Giggster vs Buddy List Messenger
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Giggster
This platform connects creatives needing unique venues with property owners seeking to earn income. Easily discover, book, and manage thousands of diverse locations through a streamlined app experience. Additional services like permit coordination and concierge support are available.
- Discover unique venues
- Book locations
- Chat with owners
- Secure payments
- Permit coordination
- Concierge support
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A better way to book locations. Giggster is a marketplace platform that connects creatives looking for locations to interested property owners ready to earn extra income. Discover and book thousands of unique venues at all price points, styles and types. We make it simple to search, chat, and pay through the app, hassle-free. Additional Services: Permit Coordination Free Concierge Support Location Agreements
Buddy List Messenger
Easily send mass messages to your contacts. Friends can choose to receive your updates via text or push notifications. Share your ideas directly with the founders.
- Send mass messages
- Push notification subscriptions
- Text message subscriptions
- Direct founder feedback channel
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A green dot next to a name. That's the whole idea. Buddy List brings back the one thing instant messaging got right and every app since has thrown away: you could look at a list and see who was actually there. Not who posted three hours ago. Who's around, right now. WHO'S AROUND Open the app and you have your answer before the screen finishes settling. Green means they're here. Amber means they stepped away. Every state carries a shape as well as a colour, so it reads the same if you can't tell green from amber. AWAY MESSAGES, IN YOUR OWN HANDWRITING "brb, mom needs the phone." Set a status and it goes out to your buddies as a notification. Pick the font. Pick the colour. Six real typefaces, eight colours, and whatever you want to say in them. This is the part where the personality lives. FRIENDS AND FAMILY Group your people and collapse the ones you're not looking at. Each group shows how many are around out of how many there are. YOU CONTROL THE LIGHT Go invisible and you appear offline to everyone. Hide your presence and you stop seeing theirs — it works both ways, always, and no screen in the app can get around it. Auto-away marks you away after 24 hours. We're also deliberately imprecise. "A few minutes ago," never a timestamp. Nobody needs to know you looked. WHAT'S NOT IN HERE No feed. No algorithm. No recommended accounts, no follower counts, no strangers, no ads. There is nothing to scroll and nothing to catch up on. You add the people you actually talk to, and that's the whole app. Buddy List needs a phone number to find your friends, and a notification permission to tell you when they're around. That's it.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Giggster at Free against Buddy List Messenger's $5.99. Giggster also leads on ratings volume (2.2K vs 35) and rating (4.9 vs 4.7). Buddy List Messenger's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 5 weeks). On review sentiment, ads, 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
Giggster is free to download; Buddy List Messenger costs $5.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Giggster holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Giggster has 2.2K ratings behind it against 35, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 97% of Giggster's written reviews are positive against 92% of Buddy List Messenger's.
Giggster ships an update every 5 weeks, Buddy List Messenger weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Giggster | Buddy List Messenger |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $5.99 |
| Rating | 4.9 (2.2K ratings) — better | 4.7 (35 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 97.2% of reviews — better | 92.3% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2.2K — better | 35 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Ad-supported | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 16 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 64 MB | 20 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Giggster, Inc | Spark Limited Liability Company |
Customer experience
Giggster
Buddy List Messenger
Bugs and requests
Giggster
Reported bugs
3 issues- Login screen freezes
- Incompatibility with older devices
- Booking cancellation issues and lack of refunds
Requested features
5 requests- Add a favorites/saved listings feature
- Improve search and filtering capabilities
- Provide better integration with external calendars
- Enhance the app's functionality to match the website
- Offer more transparency around pricing and fees
Buddy List Messenger
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Giggster
No in-app purchases
Buddy List Messenger
No in-app purchases
