In earlier years it was more difficult to learn guitar. You got a tablature in a second-hand shop or took lessons with a guitar teacher.
Today, however, the situation has changed drastically!
There are numerous modern ways to improve your skills in guitar playing.
In this article we will focus on two of the most popular apps for learning guitar: Yousician and Simply Guitar .
We take a close look at important differences between the two apps, such as user -friendliness, pricing, the functions, the incentives to continue playing and much more.

If you are looking for the best online guitar-learning apps , this article can help you make the right choice.
We tested the two guitars apps for you
We have tried both Simply Guitar and Yousician with the respective full range of functions for several months and are pleased to present you in this article what we found out and experienced.
Just continue to read to explore our comprehensive - and honest - comparative report on these two innovative guitar learning apps.
Learning to play the guitar - traditional learning can often be frustrating
Making music on the guitar gives an immense joy, because for many of us it is a elixir of life. It's just the biggest.
On the other hand, learning the guitar play can be quite frustrating. Anyone who, like me, in the old species with a music book, tablatures and tedious self -study, will be able to confirm this.
Sometimes there is quick progress that are rewarding, but often it feels like we can only progress slowly and have little success. It can be frustrating and even a little monotonous.
No wonder that according to the guitar manufacturer Fender Fender, 90 % of the guitar students will throw the towel within just three months.
Apps revolutionize learning instruments
Simply Guitar and Yousician are two apps for online guitar lessons that promise that learning the guitar is more fun using gamification.
Both look like video games, with colorful, lively graphics, points for collecting, stars for winning and leveling to achieve. It is striking that instead of conventional video-based instruction tutorials, as you can find Justin Guitar and Fender Play
If you remember playing guitar hero
Colorful, bright and cheeky - at first glance, Simply Guitar and Yousician may appear like gimmicks. But that is deceptive. On closer inspection, you discover effective learning systems that are challenging and rewarding at the same time. This seems extremely motivating and you can no longer put the apps aside.
Both programs offer a structured learning environment with achievable goals that are rewarded with praise and incentives. The entire process looks almost like a game, but in reality both platforms enable the learners to practice effective and targeted practice.
Tariffs / fees | Simply | Yousician |
---|---|---|
Monthly subscription | 9.99 EUR | From $ 7.49 |
Annual subscription | 119 EUR | From $ 89.99 |
Free test period | 14 days | 7 days |
compatibility | Simply | Yousician |
---|---|---|
Web app / desktop version | ||
iOS app | ||
Android app |
Song library | Simply | Yousician |
---|---|---|
Number of songs | approx. 5,000 | 900 (p); 10,000 (p+) |
Filter after difficulty | ||
Filter to Genres | ||
Search function | ||
Favorite list | ||
Import your own songs |
Features / learning functions | Simply | Yousician |
---|---|---|
Midi USB connection | ||
Microphone connection | ||
Standby mode | ||
Slower song | ||
Learning loops | ||
Show fingerings | ||
metronome | ||
Feedback immediately | ||
Structured learning paths | ||
Accommodation recognition | ||
Integrated tuner | ||
Midi import |
Simply guitar at a glance

Simply Guitar has established itself as one of the most downloaded guitar apps that are available on all iOS and Android devices and addresses players of all levels-be it beginners or advanced.
The app offers an interactive learning experience with tailor -made lessons that are individually tailored to the user. Even people without previous knowledge in the guitar play can benefit from the easily understandable learning method.
With the help of video notes , users can interact with a virtual fingerboard and learn their favorite pieces thanks to the extensive music library. The integrated real-time notes recognition makes it possible to monitor the user's progress and to give real-time feedback on performance so that specific improvements can be made.
In the following video you get an insight into the functioning of the app, while the Youtuber Neonnerd carries out his first attempts at walking:
Simply Guitar is only available as an app for iOS and Android , a desktop version does not currently exist. There is a free way to complete some basic levels, and Simply Guitar also offers a free 14-day test phase for its premium account.
A paid premium subscription can contain up to five profiles per membership, which is particularly practical if someone from your family learns together with you.
The in-app costs for the premium subscription amount to 9.99 euros per month or 119 euros per year.
Average user rating
And so Simply Guitar cuts off in average user ratings:

Yousician at a glance

Yousician is another modern app for learning the guitar, which optimally meets both beginners and advanced It convinces with an innovative and interactive teaching approach, in which guitar playing is conveyed using popular songs from various music styles such as rock, pop, jazz, classical and blues.
The individual exercises are tailored to the skills and goals of every user. With a variety of support tools such as real-time notes leaves , live comments and motivating educational games, Yousician promotes regular practice.
In addition, the app has an advanced grading recognition system to control learning progress and for immediate feedback to improve playing technology. Yousician is compatible with acoustic and electrical guitars as well as ukuleles and can be used on various devices such as smartphones and tablets.
Due to its user -friendly surface and a committed community, Yousician offers both beginners and experienced guitarists a unique and rousing learning experience.
In the following video you get an insight into how the app works, while the Youtuber Gameblamer learns his first songs with Yousician:
Yousician is an application that can be used on iOS and Android as an app or on MacOS and Windows as a desktop version. There are various paid memberships - Premium, Premium+ Personal and Premium+ Family - as well as a free option that offers simple teaching access.
The paid membership can be purchased monthly or annually, the latter is cheaper for frequent users. A seven -day trial version of Premium+ is available and is downgraded to a free basic account if you don't want to go on.
- 7-day free trial version
- Premium costs $ 89.99 with annual billing or $ 7.49 in the event of monthly billing
- Premium+ staff costs $ 139.99 with annual billing or $ 11.66 in the event of monthly billing
- Premium+ Family costs $ 209.99 with annual billing or $ 17.49 with monthly billing
Average user rating
And so Yousician cuts off in average user reviews:

Simply vs. Yousician in detail comparison
In this section we compare the two interactive guitars apps in detail.
A. First steps
Registration with Simply Guitar or Yousician is uncomplicated, but has significant differences .
Visit Yousician's homepage to get information about the application and a helpful blog with instructions for using the app. This source offers valuable resources to find out comprehensive information in advance of registration.
With Simply Guitar, the procedure is less apparent. As soon as you open the website in your browser, you will only show you a violet button for immediate registration.

The parent company Simply (formerly Joytunes) offers some background information on the app on its website, but it remains. You can find short descriptions in the Apple Store and Google Play.
Registration at Yousician can be made online. After selecting a subscription and creating an account, you can download the desktop application or switch to the mobile app.
Your musical journey then begins with the Yousician learning path at the "Basics" level. Here you can complete the basic lessons or explore the rest if you already have previous knowledge. Make sure not to leave the given path if possible, since the further learning path is no longer clearly visible.
An in-app help at Yousician is only available to a limited extent. If you have any questions, you have to return to the website and search for answers in the knowledge database. You will also find what you are looking for on YouTube.
The entry at Simply Guitar is easier overall. A comprehensive questionnaire will determine your current skills and future goals.

Based on the answers, your individual course is adapted, similar to Yousician.
As with Yousician, you start your course at Simply Guitar with the "Basics 1" level. After successful completion, you have free navigation.
At Simply Guitar there are in-app help for beginners, but some content is more designed for pianists than for guitarists.
B. handling / usability
It takes some time and effort to familiarize yourself with navigation in Yousician, as already mentioned. Nevertheless, it is worth staying because everything in the end makes sense.
Yousician is divided into three main sections on the top level: songs, learning and challenges. The area "songs" usually comes first, since the view of playing our favorite songs is often the incentive to learn guitar.
But let's skip this section for the time being and "learning" . After all, you can only play a song when you have learned something, and in this section the learning path is. The "Learning" section is divided into three sub -sections: missions, workouts and courses.
Although the learning path is usually to be expected under "courses" , it is instead under "missions" , which can easily lead to confusion. In the courses you will find specific material to various artists, while the workouts include exercises to improve your skills in techniques such as finger picking and in dealing with scales, chords and arpeggios.
"Challenges" includes elements that serve to challenge you and your Yousician colleagues in a friendly competition.
Simply Guitar is much more user -friendly, simply because it doesn't offer that many functions.
Here everything is divided into three sections: courses , songs and chords . The course path can logically be found in the "courses" area.
C. Content / learning system
The heart of both applications are their learning paths and music libraries . Before we turn to others, we want to find out how these core modules cut off.
Yousician 's learning path consists of a series separate missions that include closely related tutorials , songs and videos . As chapters, these missions are built on their journey to play the guitar and become more challenging with increasing levels of difficulty.
Each mission includes tasks that have to be done to complete them. In addition, the missions are discussed and have a level of difficulty from one to ten.
The topics include aspects such as chord and rhythm work, melody, riffs and lead game as well as music theory. You can either work through the missions one after the other and cover a wide range of topics or concentrate on a specific topic.
For example, if you want to improve your lead skills, you can concentrate on melody, riffs and lead topics. Regardless of which path you choose, you will experience a lot of interactive learning with the animated fingerboard from Yousician.
The bundle positions are marked in color to show them the correct grip and change depending on whether you play the grade correctly or incorrectly. Positive feedback such as "good" and "perfect" appear when you play the right grade at the right time.
At the end of each mission, one or two songs usually have to be played to successfully complete this chapter. If you play this well, collect points that can bring you up in the Yousician ranking. This promotes competition and motivates to practice.
To improve your performance, the songs can first be played in practice mode, in which you can adapt the pace and repeat sections. In performance mode you can then see how your score rises.
Yousician offers over 1,000 lessons when all missions, tasks and levels have been completed.
The course path from Simply Guitar works similar to that of Yousician, but is a little easier. In the "courses" menu there are episodes of different difficulty.
There are two places on the course path of Simply Guitar: the lead path in blue and the chord path in pink. The lead path focuses on melodies, riffs and lead game techniques, while the chord path treats chords and impact patterns.
Both paths offer a variety of content, with the chord path currently having more lessons than the lead path. New course content is added regularly. In addition to the paths, there are purple courses that convey skills that are important for both lead and chord work.
Similar to Yousician, Simply Guitar also offers some video content in the courses. However, the focus is mainly on the animated fingerboard. Here a sequence of frets and grades with marked finger sets is presented, but with a somewhat different approach.
Simply Guitar forgives individual mistakes, but with repeated omissions, the app recolored to give you the opportunity to play the section again. Exercise mode allows you to repeat difficult passages.
Although the pace is not adjustable, Simply Guitar is waiting for her to play the right note before it continues. Simply Guitar offers numerous lessons for beginners , but less than Yousician.
Both apps reward your progress with green ticks, golden stars, points and encouraging news - a good feeling ... 🙂
The Simply Guitar song library A search bar makes it possible to find certain songs, but there is no possibility of genre or criteria filtering.
The library mainly includes songs from the genres rock and pop, with jazz or classical less represented. Modern pop icons such as Ed Sheeran and Adele are well represented in the song library.
In this video you can see how guitar newcomer Daniel Prosser deals with Simply Guitar in the first 7 days:
In comparison, Yousician's selection of songs is more extensive and better cataloged than Simply Guitar. Here you will find a variety of classics and contemporary songs from Genres such as Jazz, Country and Classic.
D. Learning curve / skill development
Both platforms are ideal for absolute beginners. They support you excellently in the first confusing weeks of the guitar learning when you have blisters on your fingertips and struggle with donkey bridges.
Simply Guitar will employ most of the newcomers for months, but then the enthusiasm slowly subsides. When we carried out this review, the last lesson of the chord path was only about the cumbersome Barré chords, and the songs were highly simplified versions of the originals.
Nevertheless, it should be recognized that Simply Guitar continuously adds new content. Hopefully more advanced topics will be covered in the future.
Yousician goes one step further. It is also suitable for beginners, but your journey only ends when your far advanced skills such as the damping of the lead palm and playing radio rhythms dominate. It even offers insights into alternative moods.
Although these are not yet professional skills, you will complete your time at Yousician as a solid advanced. The song library contains many challenging titles. With a premium subscription, however, you only have access to material created by Yousician and not to popular songs. Premium+ membership is necessary for this.
E. Extras / additional functions
Yousician offers two functions that Simply Guitar does not have: On the one hand, you can follow other members of the Yousician community and connect with them to master weekly challenges and other tasks together.
The results can be shared in groups of all sizes, which is ideal for families, classes or friends to exchange ideas about progress and occasionally compete.
On the other hand, courses were recently included by well -known artists
With a premium+subscription, you will have access to learning paths and teaching materials for bass, piano, ukulele, vocals and guitar. Beginners can start with an instrument, while advanced users can benefit from additional techniques.
The Premium+ Family subscription enables up to four family members to participate in the learning process.
In contrast, Simply Guitar five additional profiles and the Simply Guitar app in its premium membership.
Our test judgment
Both Yousician and Simply Guitar offer beginners a playful, interactive and extremely effective environment to learn the guitar play.
If conventional learning methods have not brought the desired success in the past, it is definitely recommended to give one of the two platforms a chance. It is extremely unlikely that you will be frustrated or discouraged when using Yousician or Simply Guitar.
After you have successfully navigated through the Yousician user interface a few times, you will find that this app offers more diversity and depth than Simply Guitar. In addition, it scores with community functions and special courses by artists.
Simply Guitar, on the other hand, convinces with his simplicity and beginner friendliness. We find the function particularly pleasant to rewind the animated fingerboard if you make an error so that you can start all over again.
In the case of a comparison of costs, it turns out that Yousician proves to be more cost-effective for individuals (but also only in the reduced premium version), while Simply Guitar is the more economic choice for families.
In addition, Simply Guitar offers an interesting feature as a free additional advantage, unless, of course, you are more interested in the game on the e-bass, or a ukulele-here Yousician is apparently the more obvious choice.
Honestly, both platforms are significantly cheaper than private lessons and in many cases bring even more fun. We are therefore confident that beginners will be more than satisfied with both options.
Overall, we recommend Simply Guitar for absolute beginners (faster learning success) and Yousician for ambitious beginners with some previous knowledge, especially because of the fact that it will advance you on the way to an experienced guitarist.
Our test methodology and the Kunstplaza self -understanding of honest test reports
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What guidelines we see:
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- Clarification and naming the facts
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- Description of alternatives
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Owner and managing director of Kunstplaza . Publicist, editor and passionate blogger in the field of art, design and creativity since 2011. Successful conclusion in web design as part of a university degree (2008). Further development of creativity techniques through courses in free drawing, expression painting and theatre/acting. Profound knowledge of the art market through many years of journalistic research and numerous collaborations with actors/institutions from art and culture.