Curate.LA vs MapChat Social
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Curate.LA
Discover Los Angeles' vibrant art scene with a comprehensive guide to upcoming exhibitions and alternative art shows. Receive weekly notifications for unique weekend activities and hidden cultural gems.
- Guide to LA art openings
- Alternative art shows
- Cultural events listings
- Hidden gem discoveries
- Weekly notification for weekend activities
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The Curate LA app is your free definitive guide to the blossoming art scene in Los Angeles. Our list of upcoming art openings and exhibitions is always kept fresh by your omnipresent curator Shelley Holcomb and her team. This is the only app you'll find that includes alternative art shows, cultural events and hidden gems around LA. Get weekly notifications with interesting and weird ideas for things to do on the weekend. You'll impress your friends with how cultured you are!
MapChat Social
Discover local nightlife and connect with people in real life. Find venues, see who's there, and join coordinated meetups to make new friends and experience your city.
- Map of bars, venues, and events
- Filter by venue features (happy hour, music, patio)
- See who is currently at venues
- In-app chat for making plans
- Organized meetups and bar crawls
- Connect with new people in your city
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Your city is full of people you'd love. You just haven't met them yet. MapChat shows you where they are tonight. Open the map, see which spots near you are busy right now, check in, and wave at someone. If they wave back, a chat opens. Then you go say hi in person. No endless feed. No swiping. Just a reason to go out and people to go out with. HOW IT WORKS See who's out tonight. A live map of the places near you, with live headcounts so you know who's there before you commit. Check in when you want to be seen. You show up at a venue only when you choose to check in, and you can hide anytime. Wave to break the ice. A wave is a low-pressure hello. Chats open only when it's mutual, so nobody gets cold-messaged. Play games with the room. 14 games you play with the people around you, including Who Wants to Be a Butterfly, Imprompto, Emoji Off, Pair Play, trivia, poker and spades. A new live game every day. Make plans. Bar crawls, trivia nights, themed nights, spontaneous meetups. Join one or start your own and pack the bar. FIND YOUR SPOT A curated catalog of bars, lounges, restaurants, cafes and third places, filterable by happy hour, live music, karaoke, trivia, dog-friendly patios, dance floors and more. No fake reviews, no star ratings, no pay-to-play rankings. Just what each place is actually like, checked by real people. BUILT FOR PEOPLE WHO MOVED HERE New to LA, DC, Boston or New York? Finished college and discovered that making friends as an adult is weirdly hard? MapChat is for people who want their city to feel like theirs. PRIVACY FIRST Your exact location is never shown to strangers. You appear only at venues you check in to, only while you want to. Block or hide anyone at any time. We use your location to help you find things, not to track you or sell your data. NOW LIVE IN Los Angeles, Washington DC, Boston and New York City, with more cities on the way. Request yours in the app. WHY WE BUILT THIS Loneliness is the defining problem of our generation, and the apps built to connect us mostly made it worse. Every other app wants more of your attention. We want less of it. MapChat wins when you close the app because you're busy being with people. Free. Come out and play.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: MapChat Social at 5.0 against Curate.LA's 4.3. MapChat Social also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 67%) and update cadence (fortnightly vs every 4 months). Curate.LA's advantage is ratings volume (19 vs 5). 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.
MapChat Social holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 19 and 5 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 67% of Curate.LA's written reviews are positive against 100% of MapChat Social's.
Curate.LA ships an update every 4 months, MapChat Social fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Curate.LA | MapChat Social |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.3 (19 ratings) | 5.0 (5 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 66.7% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 19 — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.6 | 15.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 42 MB | 89 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Curate LA, LLC | Benjamin Boehlke |
Customer experience
Curate.LA
MapChat Social
In-app purchases
Curate.LA
No in-app purchases
MapChat Social
No in-app purchases
