ChordGrab vs Ultimate Guitar
A hand-written library against audio detection, compared honestly.
What is the difference between ChordGrab and Ultimate Guitar?
Ultimate Guitar is a library of chord sheets and tabs written by hand and submitted by users, mostly for the studio version of a song. ChordGrab listens to the specific YouTube video you paste, so it has chords for the cover, the live version or the original song that no one has ever transcribed.
Which one has chords for more songs?
Ultimate Guitar has millions of hand-written sheets and wins on famous songs. ChordGrab has a sheet for anything on YouTube within about a minute, which is where a hand-written library has nothing: a friend's cover, a lesson video, a song with 400 views.
Which one is more accurate?
A well-rated Ultimate Guitar tab is usually right for the studio recording, but often in a different key from the cover you are watching. ChordGrab's detection matches the recording you gave it and works out the capo, so the shapes match what the player fingers; dense tracks come back marked as an estimate.
Do both show chords in time with the song?
Ultimate Guitar sheets are static text with an autoscroll option; ChordGrab's chords are time-aligned to the audio, so the play-along view highlights each chord as it happens. That is the difference between reading a sheet and following a song.
Which is cheaper?
ChordGrab's free plan includes two fresh detections a month plus every song already analysed by anyone. See pricing for Pro and Max and compare with Ultimate Guitar's current Pro plan on their site, since prices change.
| Feature | ChordGrab | Ultimate Guitar |
|---|---|---|
| Source of the chords | The audio of the video you paste | User-submitted sheets |
| Covers, live versions, originals | Yes | Only if someone wrote it up |
| Chords timed to the recording | Yes | No, autoscroll only |
| Full tablature and solos | No | Yes |
| Automatic capo detection | Yes | Written into the sheet by the author |
| Transpose | Pro and Max | Yes |
Who should pick which?
Pick Ultimate Guitar for tabs, solos and famous songs that have a well-rated sheet. Pick ChordGrab when the song you want is a YouTube video, and you want its chords, lyrics and capo shapes without hoping someone else transcribed it first.
Try ChordGrab on a song you want to play
Free to start, no card needed. Paste a YouTube link in the app and the chords come back in about a minute, with diagrams, transcribed lyrics and a play-along.