Coastal Explorer vs Lock Status
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Coastal Explorer
Plan and log your cruises with detailed nautical charts and weather forecasts. Enhance your experience with a subscription for offline access, real-time navigation, and integration with marine electronics.
- View NOAA and USACE nautical charts
- Create routes and waypoints
- Cloud synchronization
- ActiveCaptain points of interest
- US Coast Pilot information
- Marine weather forecasts
- Tide and current predictions
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Coastal Explorer™ is a sophisticated, full-featured, easy-to-use cruise planning and logging tool designed specifically for the pleasure boater. And it becomes a complete navigation system with the purchase of a chart subscription. The free Coastal Explorer app provides these great planning features: * View NOAA and USACE nautical charts for the US in vector format * Create routes, waypoints, boundaries, and other navigation objects * Cloud-synchronization of your navigation objects * ActiveCaptain points of interest * US Coast Pilot information * Marine weather forecasts and observations for the US * Tide and current predictions for the US Purchasing a chart subscription turns Coastal Explorer into a complete navigation system that includes: * Downloadable charts, tide and current predictions, Coast Pilot, and ActiveCaptain places for offline use * Interfacing with compatible networked marine electronics devices, including GPS, compass, depth sounder, anemometer, AIS, autopilot, and more * Customizable instrument panels * Route following with cross-track error, distance and time to go, estimated time of arrival, etc * Track and event recording * Integrated blogging Subscriptions automatically renew unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. See our Terms of Service at https://www.rosepoint.com/legal/terms_of_service.
Lock Status
Provides real-time information on U.S. river locks and dams. Get contact details and see upcoming locks for your waterway journey. Essential for boaters and canoeists navigating rivers.
- Up-to-date lock information
- Contact methods for locks
- Upcoming lock identification
- Supports waterway journeys
- River and dam status
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Canoeing down the Mississippi River? Taking your boat across the Okeechobee Waterway? Spending a year completing the Great Loop? When completing any of these tasks, you are bound to run in to locks along your journey! Use this app to get up to date information about locks, methods to contact the locks, and see which locks are coming up next!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Lock Status at 100% against Coastal Explorer's 11%. Lock Status also leads on rating (5.0 vs 2.8) and in-app purchases (none vs 2). Coastal Explorer's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 2 months) and ratings volume (16 vs 4). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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. Coastal Explorer sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $19.99 per month. Lock Status asks for nothing beyond the download.
Lock Status holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 2.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 16 and 4 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 11% of Coastal Explorer's written reviews are positive against 100% of Lock Status's.
Coastal Explorer ships an update every 2 weeks, Lock Status every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 6, 2026 and September 17, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Coastal Explorer | Lock Status |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.8 (16 ratings) | 5.0 (4 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 11.1% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 16 — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 54 MB | 2 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Rose Point Navigation Systems, Inc | Andrew Thom |
Customer experience
Coastal Explorer
Lock Status
In-app purchases
Coastal Explorer
- Monthly Subscription$19.991 Month
- Yearly Subscription$49.991 Year
Lock Status
No in-app purchases









