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

In earlier years, learning guitar was more difficult. You either bought a tablature book from a second-hand shop or took 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 .

We will take a close look at important differences between the two apps, such as user-friendliness, pricing, features, 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 both guitar apps for you

We tested both Simply Guitar and Yousician over several months with their full range of functions and are pleased to present to you in this post what we discovered and experienced.

Simply read on to explore our comprehensive – and honest – comparison report on these two innovative guitar learning apps.

Learning to play guitar – traditional learning methods can often be frustrating

Playing the guitar brings immense joy; for many of us, it's a vital part of life. It's simply the greatest thing.

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

Sometimes there are rapid, rewarding advances, but often it feels like we're progressing slowly and have little to show for it. It can be frustrating and even a little monotonous.

It is therefore no wonder that, according to guitar manufacturer Fender, 90% of guitar students give up within just three months.

Apps are revolutionizing how we learn to play instruments

Simply Guitar and Yousician are two apps for online guitar lessons that promise to make learning guitar more fun through gamification.

Both resemble video games, with colorful, vibrant graphics, points to collect, stars to win, and levels to achieve. Notably, instead of traditional video-based tutorials like those found Justin Guitar and Fender Play

If you remember playing Guitar Hero

Colorful, vibrant, and cheeky – at first glance, Simply Guitar and Yousician might seem like mere toys. But that's deceptive. On closer inspection, you'll discover effective learning systems that are both challenging and rewarding. This is extremely motivating, and you won'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 this is how Simply Guitar scores in average user reviews:

Yousician at a glance

Yousician is another modern guitar learning app that both beginners and advanced players . It impresses with an innovative and interactive teaching approach, where guitar playing is taught using popular songs from various musical genres such as rock, pop, jazz, classical, and blues.

The individual exercises are tailored to each user's abilities and goals. With a variety of support tools such as real-time sheet music , live commentary, and motivating learning games, Yousician encourages regular practice.

Additionally, the app features an advanced note recognition system to monitor learning progress and provide instant feedback for improving playing technique. Yousician is compatible with acoustic and electric guitars as well as ukuleles and can be used on various devices such as smartphones and tablets.

With its user-friendly interface and dedicated community, Yousician offers both beginners and experienced guitarists a unique and engaging learning experience.

In the following video, you'll get an insight into how the app works, while YouTuber GameBlamer learns his first songs with Yousician:

Yousician is an application that can be used as an app on iOS and Android or as a desktop version on macOS and Windows . There are various paid memberships – Premium, Premium+ Personal, and Premium+ Family – as well as a free option that offers basic access to lessons.

Paid membership can be purchased monthly or annually, with the latter being more economical for frequent users. A seven-day trial of Premium+ is available and automatically downgrades to a free basic account if you decide not to continue.

• 7-day free trial
• Premium costs $89.99 with annual billing or $7.49 with monthly billing
• Premium+ Personal costs $139.99 with annual billing or $11.66 with monthly billing
• Premium+ Family costs $209.99 with annual billing or $17.49 with monthly billing

Average user rating

And this is how Yousician scores in average user reviews:

Simply vs. Yousician in detail comparison

In this section, we compare the two interactive guitar apps in detail.

A. First steps

Registering with Simply Guitar or Yousician is straightforward, but there are significant differences .

Visit the Yousician homepage for information about the application and a helpful blog with tutorials on how to use the app. This resource provides valuable information to help you prepare thoroughly before registering.

The process is less obvious with Simply Guitar. 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 all. Short descriptions can be found in the Apple Store and on Google Play.

You can register with Yousician online. After selecting a subscription and creating an account, you can download the desktop application or switch to the mobile app.

Your musical journey begins with Yousician's learning path at the "Basics" level. Here you can complete the fundamental lessons or explore the rest if you already have some prior knowledge. Try to stay on the prescribed path as much as possible, as the further learning route will then become less clear.

In-app help for Yousician is limited. If you have questions, you'll 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 generally easier. A comprehensive questionnaire determines your current skill level and future goals.

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

As with Yousician, you begin your course progress in Simply Guitar with the "Basics 1" level. After successful completion, you have free navigation.

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

B. Handling / Usability

As mentioned, it takes some time and effort to become familiar with the navigation in Yousician. However, it's worth sticking with it, as it all makes sense in the end.

Yousician is divided into three main sections at the top level: Songs, Learning, and Challenges. The "Songs" is usually first, as the prospect of playing our favorite songs is often the motivation for learning guitar.

But let's skip this section for now and begin with "Learning ." After all, you can only play a song once you've learned something, and this section contains the learning path. The "Learning" section is divided into three subsections: Missions, Workouts, and Courses.

Although the learning path would normally be expected under “Courses,” it's instead located under “Missions ,” which can easily lead to confusion. The Courses contain specific material on various artists, while the Workouts include exercises to improve your skills in techniques such as fingerpicking, as well as working with scales, chords, and arpeggios.

“Challenges” includes elements designed to challenge you and your Yousician colleagues in friendly competition.

Simply Guitar is much more user-friendly, simply because it doesn't offer as many features.

Everything here is divided into three sections: Courses , Songs , and Chords . Logically, the course path can be found in the "Courses" section.

C. Content / Learning System

The core of both applications lies in their learning paths and music libraries . Before we turn to other content, let's find out how these core modules perform.

Yousician 's learning path consists of a series of separate missions , which include closely linked tutorials , songs, and videos . These missions are structured like chapters on your journey to playing guitar and become more challenging as the difficulty level increases.

Each mission includes tasks that must be completed in order to finish it. Additionally, the missions are themed and have a difficulty level from one to ten.

The topics cover aspects such as chord and rhythm work, melody, riffs and lead playing, as well as music theory. You can either work through the missions one after the other and cover a broad range of topics, or focus on a specific one.

For example, if you want to improve your lead playing skills, you can focus on melody, riffs, and lead themes. Regardless of the path you choose, you'll experience plenty of interactive learning with Yousician's animated fretboard.

The fret positions are color-coded to show you the correct fingering, and the colors 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, you usually have to play one or two songs to successfully complete that chapter. Playing them well earns you points that can move you up the Yousician rankings. This encourages competition and motivates you to practice.

To improve your performance, you can first play the songs in practice mode, where you can adjust the tempo and repeat sections. In performance mode, you can then see your score increase.

Yousician offers over 1,000 lessons once all missions, tasks, and levels have been completed.

Simply Guitar 's course path works similarly to Yousician's, but is somewhat simpler. Episodes of varying difficulty can be found in the "Courses" menu.

There are two sub-paths on the Simply Guitar course path Lead path in blue and the Chord path in pink. The Lead path focuses on melodies, riffs, and lead playing techniques, while the Chord path covers chords and strumming patterns.

Both paths offer a wide variety of content, though the Chord Path currently has more lessons than the Lead Path. New course content is added regularly. In addition to the paths, there are purple courses that teach skills relevant to both lead and chord work.

Similar to Yousician, Simply Guitar also offers some video content in its courses. However, the focus is primarily on the animated fretboard. Here, a sequence of frets and notes with marked fingerings is presented, but with a slightly different approach.

Simply Guitar is forgiving of occasional mistakes, but if you make repeated errors, the app rewinds to give you another chance to play the section. 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 , though fewer than Yousician.

Both apps reward your progress with green checkmarks, gold stars, points, and encouraging messages – a good feeling… 🙂

song library is sorted by difficulty level and course level. A search bar allows you to find specific songs, but there's no option to filter by genre or other criteria.

The library primarily comprises songs from the rock and pop genres, with jazz and classical music 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 novice Daniel Prosser is doing with Simply Guitar in the first 7 days:

In comparison, Yousician's selection of songs is more extensive and better cataloged than Simply Guitar's. Here you'll find a wide variety of classic and contemporary songs from genres such as jazz, country, and classical.

D. Learning Curve / Skill Development

Both platforms are ideal for absolute beginners. They provide excellent support during the first confusing weeks of learning guitar, when you have blisters on your fingertips and are struggling with mnemonic devices.

Simply Guitar will keep most beginners occupied for months, but then the enthusiasm slowly wanes. When we conducted this review, the final lesson of the chord path dealt solely with cumbersome barre chords, and the songs were heavily simplified versions of the originals.

Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that Simply Guitar is continuously adding new content. Hopefully, more advanced topics will be increasingly covered in the future.

Yousician goes a step further. It's also suitable for beginners, but your journey doesn't end until you've mastered advanced skills like muting the lead palm and playing funk rhythms. It even offers insights into alternative tunings.

Although these aren't yet professional skills, you'll finish your time with Yousician as a solid intermediate player. The song library contains many challenging tracks. However, with a Premium subscription, you only have access to material created by Yousician and not to popular songs. For that, you need a Premium+ membership.

E. Extras / Additional Features

Yousician offers two features that Simply Guitar doesn't have: Firstly, you can follow and connect with Yousician community

The results can be shared in groups of any size, making it ideal for families, classes or friends to discuss progress and occasionally compete.

Furthermore, courses from well-known artists such as Metallica, Juanes and Jason Mraz have recently been added to the program, which is continuously being expanded.

With a Premium+ subscription, you gain access to learning paths and teaching materials for bass, piano, ukulele, vocals, and guitar. Beginners can start with one 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 five additional profiles and the Simply Guitar app in its premium membership.

Our test result

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

If traditional learning methods haven't brought the desired success in the past, it's definitely worth giving one of these two platforms a try. It's extremely unlikely that you'll become frustrated or discouraged using Yousician or Simply Guitar.

After successfully navigating Yousician's user interface a few times, you'll find that this app offers more variety and depth than Simply Guitar. Furthermore, it scores points with its community features and special lessons from artists.

Simply Guitar, on the other hand, impresses with its simplicity and beginner-friendliness. We particularly appreciate the feature that allows you to rewind the animated fretboard if you make a mistake, so you can start again from the beginning.

A cost comparison reveals that Yousician proves to be more cost-effective for individuals (but only in the reduced premium version), while Simply Guitar is the more economical choice for families.

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

To be honest, both platforms are significantly cheaper than private lessons and, in many cases, even more fun. Therefore, we are confident that beginners will be more than satisfied with either option.

Overall, we recommend Simply Guitar for absolute beginners (faster learning progress) and Yousician for ambitious beginners with some prior knowledge, especially because it will further advance you on your way to becoming a skilled guitarist.

Our testing methodology and the Kunstplaza philosophy of honest test reports

Finally, we would like to share a few lines About us self-image regarding honest, helpful and authentic test reports.

Which guidelines are we committed to:

• Complete weighing of all pros and cons
• Clarification and naming of the facts
• Reliable research (two-source principle, where possible) and your own test run ( first hand experience )
• Authentic opinion (if we were to use the provider ourselves)
• Dealing with user criticism from review platforms
• Naming alternatives
• Transparency regarding remuneration and financing (see affiliation note at the very bottom)
• Avoidance of economic directives and dependence on the mentioned providers