Actor's Pocket Guide vs Heartbeat Chat
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Actor's Pocket Guide
Connect with fellow actors and performers to access essential resources and build your network. Share and discover daily content across all aspects of theatrical arts within a supportive community.
- Connect with actors and performers
- Access theatre knowledge and resources
- Build professional networks
- Discover daily theatrical content
- Community for aspiring and professional actors
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Actor's Pocket Guide is a Theatre community that is focused on connecting actors and performers with the knowledge, resources, network they need to succeed. Actor's Pocket Guide is comprised of casual, aspiring, and professionals performers, posting daily content from every facet of the theatrical arts. Nobody in Theatre acts alone, find your part with us!
Heartbeat Chat
Build and manage your online communities with a versatile platform. Engage members through chat, voice, and video, and create a knowledge base for lasting discussions. Integrate with other tools to automate actions and track growth.
- Customizable channels for chat and posts
- Voice rooms for real-time conversations
- Presence indicators for a shared room feel
- Knowledge base creation from discussions
- Integration with Zoom, Google Calendar, Salesforce, etc.
- Automated community match-ups and intros
- Permission management and payment processing
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Heartbeat is the home for all your online communities. Create a space where you and your community can have fun through chats, threads, voice, and video. Heartbeat works great for online schools, accelerators, incubators, paid communities, innovations hubs, support groups, and so much more! Whether its a massive, established community, or you're just getting started, Heartbeat makes it easy to build lasting, genuine relationships. LAUNCH AN INVITE-ONLY COMMUNITY SPACE: - Customize channels to use posts or chats and design a space just for you and your community to have deep discussions about how the world is changing or just to share the best restaurants in Atlanta. - Voice rooms help you take your conversations to the next level — jump into a voice room with 1 click - Presence indicators floating around the app show you where other people are, and make it feel like you're in the same room CREATE A LASTING LIBRARY OF KNOWLEDGE - Turn insightful posts into long-lasting knowledge base articles & grow your community off the great conversations that happen - Organize information vital to your community members & create a space they can always reference for the best information - Manage access through powerful permissioning tools native to Hearbeat SCALE YOUR COMMUNITY LIKE A BOSS - Use deep integrations with Zoom, Google Calendar, Salesforce, Hubspot, Airtable, and more to automate community actions & track deep analytics over time to see how your community is growing - Automate in-community match-ups and conversations through customizable, weekly Heartbeat intros - Create moderators, special access permissions, manage payments, oversee projects & more within your customizable community space
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Actor's Pocket Guide at 4.5 against Heartbeat Chat's 4.0. Actor's Pocket Guide also leads on review sentiment (75% vs 41%). Heartbeat Chat's advantage is ratings volume (137 vs 20). On price, update cadence, 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.
Actor's Pocket Guide holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Heartbeat Chat has 137 ratings behind it against 20, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 75% of Actor's Pocket Guide's written reviews are positive against 41% of Heartbeat Chat's.
Actor's Pocket Guide ships an update every 3 weeks, Heartbeat Chat every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and November 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Actor's Pocket Guide | Heartbeat Chat |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (20 ratings) — better | 4.0 (137 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 75.0% of reviews — better | 40.9% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 20 | 137 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks — better | Every 5 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 — better | 15.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 47 MB | 78 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Actors Pocket Guide LLC | Heartbeat Chat, Inc |
Customer experience
Actor's Pocket Guide
Heartbeat Chat
Bugs and requests
Actor's Pocket Guide
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Heartbeat Chat
Reported bugs
40 issues- Audio playback stops when phone locks
- Users struggle with logging in
- App is not optimized for iPad, especially in landscape view
- Invasion of privacy concerns regarding photo access
- Notifications are inconsistent and important messages are missed
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- Auto-subscriptions and difficulty with cancellation
- App performance is non-existent, leading to slow loading and unresponsiveness
- Content overlaps
- Tiny frame on iPad, displaying a mobile view
- Forced photo upload during sign-up
- Email already in use error after providing email
- Courses are inaccessible
- Slow response from support
- App fails to update
- Unable to access community
- Unable to cancel subscription
- Charged without consent
- App not working on iPhone
- App freezes frequently
- White screen issues upon opening the app
- App does not function correctly
- Messages not sending when the send button is tapped
- App doesn't work on tablets
- Phantom notifications causing frustration
- App crashes frequently
- Jank and unstable performance
- App shows it has posted but it never publishes
- Notifications and Activity pages have major glitches and don't refresh
- Unable to pull down the Activity page to refresh
- App started messing up immediately, unable to access anything
- App asks for information, then shows an error that it cannot find the channel
- App loads but nothing is tappable or responsive
- App is constantly freezing
- App crashes after iOS update
- App shows communication but refuses to show what it is
- App shows a white screen and is unusable
- App shows a white screen and is garbage
- App shows it has posted but it never published the comment
- Notifications are funky and make zero sense
- App doesn't work correctly on iPhone
Requested features
17 requests- Allow audio to play while phone locks
- Improve iPad optimization, especially in landscape view
- Fix the app icon to not resemble a dating app
- Allow users to change their RSVP to an event after confirming
- Enable users to join public threads via the app
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- Improve image embedding, especially on mobile
- Reduce excessive white space
- Fix notification logic
- Improve image insertion functionality
- Add permalinks to the app
- Allow location changes within the app
- Fix phantom notifications
- Enable profile editing
- Fix the login process for users
- Make the app work on tablets
- Improve backend setup on mobile
- Allow deletion of communities on mobile
In-app purchases
Actor's Pocket Guide
No in-app purchases
Heartbeat Chat
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Actor's Pocket Guide free?
Is Heartbeat Chat free?
Which has better reviews, Actor's Pocket Guide or Heartbeat Chat?
Do Actor's Pocket Guide or Heartbeat Chat have ads?
Which is updated more often, Actor's Pocket Guide or Heartbeat Chat?
Other comparisons
