BirdNET vs Bird Sound Identifier
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
BirdNET
Identify bird species by their sounds using AI. Record audio with your device and discover the birds around you. Contribute to conservation research by submitting your recordings.
- AI-powered bird sound recognition
- Identify common North American and European species
- Record audio with internal microphone
- View probable bird species identification
- Contribute to conservation research
- Learn about local birds
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How can computers learn to recognize birds from sounds? The BirdNET research project uses artificial intelligence and neural networks to train computers to identify nearly 3,000 of the most common species of North America and Europe. You can record a file using the internal microphone of your iOS device and see if BirdNET correctly identifies the probable bird species present in your recording. Get to know the birds around you and help us to collect observations by submitting your recordings. BirdNET is a joint project of the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Chemnitz University of Technology.
Bird Sound Identifier
Identify bird species by their calls using advanced on-device AI. Access detailed information about each species, including conservation status, directly from Wikipedia. Enjoy a clean, intuitive interface for seamless bird sound recognition.
- Identify birds by sound
- Offline on-device inference
- Supports 6362 species
- Species information from Wikipedia
- Conservation status included
- Simple user interface
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Detect a bird species based on it's calling sounds. - Fully offline on-device inference, no data leaves the device at all. - 6362 different species supported. - Species information directly from Wikipedia with conservation status (if exists). - Simple user interface with no clutter.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: BirdNET at Free against Bird Sound Identifier's $2.99. BirdNET also leads on iOS requirement (13.0 vs 16.4). Bird Sound Identifier's advantage is rating (4.9 vs 4.0) and review sentiment (100% vs 66%). On ratings volume, 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
BirdNET is free to download; Bird Sound Identifier costs $2.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Bird Sound Identifier holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 215 and 190 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 66% of BirdNET's written reviews are positive against 100% of Bird Sound Identifier's.
BirdNET ships an update every 3 months, Bird Sound Identifier every 6 months. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | BirdNET | Bird Sound Identifier |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $2.99 |
| Rating | 4.0 (215 ratings) | 4.9 (190 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 66.5% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 215 — better | 190 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months — better | Every 6 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 16.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 98 MB | 154 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Stefan Kahl | Rafael Francisco |
Customer experience
BirdNET
Bird Sound Identifier
Bugs and requests
BirdNET
Reported bugs
5 issues- Crashes when trying to access observation history
- Recordings disappearing after app updates
- Inability to start a new recording without exiting the app
- Microphone not working on certain devices
- Incorrect or missing bird species in regional databases
Requested features
5 requests- Ability to manually select frequency ranges for analysis
- Option to delete individual observations or recordings
- Import/export functionality for recordings and observations
- Improved handling of background noise and interference
- More detailed feedback when multiple birds are detected
Bird Sound Identifier
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
BirdNET
No in-app purchases
Bird Sound Identifier
No in-app purchases
