Unistellar vs Cal
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Unistellar
Control your smart telescope, explore thousands of celestial objects, and observe them live. Save and share your discoveries, or contribute to real scientific research with citizen science missions.
- Telescope control
- Explore 5000+ celestial objects
- Live astronomical observation
- Instant image sharing
- RAW image download
- Citizen science missions
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The Unistellar App is your command center for all Unistellar telescopes, designed to help astronomers explore the cosmos with ease. 1. Control your telescope: align, point, and operate your smart telescope directly from the App. 2. Explore 5000 celestial objects: galaxies, nebulae, star clusters, planets, Moon, Sun, comets, and asteroids. 3. Observe live: see your target appear within seconds, with more details and colors revealed as the signal accumulates. 4. Share instantly: save your images as PNGs and share them in one click. 5. Go pro: download RAW images for advanced post-processing. 6. Join citizen science missions: contribute to real research with NASA and SETI—track asteroids, detect exoplanets, and more.
Cal
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The Cal-Bridge CampusGroups app allows community members to track Cal-Bridge activities, communicate with others in the community, register for and sign into events, submit forms, and find program resources
Screenshots
Verdict
Unistellar and Cal 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.
Unistellar ships an update every 5 weeks, Cal every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 2, 2026 and November 4, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Unistellar | Cal |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.8 (101 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 44.3% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 101 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.4 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 524 MB | 79 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Unistellar | University of California, Irvine |
In-app purchases
Unistellar
No in-app purchases
Cal
No in-app purchases
