If you’ve been considering an online piano app and Flowkey and Simply Piano keep showing up in every comparison list, you’re not alone. They’re the two most prominent apps aimed at adult beginners, both have strong brand recognition, and both promise to teach you piano on your phone or tablet. The marketing materials look almost identical. The actual experiences? Surprisingly different.
This comparison is an editorial analysis based on each vendor’s published information, pricing and public user feedback. We have not hands-on tested either app.
Here’s how they actually stack up, where each one wins, and which adult beginner profiles should pick which.
You are choosing between two subscriptions, and there is a third option nobody puts in these comparisons. Both apps are good at what they do and the breakdown below is honest about which one suits you. But if the thing you actually want is to start playing songs at your own pace without an open-ended monthly bill, I would choose Pianoforall instead. About $49 once, 60-day money-back guarantee, and it stays yours. Price approximate at the time of writing.
The 30-second answer
If you mainly want to play recognisable pop songs in arrangements that sound musical, with a beautiful interface and high-quality classical pieces in the library, pick Flowkey. If you want a structured, gamified course that walks you through skills step by step and you mainly want to feel like you’re making fast progress, pick Simply Piano.
Both will get you playing within a few sessions. The difference is in what you’ve got at month six.
How they’re similar
Both apps are built around the same core idea: you connect a MIDI keyboard (or use the device microphone), the app shows you scrolling notation with a falling-notes-style visualisation, and it gives you real-time feedback on whether you played the right notes at the right time. Both are subscription based, both run on iOS and Android plus desktop, both target adult beginners. Both have free trials.
If you compared screenshots side by side without context, you might assume they were similar tools. The differences emerge in the experience, not the features list.
How they differ
Lesson structure and progression
Simply Piano is built like a video game. There’s a clear path with named levels (Essentials I, Essentials II, etc.), each level has a sequence of exercises, and you unlock the next exercise by completing the current one. It’s gamified in a deliberate way — completing units feels rewarding, you see progress bars filling up, and the app keeps nudging you forward.
Flowkey is built like a song library with lessons. You can dive into any song that matches your level, and the structured course paths are there but feel more optional. The app is less prescriptive — it expects you to be partly self-directed. For some adults this is liberating; for others it leads to drift.
Verdict: Simply Piano if you want hand-holding, Flowkey if you want freedom.
Song library
This is probably the biggest functional difference. Flowkey has, in my opinion, the better library — both broader and deeper. The classical pieces are well-arranged at multiple difficulty levels, you can find decent jazz standards, and the pop selection covers more current artists. The arrangements often have an “advanced” version that’s genuinely interesting to play.
Simply Piano’s library is good but more “beginner-aimed”. The arrangements are simpler, the song selection is more pop-heavy and Top 40 oriented, and the difficulty ceiling is lower.
Verdict: Flowkey for adults who want music they can grow into, Simply Piano for adults whose primary motivation is current pop hits.
Visual presentation
Flowkey is genuinely beautiful. The notation is clear, the keyboard visualisation is elegant, the typography is good, the colour palette is calm. Reading music on Flowkey feels like reading music on a well-designed piece of sheet music software, only better.
Simply Piano’s interface is friendly and clean but more juvenile in feel. There are bouncing animations, achievement notifications, character mascots in some lessons. None of this is bad — but it’s not what an adult who wants a serious learning tool will love six months in.
Verdict: Flowkey for adults who care about aesthetics, Simply Piano for those who don’t.
Note-reading vs chord-playing
Flowkey emphasises reading notation from day one. The two-line clef view is the centrepiece. You’ll be reading sheet music, slowly, but reading it.
Simply Piano teaches notation but pads it with a lot of “play this falling note now” instruction. You can technically progress for a while without genuinely reading music, just by reacting to visual cues.
Six months in, the typical Flowkey learner can pick up unfamiliar sheet music and have a real go. The typical Simply Piano learner usually can’t, even at the same level on the app.
Verdict: Flowkey, decisively, for serious musical literacy.
Listening accuracy
Both apps offer a microphone listening mode for acoustic pianos, but the accuracy varies (we have not tested this ourselves). Either way, MIDI is the recommended setup for both.
Pricing
Pricing for both is similar in 2026 — roughly $19.99/month or around $9.99/month if billed annually. Simply Piano sometimes runs lifetime deals; Flowkey occasionally bundles family plans. Neither is dramatically cheaper than the other, so price isn’t usually the deciding factor.
Notice what that paragraph actually says: the price is the same either way, so the real decision is not Flowkey against Simply Piano, it is whether you want to be renting your lessons at all. Pianoforall works the other way round: about $49 once, and it stays yours.
It is a trade-off, not a free lunch. Pianoforall is a video course with downloadable ebooks, so it cannot hear you play and it will not tell you that you fluffed the third bar — which is the single thing both of these apps do well. What you get instead is depth — chords, blues, jazz, improvisation — and no renewal date. You also get 60 days to change your mind, with a money-back guarantee.
Who should pick Simply Piano
- You’re an absolute beginner and you want to feel like you’re winning from session one.
- You like clear linear paths and progress bars.
- You want to play current pop songs that sound recognisable, even in simplified form.
- You don’t care much about reading sheet music — you mainly want to be able to play.
- You like gamification and don’t find achievement badges silly.
Who should pick Flowkey
- You want to genuinely learn to read sheet music as part of the process.
- You enjoy beautiful, calm interfaces and good visual design.
- You have some musical background — not necessarily piano, but you understand basic notation.
- You want a song library you can grow into for years, including classical pieces.
- You’re more self-directed and don’t need constant gamified feedback.
Practical decision framework
Here’s the simplest decision: think about who you want to be in two years. If your dream is to sit down at a piano in someone’s house, see sheet music for a song, and play it (even slowly), pick Flowkey. If your dream is to play a handful of songs you absolutely love and you’re not interested in the broader skill of reading music, pick Simply Piano.
If you can’t decide, both have free trials. Try them in sequence — a week each — and pay attention to which one you feel sad to leave behind.
The guided path with progress bars. Pick this if you need the app pushing you.
Neither app teaches chords or theory properly. This one does, for a single payment.
What both apps don’t quite do well
It’s worth flagging that neither Flowkey nor Simply Piano is great at:
- Music theory. You’ll absorb some by osmosis but neither teaches it systematically.
- Improvisation or chord-based playing. If your goal is to noodle pop songs by chord, Pianoforall remains a stronger choice.
- Long-term progression past intermediate. Both apps top out around early-to-mid intermediate. After that, you’ll graduate to sheet music, a teacher, or both.
- Personalised feedback on technique. Neither can tell you that your wrist is bent wrong or your shoulders are tense. A real teacher does this; an app can’t yet.
How they compare to other beginner options
Both Flowkey and Simply Piano sit firmly in the “subscription app” category. The other major paths are:
- Pianoforall: a one-time-purchase video course with downloadable ebooks teaching chord-based playing. Best for adults who mostly want to play pop songs.
- Piano Marvel: stricter pedagogy, better for serious classical-focused learners.
- Playground Sessions: more song variety, slightly heavier on theory.
- YouTube + free resources: cheapest, but requires you to build your own curriculum.
For a fuller comparison see our best online piano lessons guide.
Which Should You Buy First?
Most comparisons like this one treat the decision as an either/or you make once. In practice it is a sequence, and the order matters more than the choice — because one of these options is refundable and the other two are commitments.
Start with the one that costs least to be wrong about. Pianoforall is around $49 once, with a 60-day money-back guarantee through ClickBank. Two months is long enough to find out the thing you actually need to know at the start, which is not “Flowkey or Simply Piano?” but “am I going to sit down at the piano four times a week?”. If the answer turns out to be no, you get your money back. If you had started on an annual subscription instead, you would be eleven months into a plan you are not using.
Then add the app only if you can name what is missing. After a couple of months of chord-first practice you will know exactly which of the two apps above you need, and why. If you keep skipping practice and want something that nags you and rewards streaks, that is Simply Piano and it is worth the subscription. If you keep playing wrong notes without noticing, or you want to read notation properly, that is Flowkey. Those are good reasons, and they are much easier to judge after you have played a bit than before.
When to skip Pianoforall and subscribe today. If you are buying for a child or a teenager, if you know from experience that you abandon anything self-directed, or if you want to be playing a specific song this weekend rather than understanding how music works — take one of the free trials and do not overthink it. The chord-first route rewards patience, and not everyone is in the mood for that, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to know about yourself.
What I would not do is buy two of these at once. They teach in opposite directions, and splitting thirty minutes a day across two methods is the fastest way to make slow progress at both.
Decided already? Get Pianoforall — about $49 once, 60-day guarantee →
Or read the full review first if you want the detail on what is inside.
The bottom line
Flowkey and Simply Piano are both legitimate options. Neither is bad. The difference is in what skill set they leave you with after six months of consistent use. Flowkey leaves you with someone who can actually read music slowly. Simply Piano leaves you with someone who can play a satisfying handful of songs.
For most adults reading this guide who plan to keep playing piano for years, Flowkey edges it. For adults who want to feel like they’re making fast measurable progress in the early months, Simply Piano edges it. Both have free trials and the cost of trying them in sequence is your time, not your money. Try them. Pick the one you genuinely look forward to opening.
If neither app feels quite right, Pianoforall takes a completely different approach — chord-first, video-based, one-time purchase. Our Pianoforall review has the full details.
If you want an app that listens to you and tells you what to do next, both of these are decent and the guide above will point you at the right one. If you would rather start playing at your own pace, pay once and keep the course for good, I would choose Pianoforall.
Disclosure: this comparison contains affiliate links. If you sign up via one of our links we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. How we reviewed this (updated 16 October 2026): this page is based on the vendor’s official information, pricing and policies and on public user feedback. We have not hands-on tested the products listed.