Beam HPC vs SW Maps
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Beam HPC
This app calculates structural diagrams for beams, including moment, shear, and deflection. It supports various loads, supports, and material properties, allowing for interactive adjustments and comparisons. Designed for educational purposes, it helps users visualize and understand beam behavior.
- Moment, shear, and deflection diagrams
- Multiple load types (forces, moments, distributed)
- Adjustable support conditions (pinned, fixed, roller)
- Segmented beams with varying properties
- Interactive drag-and-drop interface
- Educational focus on beam behavior
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Beam HPC app calculates the moment, shear, deflection and rotation diagrams for a beam with various types of loading. Loading types include forces, moments and distributed loads. The load location and magnitude can be changed at any time. There are three types of supports (i.e. boundary conditions) including pinned, fixed and vertical roller. Each beam can be split into sub-beam segments. Each beam segment can have a different moment of inertia (I) and stiffness (E). The user can click and drag all items to quickly change and compare results. This program is designed for educational uses only. It should not be used for commercial purposes. There is no warranty or guarantee the results are accurate, and the user accepts all responsibility for values calculated.
SW Maps
This app allows users to collect, present, and share geographic information. It supports recording points, lines, polygons, and associated data like photos and audio. High-accuracy GPS surveys are possible with external receivers, and data can be shared in various standard formats.
- Collect points, lines, and polygons
- Attach custom attributes (text, photo, audio, video)
- High-accuracy GPS surveys with external receivers
- Offline map support
- Export data in multiple formats (Shapefile, GeoPackage, CSV)
- Create and share project templates
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SW Maps is a free GIS and mobile mapping app for collecting, presenting and sharing geographic information. Whether you are conducting a full scale GNSS survey with high precision instruments, need to collect large amount of location based data using nothing but your phone, or just need to view a few shapefiles with labels over a background map on the go, SW Maps has it all covered. Record points, lines, polygons and even photos and have them displayed over your choice of background map, and attach custom attribute data to any feature. Attribute types include text, numbers, an option from a predefined set of choices, photos, audio clips and videos. Conduct high accuracy GPS surveys using external RTK capable receivers over Bluetooth LE. Draw features on the map by adding markers, and measure distance and area. Reuse the layers and attributes of a previous project for another survey, or create templates and share them with other users. Share the collected data with other users as Geopackages, KMZ or shapefiles, or export them to your device storage. Also share and export recorded data as Spreadsheets or CSV files. All data is recorded and exported in the standard WGS84 Geographic coordinate system (EPSG:4326). Features -Online Base maps: Apple Maps or Open Street Map -Support for multiple mbtiles and KML overlays -Shapefile and Geopackage layers, with attribute categorized styling. View shapefiles in any coordinate system supported by the PROJ.4 library. -Add multiple online WMTS, TMS, XYZ or WMS layers and cache tiles for offline use. -Connect to external GPS receivers using Bluetooth for high accuracy surveying using RTK with built-in NTRIP client. Also record data from external receiver for post processing. -Define multiple number of feature layers, each with a set of custom attributes Feature Types: Point, Line, Polygon Attribute Types:Text, Numeric, Drop down Options, Photos, Audio, Video Save as Template for re-use or sharing -Record GPS tracks, with distance measurement -Label features based on attribute values. -Import feature layers from templates or existing projects. -Share or export collected data as KMZ (with embedded photographs) , shapefiles, GeoJSON, Geopackage (GPKG), XLS/ODS spreadsheets or csv files. -Share templates or projects with other users -Supports use of GTX geoid files. To use custom geoids, prepare a GTX file with offsets in meters from WGS84. This product is made in Nepal and is FREE (no Ads). If you find this useful, please let your friends know that you have used a product from Nepal. Spare sometime to visit this wonderful country and know the Nepali people.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Beam HPC at 100% against SW Maps's 30%. Beam HPC also leads on rating (4.0 vs 3.8) and iOS requirement (9.0 vs 15.0). SW Maps's advantage is update cadence (every 2 months vs every 18 months) and ratings volume (25 vs 4). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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.
Beam HPC holds the better App Store score, 4.0 against 3.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: SW Maps has 25 ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 100% of Beam HPC's written reviews are positive against 30% of SW Maps's.
Beam HPC ships an update every 18 months, SW Maps every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 2, 2026 and October 11, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Beam HPC | SW Maps |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.0 (4 ratings) — better | 3.8 (25 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better | 30.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 4 | 25 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 18 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 9.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 18 MB | 17 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Kurt Gramoll | Aviyaan Tech |
Customer experience
Beam HPC
SW Maps
In-app purchases
Beam HPC
No in-app purchases
SW Maps
No in-app purchases









