Ventra vs UI Ride
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Ventra
Manage your public transit fares and tickets for Chicago's CTA, Metra, and Pace services. Load value, buy Metra mobile tickets, and access real-time arrival information all in one place. Add your Ventra Card to your iPhone for seamless travel.
- Manage Ventra Card balance and passes
- Load value and passes to Ventra Card
- Buy Metra mobile tickets
- Real-time CTA, Metra, Pace arrivals
- Add Ventra Card to Apple Wallet
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Ride CTA, Metra & Pace with Ventra: Manage your fares, buy Metra mobile tickets, get arrivals and add your Ventra Card for riding CTA and Pace to iPhone and Apple Wallet. Use transit in and around all of Chicago: It's easy to manage and pay your fare on CTA, Metra and Pace buses and trains with the Ventra app. Find all the features you're used to on the Ventra website and more, including mobile ticketing for Metra trains! With the Ventra app, you can: • Check your balance and available passes in your Ventra Card's transit account. • Instantly load value or passes to your Ventra Card's transit account. • Switch autoload for transit value or passes on and off. • Buy and use Metra mobile tickets to ride any Metra train. • Use transit value you've loaded to buy a Metra ticket. • Get real-time account notifications so you know when it's time to load more fare or buy more tickets. • Get real-time arrival/departure information from CTA, Metra and Pace all in one app—by picking a stop, using favorites or looking at service near where you're standing.
UI Ride
This app provides an affordable and efficient shuttle service connecting Urbana-Champaign and Chicago. It's designed for University of Illinois System faculty, staff, and students to facilitate official business and research collaborations.
- Intercampus shuttle service
- Connects Urbana-Champaign and Chicago
- Affordable transportation
- Efficient and convenient
- For University of Illinois System members
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UI Ride is an intercampus shuttle service connecting Urbana-Champaign and Chicago to provide an affordable, efficient, and convenient mode of transportation for the University of Illinois System faculty, staff, and students to conduct official University of Illinois business as well as to encourage and facilitate research collaborations. The University of Illinois System’s UI Ride shuttle service is operated by Facilities & Services at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in collaboration with Facilities Management at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: UI Ride at 3.2 against Ventra's 1.9. Ventra's advantage is ratings volume (3.5K vs 5) and update cadence (every 3 months vs every 8 months). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
UI Ride holds the better App Store score, 3.2 against 1.9. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Ventra has 3.5K ratings behind it against 5, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 8% of Ventra's written reviews are positive against 0% of UI Ride's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Ventra ships an update every 3 months, UI Ride every 8 months. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 10, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Ventra | UI Ride |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 1.9 (3.5K ratings) | 3.2 (5 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 8.1% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 3.5K — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months — better | Every 8 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Best chart rank | #81 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 15.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 61 MB | 32 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Chicago Transit Authority | University of Illinois |
Customer experience
Ventra
UI Ride
Bugs and requests
Ventra
Reported bugs
5 issues- Purchase button not working on iPhones
- Favorites list glitches and resets
- Inconsistent and unreliable ticket display
- Frequent app crashes and login issues
- Payment processing failures and lost funds
Requested features
5 requests- Add ability to manage Ventra cards and balances
- Improve real-time transit tracking and notifications
- Allow saving of favorite routes and stations
- Integrate with Apple Wallet for easier access
- Provide more transparent and user-friendly payment options
UI Ride
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Ventra
No in-app purchases
UI Ride
No in-app purchases
