Collecting Guides

Vinyl Collection Apps Compared (2026)

By EhsanPublished October 2, 20266 min read

Three Shelfify screens side by side: a shelf view, a record search with shelf positions, and a song search showing side and track

We build Shelfify, so read this with that in mind. We tried to keep it fair: every fact about another app comes from its own App Store or Google Play listing, website or release notes, checked on October 2, 2026. Where we couldn't confirm something, we say so instead of guessing.

All five apps catalog a collection. They are good at different things: identifying a record, knowing what it's worth, keeping a detailed database, or knowing where it physically sits in your home.

The short version

Discogs: the database and marketplace everyone builds on. Free. Best if you buy and sell, and the app has Last.fm scrobbling again since July 2026.
Record Scanner: best at identifying a record from a photo of its cover, with price estimates. Shelves are labels in a virtual cabinet.
Music Tracker: a tidy Apple-only catalog for iPhone, iPad and Mac, with a three-level location (location, shelving unit, shelf). No account needed.
CLZ Music: a long-running database app with a free-text location field and a web version. Subscription only, with a 7-day trial.
Shelfify: built around the physical shelf. Room, shelf, compartment and position from the left, on a map drawn to your real measurements, with two-way Discogs sync.

Where is the record? Location tracking compared

Discogs has no built-in location field. You can create custom fields on the Discogs website and type a shelf name into one, and since June 2026 the app can search those fields. CLZ Music has a built-in free-text Location field and can group albums by it.

Music Tracker goes further, with three levels per album: a location, a shelving unit and a shelf. Record Scanner keeps records in a virtual cabinet with labelled shelves and added a placement section in July 2026.

None of the four lists a position inside a shelf, like third from the left. That is the part Shelfify was built for. You draw your real shelves, assign records to compartments, and search shows the room, the shelf, the compartment and the position, plus the neighboring covers so you recognize the spot. More on that in how to find any record by its cover.

Working with Discogs

In the Discogs app, your Discogs collection is the collection, so there is nothing to import. CLZ Music looks up album details from Discogs and offers a one-time Import from Discogs in CLZ Music Web. Music Tracker imports CSV files from other apps, and Discogs isn't one of the named sources. Record Scanner uses Discogs data and can list records for sale on the Discogs Marketplace. We couldn't confirm whether it imports an existing Discogs collection.

Shelfify imports your Discogs collection and keeps syncing in both directions: add a record, change a condition or a note, or add to your wantlist, and it shows up on Discogs. Your folders come over from Discogs, and your shelf positions stay on your device. The details are on the Discogs integration page.

Identifying and finding records

Barcode scanning: all five apps.
Cover photo recognition: Record Scanner, where it's the main feature, and Shelfify, which matches the photo against your own collection and shows where the record sits.
Search by song title: Shelfify shows the record, the side and the track number, like B2. We couldn't confirm whether the other apps search track titles, so we aren't claiming they can't.

Last.fm scrobbling

Two of the five scrobble to Last.fm: Discogs, which brought scrobbling back in July 2026, and Shelfify, which scrobbles a whole album or a single track for any release on Discogs, whether you own it or not. Here is how scrobbling works in Shelfify.

Accounts and price

US App Store prices, checked October 2, 2026. Prices in other countries differ.

Discogs: free. You need a Discogs account for your collection and wantlist.
Record Scanner: free plan with a collection limit. Unlimited plans start at $4.99 on iOS.
Music Tracker: free for 5 albums and one space. Pro is $1.49 or $10.99 as a subscription, or $34.99 once. No account, it syncs through iCloud.
CLZ Music: $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year, with a 7-day trial. Cloud sync needs a CLZ account.
Shelfify: free for 1 room, the first 4 compartments and up to 100 mapped records. Pro is $2.49 a month, $23.99 a year or $69.99 once, with a 30-day trial. No account.

Which one should you use?

If you mostly buy and sell, Discogs is the base, and you'll want an account there anyway. If you're in a record store wondering what something is and what it's worth, Record Scanner's cover scan is made for that. If you're all Apple and want a clean catalog with no account, Music Tracker is worth a look. If you want a classic database with lots of fields and a web version, CLZ has been doing that for a long time.

If your problem is the one we had, a few hundred records on real shelves and no idea where the one you want is, that's what Shelfify is for. It works alongside Discogs, so you don't have to pick one over the other.