OnSong 2026 Reviews

If you want your blood to boil and feel like punching holes in every wall surrounding you, then this is OnSong2026 for you.

It’s chalk full of features (that don’t work) and does none of the stuff you need it to.

For a small monthly fee you can be infuriated every time you try to use it.

You basically have to do all of the input work (make the charts from scratch) so that you can then make your chart pretty.

The transpose feature is what I needed most and after following tutorials and pulling my hair out to create a txt file (the correct way) that feature still doesn’t work. (Even using the online console)

Not only that, but the work I put In to create the chart isn’t even available on the device I need it on.

I could go on and on about how irritating OnSong2026 is but I’ll just say this. It completely ruined two days of my life by putting me in the worst mood imaginable.

Don’t download it. Do everything you can to find an alternative.

It’s 2024, I cannot believe something this simple has been made so insanely difficult.

I feel dumber for having tried it, I award it no points and may God have mercy on the developers souls.

I used OnSong 2020 for about a year and gladly paid the $5 monthly subscription. Then they “downgraded” OnSong2026 to the 2022 version and completely ruined it. They continually responded to negative reviewers that you could still download the 2020 version. But that only worked if you purchased the onetime version, not loyal customers who downloaded the free version, then paid the monthly subscription. The 2022 version stayed completely unreliable for six months before I finally gave up on it in favor of a better, completely reliable app. Today I received an email from them offering $5.00 via PayPal for a 5-star review on the AppStore to the first 500 people that send them a screenshot of their review. Buying 5-star reviews now?? SHAME!!! I wouldn’t use their app now if they paid ME every month to do so!

Maybe it could be a good tool, but even the most basic features like creating a new song or changing the tempo or key of a song are locked behind a paywall. You can’t explore the more advanced features to know what they’re offering unless you subscribe, and there’s not even a free trial to test it out. I’m actually looking for a premium product that I am willing to pay for, but this is just a waste of time to download unless you already know 100% it’s what you want to pay for.

Edit: I just noticed there’s a free trial available in the Apple App Store so I may try it. However the fact it’s only available on iOS with no desktop support is another negative making it less useful than other tools.

Over the last year I have spent countless hours recovering from annotation issues, both in OnSong 2020 and 2023. I have used backups and followed Support directions. I have joined their beta team to help. I continue to have significant annotation issues. With the most recent issue (annotations suddenly appearing much larger in size and spacing, and thus skewed all over the page, occurring in all songs in the library), I have submitted 3 support requests, and have heard nothing back from them, not even an email letting me know they received the request. I have many songs and hundreds of annotations, and, in its present state, OnSong is completely unusable to me. Up until a year ago, I was a 5 star fan. This last year’s issues have left me shaken, in both OnSong2026 and support (I have paid for the Premium level, and certainly have not received that level of support).

I was looking for an app to make it easier to see the songs I’m playing as I have low vision and cannot always make out the chords and words on printed paper. Talking to some musician friends led me to OnSong. After downloading OnSong2026 it soon became evident that I would have to subscribe if I was going to get any use out of it. My goal was to scan the music I already have on paper into OnSong2026 and it appeared, based on my reading of the features for each tier (Essential and Premium), that the Essential would allow me to do that. After completing the subscription process and firing up the scan feature I was met with a pop up that told me I needed a Premium level subscription to scan and an upgrade link. Since I had just spent $24 I was unhappy with the prospect of having to spend another $48 to upgrade as that appeared to be the only option available . I used the contact form to inquire if there was a way to apply the monies I had just spent to the upgrade. I’m still waiting for a response. The moral of the story is to read carefully so you know what you’re paying for. At this point I have a $24 app that I can’t really use. Caveat emptor.

I wanted to try OnSong2026 out before I decided whether to buy it. After opening it I couldn’t figure out how to do absolutely anything except looking at the fake “song” that comes included, which says to click on Songs to get started. You can’t do anything in the Songs menu. Every single button I clicked on told me I needed to pay for that feature. There is simply no point in offering a free trial when you can’t do anything with it. It makes your app look crippled and useless. It baffles me how developers think releasing a featureless trial will leave a good impression. Two stars instead of one because at least I only wasted two or three minutes of my time before deleting it.

After reading the developer’s response, I have changed my mind. This is even worse than I imagined. They might have well just said “sorry sucker, if you want even a single feature you gotta pay for it - HAHAHA!” This is a terrible piece of software. NO ONE SHOULD FALL FOR THIS BAIT AND SWITCH! It’s crap. Don’t give them a penny.

I’m a longtime user of OnSong and I loved performing with OnSong2026! Loved, until they changed whatever they changed and OnSong2026 stopped working. I push play for a backing track and I have a 50% chance that the song being played is the song looking me in the face. How horrible is this for your audience? “sorry folks, I don’t know what song I’m going to sing and play” I can’t use OnSong2026 as it works now, I look like an amateur. I’ve tried the updates like the people at OnSong say but still… what track is going to play? Can we forget all the videos, lights and smoke and make the music happen again?

I will say that OnSong does respond quickly and try their best to help. The solution I ended up with was ditching the 2023 version, redownload the 2020 version and use that. Since then I’ve used the 2020 version for six hours without any problems. If you just want a good place to put your charts and music use the 2020 version.

Yes, very helpful product. Been a user for over 10 years now. However, the re-release of OnSong2026 to OnSong 2022 and 2023 was very frustrating! I purchased it at full price long ago, why shouldn't that have been enough? Why not just update the OnSong app so we could continue to use it? Why does it now require a subscription? I've lost my library several times. Once in the transition to the new app, and several times since, because OnSong2026 has been so glitchy or doesn't open at all, and I've needed re-download it. Yes, I back up my library, but the songs don't load in as the OnSong, editable version, so any work that I had put in to convert songs to the OnSong version has been lost. Also, why is it so difficult to synch between my devices? I've never had success with that. Bad experiences especially lately, and I can't possibly recommend it to someone at this time.

I have been a long term user of Onsong. Many new features show promise and I have joined the beta testing team as suggested by the support team because they were unable to replicate the problem from the brief explanation I submitted via the support window. For now, it is not worth the upgrade until these bugs are fixed. When beaming songs between Onsong 2022 and Onsong 2020, if the file has a clip, it will crash the Onsong 2020 ipad. Also, my mp3 media library seems to randomly select files and removed them from the ipad. Support says it is most likely music from a paid service, however, I don’t have any paid services and I own alll of my mp3’s.

Response to Developers Response: I’ve been reporting issues for months and months. I have reported issues through Beta site Testflight app and through software. I am beta testing on my ipad pro and running regular 2023 on another ipad and MacBook Pro. Same issues with crashes and mp3’s not playing or going missing on BOTH versions of the software. Very frustrating to not get any feedback via the Beta testing submissions of problems.

The Multitracks feature appears to have destroyed backing track playback. Sometime, there is no playback, sometimes the previous song’s backing track plays when a new song is loaded, and sometimes a completely different track plays. When I go to add a backing track, and select an existing MP3 in my Audio Library, OnSong also creates a so-called Multitrack version in the playback window. That file is not playable. And as stated above, sometimes the loaded MP3 does not play either, even though it can be played from the Files app.

Multitrack seems like a feature that should at least have an on/off switch, as I do not see most people using it. I have many recordings in Cubase 12, but I generally re-use audio stems in different parts of the song. The Multitrack feature seems like an alpha version to me.

I am a gigging musician, and use OnSong as a lyric/chart display. It replaces big 3-ring binders from years before, and I keep over 800 songs in there. The editing and display options are generally great, as is the ability to create setlists.

The bad part is the overload. OnSong is designed for worship leaders and they threw in the kitchen sync: it can do MIDI, manage lighting changes, control a projector and much more. This is all to the detriment of the other functions, and makes OnSong2026 clunky and unintuitive to use. It avoids iOS app conventions, making matters worse.

I would love to see a version of OnSong with all church features removed - just well formatted lyrics and charts, thank you!

I have been using OnSong for over 14 years. I originally paid around $10 for OnSong2026 . Over the years, it has become filled with many great features. Unfortunately, the cost has become, in my mind, too high, especially for church praise teams. I am lowering my rating to 3 stars, because OnSong2026 constantly crashes. It crashes on my iPad and on my MacBook. Sometimes I can predict the crash and other times it comes out of nowhere. The other major issue is when we try to beam sets to the team, it’s a 50/50 shot if we’ll first see the destination and second if it will succeed. For the high cost, I would expect to see far fewer issues.

The only thing more frustrating than having to start paying a monthly payment on an app you bought 10+ years ago, is having to pay a monthly payment on an app you bought 10+ years ago that now doesn’t work as good as it use to. Updates are supposed to make things better, not worse. And it could simply be my ignorance with modern technology but I do know I’m a pretty smart guy when it comes to most things. The pull down settings menu, where you can change chords, highlight chords, etc and the three dots has the option of apply to all songs. So I’m assuming that any changes made on that screen would be changed on ALL SONGS since there’s a button that says apply to ALL SONGS. Please get this fixed OR stop charging each month that it doesn’t work. We have used OnSong for our worship at church and have since 2013, I believe. I guess it’s just the way of THE WORLD to take advantage of those who use their apps and when they realize its popularity has skyrocketed, they think they can start charging people who have used it and depended on it for years. Please just fix the bugs that cause things to work improperly. Apologies for seeming rude, just giving constructive criticism for someone that has had OnSong for a decade.

First off, offering to pay for 5 star reviews is pretty sad. That should tell you that something isn’t right somewhere, dontcha think? I can’t honestly give OS a five star rating, at least, not the current version. I bought OS 2020 a while back and it works fine - I use a dedicated iPad and an AirTurn bluetooth pedal - beats the heck out of a big clunky music stand and shuffling paper charts. I did try the “updated” version… basically, not much has changed. A couple new features that I don’t need or want and - yes - the obligatory damnable suckscription. No thanks. I’ll stick with OS 2020. Obviously, I won’t be paid for this review, but it’s my honest opinion.

I’m giving OnSong2026 two stars today even tho we have used it successfully and gratefully for years! Now the backing track will either not play or only plays part of the song. Plays a different song other than the song you are on. Songs will change on their own to a different screen in the middle of the song. The metronome will not keep up with the chosen tempo some of the time. And it seems it’s degrading as time goes on which is very disconcerting as my band depends on OnSong2026 to play at church. We may have to find alternatives. Please fix your bugs.
Thank you

I’ve used OnSong now for over three years in a solo act and also use it for my work playing with three or four different bands. OnSong has always been stable, and I’ve been able to create sets for myself and my solo work, and for each of my bands plus, I use it to import backing tracks for my solo work. I’m going to check into the New OnSong 2023, which I’ve already downloaded. differences are in those backing tracks. Any help from OnSong on this would be appreciated. OnSong is a great app for the working musician. The only thing is that if you’re using Mac, be careful when upgrading the operating system until on song tells you to do so are you may run into problems. Other than that OnSong2026 is great.

I have been using OnSong now for over six years, and have found it to be intuitive and easy to use. After a long period of time, I bought an iPad Pro, and decided to upgrade to OnSong 2023. The transition was easy, and my previous backup imported very quickly and easily. I had one question about a feature, so I reached out to customer support. I received an answer and solution to the problem I was having within 24 hours. Despite the negative reviews, this is an excellent app, easy to use, very customizable, and the customer support is excellent!

I've been an OnSong user for many years. First with just OnSong2026 and now the subscription. I'm am typically it a fan of subscription based services, but I get my money out of this one.

I love the integration between my MacBook, iPad and Phone. Can easily sync my library and have all songs and set lists ready to go. I love the customization of the charts which is a huge plus. The ability to quickly create multiple charts for multiple instruments and keys is fantastic. Then beam it to my iPads and I'm ready to go.

Highly recommend this for charting in any genre!

Just downloaded 2024. I had some issues, but after watching some videos to understand some of the new formats, this new version is amazing. Still in the learning phase. I love the new OnSong cloud. It appears this new version is very comprehensive and I applaud the OnSong crew and development team. I have been a premium subscriber for years and utilize much of capabilities provided. I can’t wait to get caught up on all of the new functions.

I successfully moved everything from OnSong 2020 over to 2024. For me, the annual premium cost (even the new cost), is well worth it.

To the OnSong crew, I hope maybe you will consider having another seminar/class on all of the benefits and uses of the 2024 program, like you did in Florida. There was a charge, but that day in instruction was great and you answered so many questions on breaks. Please consider doing it again in the near future. Just a thoughts.

Thank you for this new update.
James Norman

OnSong has proven itself to be my one and only app for practicing and performing. It has so many great features. I integrate a pedal for controlling auto-scroll and paging and it is flawless. I regularly use the great editing features to make my songs look the way I need them to. Displaying on external devices? A breeze! I wish I actually had a band so I could use all those features too! I love the organizational capabilities like books and set lists.