug-in in GarageBand, Logic Pro and others. START FREE Three cities are free from the first launch. ThunderBeast Pro is a one-time purchase, not a subscription: it opens the remaining cities (eight in all) and adds recording and export to WAV, AIFF and FLAC.

Screenshots

Nocturne LoFi4 screens
ThunderBeast4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: ThunderBeast at Free against Nocturne LoFi's $1.99. ThunderBeast also leads on device support (4 vs 2) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). Nocturne LoFi's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and update cadence (every 2 days vs every 2 weeks). On 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

ThunderBeast is free to download; Nocturne LoFi costs $1.99 up front. ThunderBeast sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Nocturne LoFi asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Nocturne LoFi ships an update every 2 days, ThunderBeast every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and October 13, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Nocturne LoFi versus ThunderBeast: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterNocturne LoFiThunderBeast
Price$1.99Free — better
Rating3.7 (3 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews33.3% of reviews—
Number of ratings3 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 days — betterEvery 2 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS17.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size114 MB63 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developer宁 徐Tomocreate, Inc.

In-app purchases

None

Nocturne LoFi

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

ThunderBeast

One-time1
  • ThunderBeast Pro$9.99

Questions

Is Nocturne LoFi free?
Nocturne LoFi costs $1.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is ThunderBeast free?
ThunderBeast is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Nocturne LoFi or ThunderBeast have ads?
Neither Nocturne LoFi nor ThunderBeast shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Nocturne LoFi or ThunderBeast?
Nocturne LoFi ships an update every 2 days, and ThunderBeast every 2 weeks. Most recently, Nocturne LoFi was updated on October 15, 2026 and ThunderBeast on October 13, 2026.

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