The Topo | Rock Climbing Guide vs BoulderBot
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
The Topo | Rock Climbing Guide
Discover and navigate thousands of climbing routes worldwide with detailed topos, maps, and photos. Find the perfect climb by filtering grade, rating, and style, and log your progress. Support local climbing communities as 50% of subscription profits go to authors.
- Thousands of community-created topos
- Filter by grade, rating, and style
- 3D map with GPS navigation
- Log sends and track history
- Offline topo downloads
- Create and monetize your own topos
Read full descriptionHide full description
Stop searching, start climbing. This is your epic guide to sport, trad and bouldering adventures, with thousands of topos created and moderated by local climbers. The Topo brings a unique ethical dimension to digital rock climbing topos. 50% of subscription profit goes back to local authors who share their knowledge of crags and boulders with the climbing community. KEY FEATURES • Access Verified Topos – the most reliable info on crags and boulders made by locals • Support local climbing culture – 50% of subscription profit goes back to authors • Find the perfect climb – Filter crags and boulders by grade, rating and climbing style • Explore sport, trad, bouldering, and DWS destinations on the 3D map • Navigate directly to routes and boulders using in-app GPS • Log your sends to tick list and track your history • Plan future adventures with a personal to-do list • Download topos for offline use and climb without a signal • Create Verified topos for your region and get paid for doing what you love VERIFIED TOPOS: CLIMBING INFO YOU CAN TRUST Anyone can contribute basic information to The Topo, and together our community has added over 30,000 destinations worldwide. But for more reliable and complete information, look for Verified Topos. Verified Topos are created and maintained by dedicated local climbers (more than 7,000 individuals) who know the area inside and out. Before being published, every Verified topo is reviewed for quality and accuracy by The Topo experts, so you can be confident in the information. SUPPORT THE CLIMBERS WHO BUILD OUR SPORT Your subscription directly supports the climbers working on the topos you use. We share 50% of our subscription profit with the local authors who create and maintain the verified topos. By going Premium, you get the best climbing info and help fund the development of your next favourite crag. CREATE YOUR OWN TOPO Know a crag or boulder that's missing or needs an update? Add new crags, add sport, trad or DWS routes and boulders, upload photos, draw lines, and add descriptions. Be a vital part of the climbing community by sharing what you know. You can apply to make your topo a verified one and earn money for your hard work. Join 300,000 climbers already using The Topo. Download The Topo and plan your next climbing adventure! Terms of Use: https://thetopo.com/site/terms Privacy Policy: https://thetopo.com/site/privacy
BoulderBot
Generate and track bouldering routes on your home climbing wall. Features procedural generation for infinite climb variations, manual creation, and progress logging. Supports various wall types and works offline.
- Procedural climb generation
- Manual climb creation
- Progress tracking and logging
- Wall setup wizard
- Offline functionality
- Search and filter problems
Read full descriptionHide full description
BoulderBot is your personal bouldering Spray Wall setter, tracker and organizer. Challenge yourself and find new inspiration by using the experimental Procedural Generation algorithms, quickly creating an infinite number of new climbs on your wall! You can customize parameters like Difficulty and Length to create problems suited to your needs. The generation algorithms are experimental and under active development, but even if they don't produce perfect results, you can immediately edit the generated problems in a few seconds (which is also a great way to improve your setting skills). You can also easily create your own custom problems from scratch. Problems can be saved for tracking your progress and logging ascents, and functionality like searching, filtering and sorting is available to find problems for your training sessions. ADDING YOUR WALL An interactive wizard procedure will allow you to add your wall in the application, guiding you in specifying all required information (this procedure will take around 5 to 10 minutes): - An image of the wall (specific instructions are given to ensure the best generation results) - Attributes like height and angle - The position of the holds on your wall, and their relative difficulty rating This procedure needs to be performed only when you add a new wall or reset the current one. Once a wall is added, all other functionality (like generating problems, or creating them manually) is immediate and takes no extra set up time. An in-app help system is also available if you have any doubt about the application. The application supports Home Climbing Walls, Spray Walls, Woodys, and Training Boards. The generation algorithms work only on generally flat walls which can be pictured in a single image; highly featured walls with many different angles, corners and roof sections are not supported at the moment. NO MANDATORY INTERNET CONNECTIVITY The Application can work completely offline: you can choose to use the App without an account, making the image you select and the Boulder problems you create all stored on your device's internal storage. PROBLEM RULES The boulder problems should be climbed by starting with both hands on green "Start" holds (either one hand per hold if there are two holds, or with both hands matching the single hold). Blue "Hold" holds can be used with both hands and feet, while yellow "Foot" holds cannot be touched by hands. The problem is considered complete once you hold for a couple of seconds onto the red "End" holds (either one hand per hold if there are two holds, or with both hands matching the single hold). DISCLAIMER Climbing is an inherently dangerous activity. Climbs shown in the App are random in nature, there is no guarantee about their safety, quality or correctness, please always judge the safety of the climbs before attempting them.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: BoulderBot at 4.4 against The Topo | Rock Climbing Guide's 3.0. BoulderBot also leads on review sentiment (75% vs 36%) and ads (none vs shown). The Topo | Rock Climbing Guide's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 2 months) and ratings volume (37 vs 11). On price and in-app purchases 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. The Topo | Rock Climbing Guide sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $8.99 per month and BoulderBot sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
BoulderBot holds the better App Store score, 4.4 against 3.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 37 and 11 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 36% of The Topo | Rock Climbing Guide's written reviews are positive against 75% of BoulderBot's.
The Topo | Rock Climbing Guide ships an update every 2 weeks, BoulderBot every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | The Topo | Rock Climbing Guide | BoulderBot |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.0 (37 ratings) | 4.4 (11 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 36.3% of reviews | 75.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 37 — better | 11 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 14.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 127 MB | 68 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 9+ |
| Developer | 27 Crags Oy | Luca Dellana |
Customer experience
The Topo | Rock Climbing Guide
BoulderBot
Bugs and requests
The Topo | Rock Climbing Guide
Reported bugs
36 issues- Login does not work
- App crashes frequently
- Cannot register
- Premium access not recognized
- App crashes when adding new lines/topo images
Show 31 moreShow fewer
- Scrolling through topos is difficult
- Login errors due to poor connection
- Sign up fails with 'bad internet'
- App resets when exiting and returning
- Topos don't always start correctly
- Navigation to parking is sometimes hidden
- App crashes when downloading large sectors
- Cannot add ascents (404 error)
- Offline topos not available
- App restarts to startup map after switching apps
- Takes too many clicks to get back from topo to route list
- Takes too many clicks to tick a route
- Cannot comment on routes/boulders
- App crashes on opening
- App crashes after a second or two
- Todo list disappeared
- Topos not visible in app (web version works)
- Cannot tap on routes to see details
- Recent update removed grades on non-premium crags
- App crashes when trying to load areas
- Advertisements do not disappear with premium subscription
- Parking places send users down private roads
- Saving ascents doesn't work
- Cannot download offline maps
- App is impossibly huge download size
- Offline crags deleted from device
- Map display overlaps in dense areas
- Offline topos not working properly
- Topos missing lines on boulders
- Premium topos are not great
- Community topos are poor and incomplete
Requested features
17 requests- Improve map search functionality
- Allow browsing all topos/spots with empty search
- Add dark mode
- Improve filtering by grade
- Allow downloading entire areas (e.g., Rocklands)
Show 12 moreShow fewer
- Implement a better rating system (e.g., 5 stars)
- Allow commenting on routes/boulders
- Add a bottom navigation bar for quick switching
- Allow creating topos within the app
- Transfer ticket routes from other apps
- Add notifications for area updates
- Fix app resetting after switching apps
- Make it easier to tick routes
- Improve offline map functionality
- Add a one-time purchase option
- Provide a free trial period
- Fix advertisement display for premium users
BoulderBot
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
The Topo | Rock Climbing Guide
- Premium subscription monthly7 Days trial$8.991 Month
- Premium subscription yearly7 Days trial$44.991 Year
BoulderBot
- BoulderBot Pro Pass - 3 Months$7.99
- BoulderBot Pro Pass - 1 Year$17.99
- BoulderBot Pro$27.99
Questions
Is The Topo | Rock Climbing Guide free?
Is BoulderBot free?
Which has better reviews, The Topo | Rock Climbing Guide or BoulderBot?
Do The Topo | Rock Climbing Guide or BoulderBot have ads?
Which is updated more often, The Topo | Rock Climbing Guide or BoulderBot?
Other comparisons















