Simply Guitar or Yousician – Which is the better app for learning guitar?

In earlier years, it was more difficult to learn the guitar. One would get a tablature book from a second-hand store or take lessons from a guitar teacher.

Today, however, the situation has changed drastically!

There are numerous modern ways to improve your guitar-playing skills.

In this article we will focus on two of the most popular apps for learning guitar: Yousician and Simply Guitar .

In doing so, we take a close look at important differences between the two apps, such as user-friendliness, pricing, features, incentives to keep 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 for several months with their full range of features and are excited to present to you in this article what we have discovered and experienced.

Just keep reading to explore our comprehensive – and honest – comparison report on these two innovative guitar learning apps.

Learning to play the guitar – Traditional learning can often be frustrating

Playing the guitar brings immense joy, for many of us, it is an elixir of life. It's just the best.

On the other hand, learning to play the guitar can be quite frustrating. Anyone who, like me, made their first attempts the old-fashioned way with a sheet music book, tablatures, and painstaking self-study will be able to confirm this.

Sometimes there are quick advancements that are rewarding, but often it feels like we are only making slow progress and can show little success. It can be frustrating and even a bit monotonous.

No wonder, then, that according to guitar manufacturer Fender, 90% of guitar students throw in the towel within just three months.

Apps are revolutionising the learning of instruments.

Simply Guitar and Yousician are two apps for online guitar lessons that promise that learning the guitar is more fun using gamification.

Both feel like video games, with colourful, vibrant graphics, points to collect, stars to earn, and levels to reach. Notably, instead of traditional video-based instructional tutorials, like those found on platforms such as Justin Guitar and Fender Play, they use an animated fretboard as the main tool for learning.

If you remember playing Guitar Hero as a child, you will feel right at home with both Simply Guitar and Yousician.

Colourful, flashy, and cheeky – at first glance, Simply Guitar and Yousician may seem like toys. But that's misleading. Upon closer examination, one discovers effective learning systems that are both challenging and rewarding at the same time. This is extremely motivating, and you don't want to put the apps down.

Both programs offer a structured learning environment with achievable goals that are rewarded with praise and incentives. The entire process feels almost like a game, but in reality, both platforms enable learners to practice effectively and purposefully.

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.

Through its user-friendly interface and an engaged community, Yousician offers both beginners and experienced guitarists a unique and captivating 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, with the latter being more cost-effective for frequent users. A seven-day trial of Premium+ is available and will be downgraded to a free basic account if you don't want to continue.

• 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 the Yousician homepage to get information about the application and a helpful blog with instructions on how to use the app. This source offers valuable resources to thoroughly inform yourself before registering.

With Simply Guitar, the approach is less obvious. As soon as you open the website in your browser, you will only see a purple button for immediate registration.

The parent company Simply (formerly JoyTunes) offers some background information about the app on its website, but that's about it. You can find brief descriptions in the Apple Store and on Google Play.

Registration with Yousician can be done 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 some prior knowledge. Make sure not to deviate from the given path, as the further learning journey will then no longer be clearly visible.

In-app help at Yousician is only available to a limited extent. If you have questions, you need to return to the website and search the knowledge base for answers. You can also find tutorials on YouTube.

Getting started with Simply Guitar is overall easier. Through a comprehensive questionnaire, your current skills and future goals are determined.

Based on the answers, your individual course progression will be adjusted, similar to Yousician.

Like with Yousician, you start your course progression at Simply Guitar with the "Basics 1" level. After successful completion, you have free navigation.

At Simply Guitar, there is in-app help for beginners, but some content is designed more for pianists than for guitarists.

B. handling / usability

It takes some time and effort to get familiar with navigating Yousician, as mentioned earlier. Nevertheless, it's worth sticking with it, as everything makes sense in the end.

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 fret positions are colour-coded to show you the correct fingering and change depending on whether you play the note correctly or incorrectly. Positive feedback such as "Good" and "Perfect" appears when you play the correct note at the right time.

At the end of each mission, one or two songs usually need to be played to successfully complete this chapter. If you play these well, you will earn points that can move you up in the Yousician leaderboard. This promotes competition and motivates practice.

To improve your performance, the songs can initially be played in practice mode, where you can adjust the tempo and repeat sections. In performance mode, you can then see how your score increases.

Yousician offers over 1,000 lessons when all missions, tasks, and levels are completed.

The course path of Simply Guitar works similarly to that of Yousician, but is designed to be somewhat simpler. In the "Courses" menu, episodes of varying difficulty can be found.

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 failures, the app rewinds to give you the opportunity to play the section again. The practice mode allows you to repeat difficult passages.

Although the tempo is not adjustable, Simply Guitar waits for you to play the correct note before proceeding. Simply Guitar offers numerous lessons for beginners, but fewer 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 learning the guitar, when you have blisters on your fingertips and are struggling with mnemonic devices.

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 must be acknowledged that Simply Guitar continuously adds new content. Hopefully, more advanced topics will be increasingly 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 intermediate. 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. For that, a Premium+ membership is necessary.

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 any size, making it ideal for families, classes, or friends to exchange progress and occasionally compete with each other.

On the other hand, courses by well-known artists such as Metallica, Juanes, and Jason Mraz have recently been added to the continuously expanding offering.

With a Premium+ subscription, you get access to learning paths and teaching materials for bass, piano, ukulele, vocals, and guitar. Beginners can start with an instrument, while advanced players can benefit from additional techniques.

The Premium+ Family subscription allows up to four family members to participate in the learning process.

In contrast, Simply Guitar offers five additional profiles and the Simply Guitar app in its premium membership.

Our final verdict

Both Yousician and Simply Guitar offer beginners a playful, interactive, and highly effective environment to learn guitar playing.

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 highly unlikely that you will become frustrated or discouraged when using Yousician or Simply Guitar.

After you have successfully navigated the Yousician interface a few times, you will find that this app offers more variety and depth than Simply Guitar. In addition, it scores points with community features and special courses from artists.

Simply Guitar hingegen überzeugt mit seiner Einfachheit und Anfängerfreundlichkeit. Besonders angenehm finden wir die Funktion, das animierte Griffbrett zurückzuspulen, wenn euch ein Fehler unterläuft, damit ihr noch einmal von vorne beginnen könnt.

In a cost comparison, it turns out that Yousician is more cost-effective for individuals (but only in the reduced Premium version), while Simply Guitar is the more economical choice for families.

Additionally, Simply Guitar offers an interesting feature as a free added benefit, unless, of course, you are more interested in playing the electric bass or a ukulele – in which case, Yousician is the apparently more obvious choice.

Honestly, both platforms are significantly more affordable than private lessons and, in many cases, even more fun. Therefore, we are 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 prior knowledge, especially because it helps you progress further on the path to becoming a proficient guitarist.

Our testing methodology and Kunstplaza's self-understanding of honest reviews

Finally, we would like to give you a few lines About us , self -image with regard to honest, helpful and authentic test reports.

What guidelines we see:

• Complete weighing of all advantages and disadvantages
• Clarification and naming the facts
• Reliable research (two-source principle, where possible) and your own test run ( first hand experience )
• Authentic opinion (we would use the provider ourselves)
• Dispute of user criticism from evaluation portals
• Description of alternatives
• Transparency regarding remuneration and financing (see affiliation note at the bottom)
• Avoiding economic instructions and dependence on the providers mentioned