Comparison

SafeExamBrowser vs Student Mobile App

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

Head to head
About

SafeExamBrowser

This app creates a secure browser environment for online exams, preventing students from accessing other apps or websites. It locks down devices into an assessment kiosk mode, ensuring exam integrity on both personal and institutional iOS devices.

Highlights
  • Secure kiosk browser environment
  • Prevents app switching and website access
  • Assessment kiosk mode
  • Supports unmanaged and managed iOS devices
  • Configurable via API, files, links, and QR codes
  • Integrates with LMS and exam systems
  • Optional Dock and slider menu for commands
Features
Read full description

SafeExamBrowser (SEB) is a secure kiosk web browser environment used to carry out e-assessments that run on exam servers. SEB opens a web browser without an address and search bar, loads a pre-configured webpage and locks an iPad (or iPhone or iPod Touch) into an assessment kiosk mode. This mode prevents students from switching to other apps (unless additional permitted apps are configured), accessing websites and communicating with other students during an exam. SEB enables secure exams on unmanaged iOS devices like students' own iPads as well as on iOS devices owned and managed by an institution. SEB doesn't use a centralized server or cloud service; it can be configured with an API, configuration files, links and QR codes. It can be used with most web-based quiz and e-assessment systems. For improved security and usability, some exam systems provide additional built-in support for SEB. Currently, SEB integrates especially well with learning management systems (LMS) such as Moodle, OpenOlat, ILIAS and with several non-commercial and commercial exam systems, such as Inspera Assessment, Dugga, Exam.net, EvaExam and Ans. SEB uses one of the single app modes provided by iOS. After an exam is submitted, SEB can automatically end the app self-lock assessment mode (an exam invigilator could also use a quit password to end the SEB exam session and unlock the device if necessary). SEB features an optional Dock displaying buttons for various commands. Instead or in addition, a left slider menu shows a list of open browser tabs and commands which can be used to (if enabled in settings) quit an exam session, jump back to the start page of an exam, reload a web page, and navigate back/forward in the browsing history. SEB for iOS uses the same format for encrypted .seb configuration files as the SEB versions for other platforms. Those config files allow to individually configure SEB to display the start page of an exam system or an exam portal page with a list of links to current exams. If SEB for iOS is installed using a mobile device management (MDM) system, its initial configuration can easily be deployed using the "MDM Managed Configuration" feature. You can also directly start an exam with an individual configuration in SEB for iOS using a special config hyperlink. This link can be opened by examinees from Safari, Mail or a messenger app. In addition, you can use QR codes containing SEB links or even full, individual configurations. An exam can directly be started in SEB by using the iOS Camera app or the built-in QR code scanner. SEB also works together with Apple Classroom, teachers can start individually configured exams on all student devices. See https://safeexambrowser.org/ios for more information. SafeExamBrowser for iOS was developed by Daniel R. Schneider, ETH Zurich, IT Services, based on the original idea of Safe Exam Browser by Stefan Schneider, University of Giessen Project concept: Thomas Piendl, Daniel R. Schneider, Damian Büchel, Andreas Hefti, Nadim Ritter, Dirk Bauer, Michael Kern, Kai Reuter, Tobias Halbherr, Karsten Burger, Marco Lehre, Brigitte Schmucki, Oliver Rahs. Safe Exam Browser is released as freeware. The code is subject to the Mozilla Public License Version 1.1 (the "License"); you may only use these files in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/ . Important parts of this project have been carried out as part of the program "AAA/SWITCH – e-Infrastructure for e-Science" led by SWITCH, the Swiss National Research and Education Network and the cooperative project "Learning Infrastructure" (part of the CRUS program "Information scientifique: accès, traitement et sauvegarde") coordinated by SWITCH, and was supported by funds from the ETH Board and the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI).

About

Student Mobile App

This app helps students at participating schools monitor their attendance. Users can clock in and out of school and review their attendance records. It's designed to simplify tracking school presence.

Highlights
  • Clock in/out functionality
  • View attendance history
  • School participation required
  • Student attendance monitoring
Features
Read full description

The Student Mobile App provides students who attend participating schools the ability to keep track of their attendance. This includes clocking in, clocking out, and viewing attendance history.

Screenshots

SafeExamBrowser4 screens
Student Mobile App4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Student Mobile App at fortnightly against SafeExamBrowser's every 3 months. SafeExamBrowser's advantage is iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.1). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 1.6 for SafeExamBrowser against 1.6 for Student Mobile App. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 50 and 60 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 7% of SafeExamBrowser's written reviews are positive against 0% of Student Mobile App's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

SafeExamBrowser ships an update every 3 months, Student Mobile App fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 20, 2026 and October 17, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
SafeExamBrowser versus Student Mobile App: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSafeExamBrowserStudent Mobile App
PriceFreeFree
Rating1.6 (50 ratings) — better1.6 (60 ratings)
Positive reviews7.1% of reviews — better0.0% of reviews
Number of ratings5060 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsFortnightly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS12.0 — better15.1
Further details — not scored
Size67 MB49 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperETH ZurichEmphasys Software

Customer experience

SafeExamBrowser

All ratings46 ratings
Positive15.2%
Neutral0.0%
Negative84.8%
Written reviews411 reviews
Positive7.1%
Neutral1.2%
Negative91.7%

Student Mobile App

All ratings60 ratings
Positive15.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative85.0%
Written reviews16 reviews
Positive0.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative100.0%

Bugs and requests

SafeExamBrowser

Reported bugs

24 issues
  • App crashes
  • Freezes and becomes unresponsive
  • Cannot exit kiosk mode
  • Blank page errors
  • Slow performance
Show 19 more
  • High battery consumption
  • Device locking issues
  • Setup difficulties
  • Poor instructions
  • Errors during exams
  • Unreliable behavior
  • Difficulty uninstalling/quitting
  • Device issues (black screen, viruses)
  • Inconsistent camera support
  • Cheating still possible (reported by some users)
  • Data privacy concerns raised
  • Unintuitive interface
  • Incompatibility with older/newer OS versions
  • Configuration issues
  • Leads to exam failure
  • Developer unresponsiveness
  • Not working with iOS 18
  • Camera access issues
  • Kiosk mode not activating properly on iOS 17

Requested features

4 requests
  • Better instructions/homepage
  • Support for Thai language
  • Update for iOS 18
  • More user-friendly setup

Student Mobile App

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

SafeExamBrowser

No in-app purchases

None

Student Mobile App

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is SafeExamBrowser free?
SafeExamBrowser is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Student Mobile App free?
Student Mobile App is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, SafeExamBrowser or Student Mobile App?
SafeExamBrowser is rated higher. SafeExamBrowser averages 1.6 out of 5 from 50 ratings, while Student Mobile App averages 1.6 from 60 ratings.
Do SafeExamBrowser or Student Mobile App have ads?
Neither SafeExamBrowser nor Student Mobile App shows ads.
Which is updated more often, SafeExamBrowser or Student Mobile App?
SafeExamBrowser ships an update every 3 months, and Student Mobile App fortnightly. Most recently, SafeExamBrowser was updated on October 20, 2026 and Student Mobile App on October 17, 2026.

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