Hitster Alternative: The Music Quiz Without Cards or Subscription
Hitster put song guessing back at the heart of game nights: you hear a track, guess whether it came out before or after the previous one, and place it on your timeline. The concept is excellent. What is less so is having to buy a box of cards and pay for a streaming subscription to play it.
If you are looking for an alternative, here is what concretely changes with Junban.
Hitster vs Junban: the comparison
| Criteria | Hitster | Junban |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Physical box (~£25) | Free |
| Themes | Music only | Over 50 themes and playlists |
| What you need | Cards + phone + Spotify | Just a phone |
| Solo mode | No | Yes, with a worldwide leaderboard |
| Offline | No (streaming required) | Yes |
| Multiplayer | Around the table | Up to 4 players, online or on one phone |
What Hitster does really well
Let's be honest: Hitster remains a great party game. The box makes a lovely gift, and physically placing cards on the table creates a conviviality no app quite reproduces. If your evenings are 100% music and you always play in the same place, it keeps all its charm.
What Junban adds
Junban's music mode takes the same principle — listen to a clip and place it before or after the previous one — without a streaming subscription. But the app doesn't stop at music: more than 50 themes and playlists, over 5,000 items to sort, also cover movies, TV shows, history, sport and inventions, with sagas like Harry Potter, Star Wars, Stranger Things and Breaking Bad.
On top of that, three things a box of cards cannot offer:
- a ranked solo mode, to play alone on your commute and climb a worldwide leaderboard;
- an offline mode, on a plane or in the underground;
- daily challenges and multiplayer for up to 4 players: everyone from home remotely, or all around a table on the same phone.
Do you need to be a music expert?
No — and that is probably the most important point. You are never asked for a date: you only say whether an item comes before or after the previous one. You reason, you compare, you follow your intuition. That is what lets a whole family play together, including those who "know nothing" about a given theme.
The verdict
Keep Hitster if you love the physical object and music alone is enough for you. Choose Junban if you want the same fun without buying anything, with ten times more themes, a solo mode and the ability to play anywhere.
👉 Try Junban on iOS and Android — your first game takes less than a minute.
To go further: our pick of the 8 best timeline quiz games, the Timeline alternative and our ways to train your music knowledge.