Gigvault vs Radar: Which Gig Diary Fits You? (2026)

By Alexandra P. · Published 2026-09-05 · 7 min read

Founder of Gigvault — the concert tracker for live music fans.

Radar arrived in mid-2026 and it is a genuinely good piece of work: clean, fast, clearly built by someone who goes to shows. It also runs a comparison page against Gigvault, so it seems fair to write the other direction — and to be careful about it, because a comparison written by one of the two parties is worth exactly as much as its least flattering sentence.

So here is the least flattering sentence first: Radar does two things Gigvault does not do at all. Details below.

The short version

What Radar does better

Finding shows you have not been to yet. This is the real gap. Radar searches Ticketmaster, Skiddle and Eventbrite, so discovering an upcoming gig and logging your intent to go happens in one place. If your problem is "what is on near me in the next fortnight," Radar answers it and Gigvault largely does not. Gigvault is built around the shows you have already seen.

Clashfinder. Planning a festival set by set against stage times is a real feature and Gigvault has no equivalent. If you spend Glastonbury with a timetable and a highlighter, that is a point for Radar Pro.

Those are not throwaway concessions. If any one of them describes how you actually use an app, stop reading and go get Radar.

Where Gigvault is the better choice

The free plan is not a demo. This is the difference that matters most in practice. Radar's free tier stops at ten gigs. For anyone with a real concert history — and if you are reading a comparison of gig diaries, you have one — ten is a fortnight, not an archive. The moment you log your eleventh show you are at a paywall.

Gigvault's free plan has no cap on concerts, photos or festivals, and includes the full yearly Concert Wrapped. Pro exists at $2.99 a month for advanced stats, monthly Wrapped, longer videos and Concert Groups — it adds depth rather than unlocking the basics.

The backlog is the whole point. Most people come to a gig diary carrying fifteen years of shows they half-remember. That backlog has to fit somewhere before the app is useful, and a ten-entry ceiling makes it structurally impossible to try the thing properly before paying.

Photos are not rationed. One private photo per gig on Radar's free tier, against unlimited uploads on Gigvault's. Nights that produced forty photos exist.

It runs in a browser. Gigvault works on iOS, Android and the web. Entering a decade of old shows is a laptop-and-a-cup-of-tea job, and Radar is app-only.

It is not UK-shaped. Radar's discovery and city pages are built around UK and Irish listings. If most of your shows are in Germany, Spain or the US, the half of Radar that finds gigs is doing less for you.

Which should you pick?

Pick Radar if discovery is your problem — you want an app that tells you what is on this weekend in Manchester and lets you log it in the same tap. Or if you plan festivals with a clash grid. Or if your gig life runs through group chats. Its free tier is fine for testing, as long as you know the ceiling is ten.

Pick Gigvault if the archive is your problem — you have years of shows to get down and you want them counted, with setlists and photos attached, without hitting a wall at ten. Or if you want to do that backlog on a laptop. Or if your concerts are spread across countries.

A fair note: these apps are not really fighting over the same job. Radar is strongest before the show, Gigvault after it. Nothing stops you using Radar to find a gig and Gigvault to keep it — plenty of people run a discovery app alongside a diary.

The honest summary

Radar is a well-made app with a discovery engine Gigvault does not match, and if you are in the UK that is worth something real.

Its free tier is a demo, though, and ten gigs is not a concert history. Gigvault's bet is the opposite one: the diary should be free and unlimited, because a record you cannot finish building is not a record.

Pick the one whose free plan matches how many shows you have actually seen.

Start your concert diary — unlimited shows, free forever.

Related: Gigvault vs setlist.fm · Gigvault vs Concert Archives · The 5 best apps to track concerts · Pricing

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