# Guitoro

66 Hacker News commenters recommended Guitoro and 7 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Fun, well-designed virtual guitar played on a keyboard; people say it feels like a real guitar. Common caveat: chord display and auto-strumming confuse some players.

## Why people recommend it

- Well designed and intuitive (6 comments): "That's one of the best guitar UIs I've seen on a computer." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50081607)) "the best designed guitar app that I've seen in a while" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50080162)) "This is great, great design, great functionality" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50077914))
- Sounds great and smooth (4 comments): "Really cool app, sounds good, especially when playing back the demo songs." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50085404)) "It's really smooth and the sound is perfect!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50088433)) "Very well done. Looks and sounds great." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50079394))
- Fun, hard to put down (3 comments): "This was a ton of fun! I tried it on an iPhone 13. Worked perfectly." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50081445)) "It's incredible. I tried it on PC and got hooked for half an hour." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50084679)) "Before I knew it, ten minutes had gone!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50078124))
- Feels like a real guitar (2 comments): "As a guitar substitute, sure, it's an approximation that can't possibly measure up. But as a modernized version of an autoharp, this could be a legit musical instrument." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50079852)) "As a guitar player this actually feels like playing a guitar." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50078000))

## What people warn about

- Chord display differs from real guitar (5 comments): "I would rather see the “normal” presentation of chords. At least provide a selector to be able to toggle the view." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50078796)) "It was breaking my brain trying to understand the chords on the screen vs. when I play." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50078855)) "The chord names not matching the keys on my keyboard are throwing me off a lot" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50079377))
- Auto-strum on chord changes (2 comments): "I like the strumming part, could you add an option to not auto strum a chord when I do a chord change?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50086254)) "the strumming seems a bit off on chord changes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50078417))
- Bugs with arp, let ring, recordings (3 comments): "It's great! As far as I can tell, the toggle for Let ring is not working" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50078335)) "Very cool, the "arp" function was a little buggy for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50081497)) "Looks great, but recordings are choppy for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50080326))
- Some songs unplayable, few chords (2 comments): "Default view can't play House of the Rising Sun because there's no E." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50099626)) "now the only songs you can play have G, Em, and Em11." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50088976))

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Guitoro", https://hackerapproved.com/p/guitoro/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).