SynScan vs StellarMate
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
SynScan
Control motorized telescope mounts for celestial object tracking and exploration. Features include GOTO functionality, object catalogs, and gamepad navigation. Ideal for novice users with alt-azimuth mounts.
- Control telescope mount slew, align, GOTO, and track
- Point and Track celestial objects
- Support gamepad navigation
- Browse and save celestial object catalogs
- Third-party app integration (ASCOM, SkySafari, Stellarium)
- Emulator mount for testing
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Use the SynScan app to control Sky-Watcher telescope mounts via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth LE. Mounts without built-in Wi-Fi can be supported via a SynScan Wi-Fi adapter. This version of the SynScan app is suited for novice users using alt-azimuth mounts. Features - Control telescope mount to slew, align, GOTO and track. - Point And Track: track celestial objects (including the Sun and planets) without aligning. - Support gamepad navigation. - Browse a catalog of stars, comets, and deep sky objects. Or, save your own objects. - Provide access to mount for use by third-party apps, including ASCOM clients, SkySafari, Luminos, Stellarium Mobile Plus, Stellarium Desktop or customer-developed apps. Also set up mount alignment for Luminos, Skysafari. - Support access to the mount and the SynScan app from any platform that supports TCP/UDP connections. - Provide emulator mount for testing and practicing. - Track fast-moving earth satellites by working with the PreviSat app on Windows PC or the Lumios app on iOS devices.
StellarMate
Control your astrophotography equipment remotely. Capture images, stream video, and perform precise alignment. Automatically back up your photos to the cloud with rich metadata for easy searching.
- Remote equipment control
- Image capture and video streaming
- Polar alignment assistant
- Cloud image backup
- Metadata search and sorting
- Software updates
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Use StellarMate App to discover and connect to your StellarMate controller. Control StellarMate functions and access the Web Manager and Web based VNC Viewer. Join StellarMate to your home WiFi network. Use Ekos to capture images, stream video, guide, focus, and align. With Polar Alignment Assistant tool, get very accurate polar alignment using internal astrometry engine. Never lose your images again with EkosLive Pro. All captured images are automatically uploaded to the cloud with a rich set of metadata that enables powerful search and sorting. Use custom tags to uniquely tag important frames for later use. Check the health of your device, and use the software updater to keep it up to date.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: StellarMate at every 8 days against SynScan's every 2 months. StellarMate also leads on review sentiment (33% vs 22%). SynScan's advantage is rating (3.3 vs 3.0). On price, ratings volume, 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.
SynScan holds the better App Store score, 3.3 against 3.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 8 and 23 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 22% of SynScan's written reviews are positive against 33% of StellarMate's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
SynScan ships an update every 2 months, StellarMate every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on September 16, 2026 and October 20, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | SynScan | StellarMate |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.3 (8 ratings) — better | 3.0 (23 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 22.2% of reviews | 33.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 8 | 23 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 8 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 — better | 15.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 46 MB | 114 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Astropower Technology Co. Ltd. | Ikarus Astronomy Company For Scientific Instruments & Tools |
Customer experience
SynScan
StellarMate
In-app purchases
SynScan
No in-app purchases
StellarMate
No in-app purchases








