YARG vs Clone Hero: which one should you play?
How YARG and Clone Hero differ in instruments, vocals, looks and development, and which one fits your setup.
Updated
YARG and Clone Hero are the two big free games for playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band style charts on a PC. Both work with plastic guitars, drum kits and a keyboard, and both read the same song folders. The differences are in what you can play, how the game looks, and how actively it is still being developed.
Side by side
| YARG | Clone Hero | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, open source | Free, closed source |
| Modelled on | Rock Band | Guitar Hero |
| Instruments | Guitar, bass, drums, keys, vocals | Guitar, bass and other 5 and 6 fret parts, drums including pro drums |
| Singing | Yes, with lyrics and pitch | No vocal mode |
| Development | Active, regular new features | Long-term support, no major new features planned |
| Installing | Through the YARC Launcher | Download from the Clone Hero website |
| Custom songs | Song folders, added in the Song Folder Manager | Song folders, copied into the Songs folder |
Clone Hero: the established choice for guitar
Clone Hero has been around for years, and much of the charting community grew up with it. If you mainly play guitar, it is fast and well tuned for that. The look follows Guitar Hero, with a highway you can customize. According to its own wiki, Clone Hero is now in long-term support: it still gets fixes, but big additions such as new instruments are not planned.
YARG: the full band, vocals included
YARG is newer and closer to Rock Band. The biggest practical difference is singing. With a USB microphone you can sing the vocal part with lyrics scrolling across the screen, which makes it a good game for a group. YARG also plays keys and is developed in the open, so new features keep arriving.
Which one to choose
If you play guitar on your own and already have a big Clone Hero library, there is little reason to switch. If you want to play as a band, sing, or use pro drums and keys in one game, try YARG. Both are free, and since they read the same folders, you can point them at the same song collection and play whichever fits the evening.
Song folders from AutoChart.eu work in both games. In YARG you get the full band including vocals and lyrics; in Clone Hero you play guitar, bass and drums from the same folder. The setup guides for YARG and Clone Hero show where the folder goes.