Patreon vs Byline
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Patreon
Gain exclusive access to content from your favorite creators, including podcasts, videos, art, and more. Engage with creators and fellow fans in community chats and enjoy offline listening for audio content.
- Exclusive creator content access
- Community group chats
- Offline audio listening
- Personalized fan profiles
- Creator work collections
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Discover hundreds of thousands of podcasters, video makers, artists, musicians, marsupial mediators, fast food historians, and a kaleidoscopic cornucopia of creative people making what they love, not what they think will "perform." Get their best, most authentic, most exclusive work alongside millions of other people who know creativity is worth it. FIND creative people from every corner of the internet making what excites them. JOIN the communities of creators you love for free and keep up with everything they’re doing. UNLOCK exclusive posts and benefits through paid membership and one-time purchases. GATHER with creators and other fans in community chats and live streams. EXPLORE more creators, communities, and corners of creative subculture you’ll love. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Byline
Collaborate with others to create unique stories, one line at a time. Each participant only sees the previous line, fostering surprising and creative narratives. Share your finished tales with friends or the wider community.
- Collaborative story creation
- Line-by-line writing
- Public story posting
- Private group invitations
- Story titling and sharing
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Byline is a modern take on exquisite corpse. Serendipitous stories come together one line at a time, with each writer only seeing one line before theirs. Create the weirdest, funniest, spookiest, strangest story you can. POST DIRECTLY TO BYLINE Write the first line to your story and post on the site for strangers to finish. INVITE YOUR FRIENDS Write the first line to your story and then send it to a specific group of people you know. Once finished, you decide who can view. Once everyone has written their line, it's your turn to title and share the result in all its glory!
Screenshots
Verdict
Patreon and Byline both sit at 4.9 stars, but that hides the real split: 86% of Byline's written reviews are positive against 41% of Patreon's. Byline also leads on monetization model (free vs free with in-app purchases). Patreon's advantage is ratings volume (582K vs 16) and update cadence (weekly vs every 2 weeks). On price, rating, ads 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Patreon against 4.9 for Byline. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Patreon has 582K ratings behind it against 16, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 41% of Patreon's written reviews are positive against 86% of Byline's.
Patreon ships an update weekly, Byline every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 9, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Patreon | Byline |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (582K ratings) — better | 4.9 (16 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 41.1% of reviews | 85.7% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 582K — better | 16 |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #32 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 134 MB | 2 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Patreon | App't |
Customer experience
Patreon
Byline
Bugs and requests
Patreon
Reported bugs
5 issues- Search function crashes the app
- Inability to access subscriptions on mobile
- Inconsistent episode tracking and playback
- Disappearing downloaded content
- Inability to log in with email
Requested features
8 requests- Face ID feature
- Ability to filter posts by year
- Playlist/queue functionality for audio/video
- Apple TV app
- Ability to search through subscribed creators' posts
Show 3 moreShow fewer
- Option to sort content chronologically
- Timestamp for comments
- Preview of creator's content before subscribing
Byline
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Patreon
No in-app purchases
Byline
No in-app purchases









