Arter vs Varsom
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Arter
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Med Arter kan du registrere lokaliteter som punkt og legge til observasjoner av karplanter, moser, sopp og lav. Du må selv eksportere data fra appen og levere til Artsdatabankens infrastruktur. For å kunne bruke appen må du ha kartleggingsoppdrag for Miljødirektoratet, eller for en etat som har fått aksept fra Miljødirektoratet til å bruke appen i sine oppdrag.
Varsom
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About Varsom Improve planning for winter trips into the hills and mountains or on frozen lakes. Prevent damage from floods with better knowledge. Report where you have seen avalanches. Together we can save lives and reduce damages due to avalanches, floods, landslides and dangerous ice conditions. This app gathers in one place the most important features from the Varsom Platform needed in the outdoors, for field inspections and for readiness, crisis management and rescue situations. Observations from regobs.no, warnings from varsom.no, and support maps from xgeo.no and iskart.no are included. The app is also available in English, such that visitors from abroad may read and submit observations, as well as receive warnings. As a bonus, the app now works well outside Norway. Varsom and the warning services for avalanches, landslides, ice conditions and floods are services provided by the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) in co-operation with the Norwegian Public Roads Administration and the Norwegian Meteorological Institute.
Screenshots
Verdict
Arter and Varsom are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.
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.
Arter ships an update every 3 months, Varsom every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 16, 2026 and June 28, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Arter | Varsom |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 6 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 124 MB | 46 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Miljodirektoratet Org | Norges Vassdrags- og Energidirektorat |
In-app purchases
Arter
No in-app purchases
Varsom
No in-app purchases









