AppsHunter.io vs AppRaven: Which iOS Price-Drop Tracker to Use
AppRaven: Apps Gone Free is an iOS and Mac app that tracks App Store price drops and pushes an alert when a wish-listed app discounts. It holds 4.6 stars from roughly 4,700 US ratings and has been shipping updates since December 2019. AppsHunter.io covers the same deals from a browser with nothing to install. What follows compares the two across four questions, each with a checkable answer.
Quick takeaway
AppRaven is the better notifier: it can put a price drop on a lock screen, and no website can. AppsHunter.io is the better reference, publishing ten kinds of per-app information that AppRaven does not offer at any price — including a review breakdown, a reported-bugs list and sections answering whether an app is safe and legitimate — across a 2,000,000+ catalog with no account. The commercial difference: AppRaven places saved filters, in-app purchase deals, an uncapped wish list and email price alerts behind a $23.88-a-year tier, and all four are free on AppsHunter.io.
How this comparison was made
Figures come from AppRaven's App Store listing (ID 1490607195), appraven.net, captures of the app's home screen and an app detail page, and its own Premium upgrade screen. AppsHunter.io figures come from its live homepage and app pages, re-checked August 7, 2026. Step counts, the annualised price and the module count are calculated here and labelled where they appear, because neither company publishes them. Where AppRaven does something better, the section marked Where AppRaven wins says so, and it runs to four items.
Question 1: what does it take to see today's price drops?
| AppsHunter.io | AppRaven | |
|---|---|---|
| First price drop, on a device that has used neither | 1 step | 6 steps |
| Every visit after that | 1 step | 1 step |
The second row matters as much as the first. Once AppRaven is installed, its deals are one tap from a home screen, and a comparison claiming otherwise would collapse the first time somebody checked.
The six steps are the entry price: open the App Store, search, tap Get, wait out a 46.1 MB download, open it, work through the launch prompts. On AppsHunter the equivalent is typing the address, and the On Sale section is already there with original prices struck through beside current ones.
What the install costs permanently is the more useful figure. AppRaven needs 46.1 MB of storage and hardware running iOS 16.0 or later, which rules out Android phones, Windows and Linux machines, and any work laptop that blocks installs. It also has no addresses: a deal found inside AppRaven has to be screenshotted before anybody else can see it, where every app, genre, chart and collection page on AppsHunter is a URL that opens on whatever the recipient owns.
Struck-through prices, biggest discounts and recent drops, updated daily.
Question 2: how much of the catalog can you actually browse?
AppRaven's answer is bounded by its own website. appraven.net closes its pages with the line "See more in the official AppRaven app," so browsing without the install stops at the promoted deals and a few chart strips. Neither the app nor the site publishes how many App Store apps it indexes; the figures it does publish describe its audience, at over a million downloads, 150,000 users, 10,000+ app reviews and 20,000+ user collections.
AppsHunter.io publishes the catalog count per genre on its homepage: Games at 213,258, Education at 202,137, Magazines & Newspapers at 3,166, across 26 genres visible without expanding the list, totalling over 2,000,000 apps. Each number links through to that genre, so the total is something a reader can page into.
Question 3: which one tells you more before the money leaves?
AppRaven's app pages are substantial, and any comparison skipping over that is not worth reading. Opening a discounted app there produces a zoomable Price History chart with version markers plotted against the price line, an Activity feed logging every price move and version bump by date going back years, an Information block, user-added tags, collection membership, release notes, vote tallies, a watch counter and a comment thread.
Ten things on an AppsHunter app page have no counterpart there at any tier, and nothing on AppRaven's Premium screen adds them:
- What users say — the themes reviewers return to most, praise and complaint separated
- Customer Experience — every written US App Store review sorted into positive, neutral and negative, shown as a percentage split with the review count it was drawn from
- Is [app] Safe? and Is [app] Legit? — the two questions buyers search for, answered on the app's own page
- Reported Bugs and Requested Features — logged separately from the review body
- A per-app FAQ — five answered questions specific to that app
- Chart position with its movement delta — where the app sits and which direction it moved
- Alternatives with comparison rows — six or more similar apps scored against each other, where AppRaven lists similar apps unscored
- A short description with a checked feature list — three sentences replacing several paragraphs of App Store copy, with the original behind a toggle
Those sit alongside the eight both tools cover, including price history, the in-app purchase range and release dates. All of it renders at a public URL for a reader who has installed nothing, signed in to nothing and paid nothing.
Test it on AppRaven's own page
appshunter.io/ios/app/appraven-apps-gone-free/id1490607195
That page shows AppRaven's December 9, 2019 release date beside its April 22, 2026 update, an in-app purchase range of $0.99 to $29.99, a chart position of no. 122 in Top Grossing Shopping having risen 15 places, a two-week update cadence, the full distribution behind its 4.6 average, 40+ tags, macOS and Vision Pro support, and five answered FAQs. Its reviews page answers Is AppRaven Safe? and Is AppRaven Legit? about AppRaven itself.
Question 4: what does payment unlock?
| AppsHunter.io | AppRaven | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to browse | $0 | $0 |
| Paid tier | None | Monthly Supporter |
| Price | None | $1.99/mo after a one-month trial |
| Annualised | $0.00 | $23.88 |
AppRaven's plan entry describes that tier as unlocking all features. What it gates is visible without opening the upgrade screen: on the home page, the In-App Purchases On Sale section renders as a blurred strip with an Unlock button on top, so the deals are counted and positioned but unreadable until payment.
| Capability | AppRaven | AppsHunter.io |
|---|---|---|
| Saving a filter for reuse | Premium | Free — every filtered view has a URL |
| In-app purchase deal information | Premium | Free — IAP range on every app page |
| Watching apps without a cap | Premium | Free, no published cap |
| Community collections and topics | Premium | Free |
| Price-drop alerts by email | Premium | Free |
| Ratings and availability across 170+ regions | Premium | Not offered |
| Alerts when any app matching a filter discounts | Premium | Not offered |
Five of the seven capabilities in that table are free on AppsHunter.io. Following an app there sends email alerts on three triggers: a price drop, a new version, and an in-app event — Apple's limited-time events, which AppsHunter aggregates with live status and date windows and AppRaven does not track.
Two entries matter most. Unlimited Wish List appearing on the paid side confirms the free wish list is capped, so AppRaven's headline feature has a ceiling until the tier is bought. And Custom Filter Notifications puts the most powerful alert type — one firing whenever anything matching saved criteria discounts — behind the same paywall.
Where AppRaven wins
Four capabilities belong to AppRaven, and a comparison pretending otherwise would be easy to disprove:
- Threshold push notifications. A wish-listed app triggers a lock-screen alert the moment it drops, configurable per app down to the exact dollar figure a buyer will accept.
- Share-extension wish-listing. From inside the App Store, Share → AppRaven adds an app to the watch list without leaving Apple's app.
- The Activity feed. Every price move and version bump, colour-coded and dated, scrolling back years.
- Ratings across 170+ App Store regions. A Premium capability with no AppsHunter.io equivalent at any price.
For a requirement that stops at a lock-screen alert when one specific game hits $0.99, AppRaven is the tool built for it, which is why plenty of people run it alongside a web catalog rather than instead of one.
Side by side
| AppsHunter.io | AppRaven | |
|---|---|---|
| Format | Web catalog, any browser | iOS and Mac app, 46.1 MB |
| Steps to a first price drop | 1 | 6 |
| Storage required | 0 MB | 46.1 MB |
| Published catalog size | 2M+, counted per genre | Not published |
| Works on Android, Windows, Linux | Yes | No |
| Per-app data at a public URL | Yes | No |
| Safety and legitimacy sections | Yes | No |
| Review summary and Customer Experience | Yes | No |
| Reported bugs and requested features | Yes | No |
| Alternatives with comparison rows | Yes | Similar apps, unscored |
| Price history | Yes | Yes, with version markers |
| Price-drop alerts | Email, free | Push with per-app thresholds |
| In-app event alerts | Email, free | No |
| Ratings across 170+ regions | No | Premium |
| Saved filters and uncapped wish list | Free | Premium |
| Paid tier | None | $23.88 a year |
AppRaven figures from its App Store listing, appraven.net, its app interface and its upgrade screen. AppsHunter.io figures re-checked August 7, 2026. Steps, annualised cost and module counts are derived above.
Which one to choose
Install AppRaven if the requirement is a lock-screen alert the second one specific app hits a set price. That is the job it was built for.
Open appshunter.io for the rest: checking whether an app deserves its price, browsing a genre, reading what reviewers actually report, or handing a find to somebody who does not own an iPhone. Nothing on it is capped, gated or behind a trial.
Price history, alternatives and review breakdowns across a 2M+ app catalog. Free.
FAQs
What is the best AppRaven alternative? AppsHunter.io is the web-based alternative, covering the same App Store deals across 2,000,000+ app pages with no install, no account and no paid tier. Two long-running sites in this category have both shut down since 2024 — App Sliced went offline in July 2024, and AppAdvice followed.
Is AppRaven free? Free to download and browse. In-app purchases span $0.99 to $29.99, and the Monthly Supporter subscription costs $1.99 a month after a one-month trial, which is $23.88 across a year.
Is AppRaven worth it? For threshold price alerts on a wish list, the free tier covers it up to the wish-list cap. The $23.88 a year buys saved filters, in-app purchase deals, an uncapped wish list, email alerts and multi-region ratings, and four of those five are free on AppsHunter.io.
What does the paid tier unlock? In-app purchase deals, its most powerful filters, filter bookmarks, filter-based sale notifications, ratings across 170+ App Store regions, an uncapped wish list, deal filtering, email notifications, icon badges, and full access to V.I.P. groups, premium collections and comments.
Is AppRaven safe and legit? It is a real product from developer Simon Zvára, on the App Store since December 2019 and still shipping updates in 2026. AppsHunter.io's reviews page for AppRaven answers both questions in full, under the headings Is AppRaven Safe? and Is AppRaven Legit?
Does AppRaven have a website? appraven.net mirrors part of the app and closes its pages by pointing readers to the app for everything else. Separately, appraven.com is an unrelated parked domain listed for sale, not an official AppRaven property.
Does AppsHunter.io send price-drop alerts? Yes, free. Following an app sends email notifications when its price drops, when it ships a new version, and when it runs an in-app event, which is a category AppRaven does not track at all.
Does AppsHunter.io have an iOS app? No. Everything runs at appshunter.io in a browser, which is what allows it to work on Android, on desktop and on machines where installing software is not an option.