Chordify Alternative

At a Glance

Pick Chordify if you want chord charts — a large library of songs ready to strum along to, diagrams for four instruments, PDF sheets and setlists. Pick Riffloop if you want to play with the band — the chords arrive with the song split into six parts, so you can mute your instrument, solo it to check a chord, and loop and slow the hard bar.

• 🎼 Both read chords from the audio and keep them in time with the song
• 📚 Chordify has a song library; Riffloop analyses the song you open
• 🎚️ Riffloop separates the band into six parts; Chordify doesn't
• ▶️ Riffloop works on the YouTube page itself; Chordify in its own site and apps
• 🪕 Chordify draws guitar, piano, ukulele and mandolin; Riffloop draws guitar shapes
• 🆓 Chordify's free plan shows full charts for a few songs a day; Riffloop's shows the first 30 seconds of chords, with the stems

What Each One Is

Chordify is a chord-chart service: it shows the chords of a song as a timeline that plays along with the music. Riffloop is a practice studio: it reads the chords, key and tempo, and separates the recording so the chords sit next to stems you can mute, loop and slow down.

Chordify

A website plus iOS and Android apps. You pick a song — from its library, which it puts at more than 36 million songs, or from YouTube — and the chords scroll under the player with diagrams for guitar, piano, ukulele or mandolin. Chordify says its chords come from AI combined with human music researchers. The free plan limits how many songs you open a day; paid plans unlock unlimited songs, then key and tempo change, looping, a digital capo, PDF chord sheets, MIDI and setlists.

Riffloop

A Chrome extension, a web Studio, and iPhone and Android apps. On YouTube, a panel opens under the video; pick the section you want, and Riffloop separates it into vocals, drums, bass, guitar, piano and the rest on your own device, then reads the chords, the key and the real BPM. The chords show as guitar shapes that move with the song, next to six faders, an A-B loop, a speed control that holds the pitch and a key change that moves the audio and the shapes together. Read more on the YouTube chord finder page.

Riffloop vs Chordify

Both read chords from the audio and keep them in time with the song. They split on what surrounds the chords: Chordify builds out the chart — library, instruments, printing — and Riffloop builds out the recording — stems, loop, tempo and key.

Chordify's wins sit around the chart: the library, four instruments, sheets you can print and a free plan that shows whole songs. Riffloop takes the rows about the recording itself. If what you need is to hear the guitar on its own, then play it with the band, read the rows about the recording.

Where Chordify Fits Better

Chordify is still the better choice in five situations, and if one of them describes you, keep it.

• 📚 You want a song now. A library of tens of millions of songs means most charts are already there, with no analysis to wait for.
• 🪕 You play ukulele, mandolin or piano. Chordify draws diagrams for all four instruments. Riffloop draws guitar shapes only.
• 🖨️ You want paper. PDF chord sheets, MIDI files and setlists for rehearsals and gigs. Riffloop has no printable chord sheet.
• 📖 You read whole charts on the free plan. Chordify's free tier shows a song's chords end to end, a few songs a day. Riffloop's free chords cover the first 30 seconds.
• 🧑‍🏫 You teach a class. Chordify runs a school programme, and its charts are quick to put in front of a room.

If you mostly strum along from a chart, Chordify was built for exactly that, and it has been doing it for years. Riffloop is built for the moment the chart isn't enough — when you need to hear the part.

Where Riffloop Is Genuinely Different

Riffloop's difference is the recording underneath the chords: it separates the song into six parts, so the chords come with a band you can take apart.

• 🎚️ Mute your part and play it. Drop the guitar and strum the chords over the rest of the band — a backing track that is the real recording.
• 👂 Solo the chord instrument to check the chart. When a chord sounds wrong, hear the guitar or piano alone and settle it in seconds.
• ▶️ Stay on YouTube. The panel sits under the video you already have open, including live takes, covers and lessons.
• 🔁 Loop and slow down for free. A-B looping is free, and slowing down with the pitch held is free to start — on the stems, not just the mix.
• 🔑 Move the key, and the shapes follow. Transpose the audio into a friendlier key and the guitar shapes move with it.
• 🔒 Nothing uploaded. The separation and the chord reading both run on your own device.

One honest limit to weigh against that: Riffloop reads harmony at the major and minor level, so a Cmaj7 shows as C. Because you can solo the guitar, you can hear the seventh the label leaves out — but the chart itself won't spell it.

Real screenshots from the Riffloop Android app, using our own demo song. On a computer, the Chrome extension shows the chord track under the YouTube video instead.

Free and Paid, Compared Honestly

Both have a free plan, and they limit different things. Chordify's free plan limits how many songs you open; Riffloop's limits how many songs you separate and shows the first 30 seconds of chords on each.

The practical difference: on Chordify, the things a practising player reaches for — loop, tempo, key, capo, your own files — are on Premium rather than Basic. On Riffloop, looping, slowing and key change are free to start; Pro adds whole-song chords, longer loops, unlimited songs, the beat-locked metronome and full-length exports of your own uploads.

Switching From Chordify: What Maps Across

Most of the Chordify Premium practice tools have a direct equivalent in Riffloop, and two don't. Here's where each one lives, so you know what you keep and what you give up.

Checking a Chord Chart by Ear

Every chord detector gets some chords wrong — usually inversions, sus chords and sevenths. The fastest fix is to hear the chord instrument on its own, which is the step a chart-only tool can't give you.

1. Read the chart first. Strum through the progression once with the full mix and mark the chords that feel wrong under your hands.
2. Loop the suspect bar. Set an A-B loop around the two or three beats where the chord changes, and drop the speed to 75% with the pitch held.
3. Solo the chord instrument. Mute everything except the guitar or piano. With the vocal and drums gone, a missing seventh or a sus4 is usually obvious within a couple of passes.
4. Check the bass. Solo the bass on the same loop. If it isn't on the chord's root, you have an inversion — write it as a slash chord, like C/E.
5. Play it with the band. Mute your instrument, bring the speed back up in 5% steps, and play the corrected chart against the real recording.

This works whichever chart you started from — Chordify's, a tab site's or Riffloop's own. For the full method, see how to find the chords of a song by ear.

Test It Yourself in Ten Minutes

We make Riffloop, so don't settle this on our say-so. A song whose chords you already know is the fairest test, and both free plans cover it.

1. Choose a song you can already play. Knowing the real chords is what lets you judge each result instead of trusting it.
2. Open it in Chordify. Play the first verse and chorus and note any chord that doesn't match what you play.
3. Now load that song on YouTube and open the Riffloop panel. No account needed. Separate the first verse and read the chord track under the video.
4. Compare the same eight bars. On a clear pop or rock recording, expect both to get most of the changes right — that's the honest expectation.
5. Now play along. In Riffloop, mute your instrument and play over the band. In Chordify, play along with the chart. Whichever feels more like practice is your answer.

How We Checked This

Riffloop is our product, and the Riffloop column reflects that. The Chordify column comes from one source: Chordify's own Premium page, read on 17 October 2026. We didn't use review sites for it, and we didn't run their service through tests of our own.

Two things to know if you're pricing it up. Chordify shows its prices in your local currency, so we haven't converted them; check the Premium page for yours. And its free song limit isn't stated on that page — the figure of four songs a day comes from user reviews quoted there, so treat it as typical rather than guaranteed.

We haven't scored either tool for chord accuracy. Both read chords with AI, results vary by recording, and any page quoting a precise accuracy percentage for either made the number up. The workflow above is how to judge it on the songs you actually play.

If Neither Is Quite Right

Chord charts, stem apps and tab sites each solve part of the job. If neither of these two fits, one of these probably does.

Moises pairs stem separation with chords on its phone and tablet apps — see our Moises comparison. Tab sites like Ultimate Guitar have human-written charts for popular songs, which beat any detector on extended chords. And if you want to get the chords yourself, our guide to finding the key and guide to transcribing by ear cover the method from scratch.

Chordify and Riffloop — FAQ

What people ask before switching: what Chordify's free plan covers, what Premium adds, whether either can mute an instrument, and which suits which way of learning.

Keep Going With Riffloop