StellarMate vs QUARCS
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
QUARCS
This open-source software kit enables remote astrophotography capture via Wi-Fi and computer. It offers comprehensive control over telescope mounts, cameras, autoguiding, and electric focusers, integrating with Stellarium for sky mapping.
- Remote capture via Wi-Fi
- Computer remote capture via LAN
- Mount control
- Camera control
- Autoguiding
- Electric focuser control
- Stellarium skymap integration
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Q.U.A.R.C.S (QHYCCD Universal Astrophotographic Remote Capture System) is an open-source software kit that supports the full function of mobile remote capture via WIFI and computer remote capture via LAN. It includes the mount control, camera control, autoguiding, electric focuser control, and Stellarium skymap function.
Screenshots
Verdict
StellarMate and QUARCS both sit at 3.1 stars, but that hides the real split: 35% of StellarMate's written reviews are positive against 0% of QUARCS's. StellarMate also leads on update cadence (every 8 days vs every 6 months) and ratings volume (24 vs 1). QUARCS's advantage is iOS requirement (14.0 vs 16.0). 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 — 3.1 for StellarMate against 3.0 for QUARCS. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: StellarMate has 24 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 35% of StellarMate's written reviews are positive against 0% of QUARCS's.
StellarMate ships an update every 8 days, QUARCS every 6 months. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | StellarMate | QUARCS |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.1 (24 ratings) — better | 3.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 34.5% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 24 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 8 days — better | Every 6 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 115 MB | 30 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Ikarus Astronomy Company For Scientific Instruments & Tools | Light Speed Vision(Beijing) Co., Ltd |
Customer experience
StellarMate
QUARCS
In-app purchases
StellarMate
No in-app purchases
QUARCS
No in-app purchases
