iOS amp sims without a subscription
Is there an iOS amp sim without a subscription?
Yes, several. The Neural Amp Modeler players that arrived on iOS recently are nearly all one-time purchases, typically between five and fifty dollars, iNAM among them. The larger, older amp sims are the ones that tend to charge monthly or sell amps individually as add-ons.
Why this question comes up so often
Guitar software drifted towards subscriptions and per-amp purchases over the last few years, and a lot of players are simply done with it. The complaint is rarely about the money. It is that a practice tool you bought stops working when a payment lapses, which is an absurd property for something you use for twenty minutes before bed.
What the alternatives look like
The wave of Neural Amp Modeler players that landed on iPhone and iPad is almost entirely one-time purchase, at prices from about five dollars to about fifty. They are smaller and more focused than the big suites: they load capture files and play them, and they assume you will get those captures yourself, mostly free, from somewhere like TONE3000.
iNAM is one of these. It costs $4.99, one-time purchase, no subscription. It is also not the only one, and the others are worth a look — a capture player is a small enough thing that the right answer is whichever one suits how you actually practise.
What you give up
Content, mostly. A subscription suite hands you a library of amps, cabinets and effects that somebody curated, plus presets built by people who know what they are doing. A capture player hands you an empty shelf and a link to a very large free library. If browsing and auditioning captures sounds like a chore rather than a pleasant evening, the subscription apps genuinely are doing something for you.
What you keep
The app, permanently, and the files, permanently. Captures are an open format, so a library you build is not attached to any one app or company. If a player is abandoned, the captures still load somewhere else.