Comparison

xat vs be here

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

xat

Connect with friends and discover communities based on shared interests. Create your own free chat groups or join existing ones to communicate with users globally. Get help and support within the app's dedicated chat.

Highlights
  • Group and private chat
  • Discover groups by interest
  • Create custom chat groups
  • Global user communication
  • In-app help chat
Features
Read full description

xat is a free group and private chat messaging app. Chat with your friends and people with a shared interest. Chat with other xat users from around the world. To discover new xat groups click the Groups menu. You can also make your own xat chat group for free. If you get stuck you can ask for help on help chat.

About

be here

Connect with people nearby without needing an internet connection. Share messages and profiles that travel directly between devices, extending reach through peer-to-peer relays. Ideal for places with limited connectivity.

Highlights
  • Offline communication
  • Peer-to-peer messaging
  • Public profiles
  • Guestbook walls
  • No internet required
  • No servers or accounts
Features
Read full description

A shared space for whoever is around you. A feed anyone nearby can post to, private messages between people, public profiles, and guestbook walls you can write on. What you write goes to the phones near you, and each of those passes it on to the phones near them. It travels as far as people carry it. Someone who arrives an hour later still reads what was said, because the phones that heard it kept it. The app never asks where you are. IT DOESN'T NEED THE INTERNET Phones find each other directly over Bluetooth and peer-to-peer Wi-Fi, and every phone relays what it receives to the phones near it. Each person running the app extends the reach by another hop. No servers. No accounts. WHERE IT'S USEFUL Apartment buildings, campgrounds, concerts, festivals, airports, national parks and neighborhoods, where people are already together with no practical way to reach each other. It also keeps working during an outage, on a plane, or anywhere with no signal. PRIVACY Your profile is stored on your phone and nowhere else. Private messages are encrypted before they leave it, so the phones that relay them cannot read them. The app does not use your location. RANGE A hop is one direct link between two phones. Any phone that receives a post relays it onward, so in a crowd a message travels well past the radio that sent it. A typical hop is 30 to 120 feet indoors and reaches 300 feet or more outdoors with clear line of sight. WHAT TO EXPECT be here reaches the phones around you rather than the whole world. Delivery isn't guaranteed. A post can't be unsent once other phones hold copies, and a lost key can't be recovered. These are consequences of running without servers, and they're worth knowing before you install it.

Screenshots

xat3 screens
be here4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: be here at 5.0 against xat's 3.0. be here also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 4). xat's advantage is ratings volume (25 vs 1). On price, update cadence, ads and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. xat sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. be here asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

be here holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: xat has 25 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

xat ships an update every 4 months, be here every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
xat versus be here: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
Parameterxatbe here
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.0 (25 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews52.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings25 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 4 monthsEvery 3 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.1 — better16.0
Further details — not scored
Size24 MB3 MB
Age rating9+17+
Developerxat.comJoseph Smith

In-app purchases

4 purchases

xat

One-time4
  • 500 xats$4.99
  • 1200 xats$9.99
  • 2500 xats$19.99
Show 1 more
  • 6000 xats$39.99
None

be here

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is xat free?
xat is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is be here free?
be here is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, xat or be here?
be here is rated higher. xat averages 3.0 out of 5 from 25 ratings, while be here averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do xat or be here have ads?
Neither xat nor be here shows ads.
Which is updated more often, xat or be here?
xat ships an update every 4 months, and be here every 3 months. Most recently, xat was updated on November 6, 2026 and be here on October 31, 2026.

Other comparisons