Zooniverse vs OpenLitterMap
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Zooniverse
Participate in real scientific research by classifying data for projects across various disciplines. Contribute to discoveries and datasets that advance knowledge, all from your mobile device. This platform connects volunteers with professional researchers for impactful citizen science.
- People-powered research platform
- Volunteer opportunities
- Access to mobile-friendly projects
- Push notification updates
- View publications
- Contribute to scientific discoveries
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The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research. This research is made possible by volunteers—hundreds of thousands of people around the world who come together to assist professional researchers. Our goal is to enable research that would not be possible, or practical, otherwise. Zooniverse research results in new discoveries, datasets useful to the wider research community, and many publications. The Zooniverse Mobile App provides push notification updates about our projects, as well as access to our most mobile-friendly projects and publications.
OpenLitterMap
Contribute to a global database of litter and plastic pollution by taking photos and tagging them. The interactive map visualizes pollution data, allowing users to create custom tags and see live updates. Participate in a worldwide competition to collect the most data.
- Interactive global litter map
- Photo tagging of pollution
- Customizable tag creation
- Live map updates
- Open source data
- Country-based data collection competition
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OpenLitterMap is an open source, interactive, and accessible database of the world's litter and plastic pollution. Just take a photo and tag it with our app. Litter is the first application of this real-time data collection platform. For the last 8+ years we have been crowdsourcing data to help train the OpenLitterAI to help with detection and classification. You can extend our pre-defined list of tags with your own custom tags. Just type in whatever you want and press enter. Keep the global map open to see live updates. If you click on a notification, you will be zoomed to the data that was just recorded. Copy the URL to get a link that can send anyone to any photo. Our code & data is open and accessible. Anyone can download our data for free, and use it for any purpose. This is necessary to bring transparency and democracy to science on pollution. As you tag litter, you help your country compete at the #LitterWorldCup to see who can collect the most data. By default, all users are anonymous. However, you can make your name or username appear on the map or leaderboards and compete for a position. You can also add your social media links which will appear on each upload. Like getting upvoted, the more data you upload means the more visibility you will get! Follow us on social media to keep up to date with all of the latest updates and developments.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: Zooniverse at none against OpenLitterMap's shown. Zooniverse also leads on monetization model (free vs ad-supported) and ratings volume (37 vs 9). OpenLitterMap's advantage is review sentiment (83% vs 59%) and update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 2 months). On price, rating, in-app purchases and device support 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 — 3.7 for Zooniverse against 3.6 for OpenLitterMap. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 37 and 9 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 59% of Zooniverse's written reviews are positive against 83% of OpenLitterMap's.
Zooniverse ships an update every 2 months, OpenLitterMap every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 14, 2026 and June 20, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Zooniverse | OpenLitterMap |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.7 (37 ratings) — better | 3.6 (9 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 58.8% of reviews | 83.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 37 — better | 9 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Ad-supported |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 50 MB | 47 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Zooniverse | Sean Lynch |
Customer experience
Zooniverse
OpenLitterMap
In-app purchases
Zooniverse
No in-app purchases
OpenLitterMap
No in-app purchases









