Comparison

Pipilo vs Beluga

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Pipilo

Experience a unique social media feed with a horizontally scrolling timeline that displays posts within their conversation context. Easily follow discussions, manage notifications, and enjoy rich media previews. Offers premium features for enhanced posting and account management.

Highlights
  • Horizontally scrolling conversation timelines
  • Collapsible threads with follow-only option
  • Grouped daily notifications
  • Rich link and video previews
  • Home, local, and federated timelines
  • Keyword filters for content moderation
  • Advanced media viewer with gestures
Features
Read full description

Pipilo is a unique Fediverse app that lets you browse posts on a horizontally scrolling timeline. Each post is displayed within the context of its conversation with replies from people you follow. This results in an elegant, distraction-free interface, making it easy to follow various conversation threads. Pipilo works with Mastodon, Pixelfed, Pleroma, Akkoma, Friendica, Firefish, Catodon, Iceshrimp, and GoToSocial. Features: - Horizontally scrolling timeline with each post appearing in the context of its conversation - Clean, collapsible threads showing only posts from people you follow, with an option to view replies from everyone - Notifications grouped by day - Quote posts - Rich previews for mentioned links and videos - Home, local, and federated timelines - Followed hashtags and custom lists - Quick search of posts, hashtags, and users - Full iPad support, with multiple windows allowing you to display different timelines side by side - Smooth media viewer with intuitive gestures, alt-text descriptions, share functionality, live text selection, and subject lifting - Advanced video player with native system interface for play/pause, time scrubbing, volume control, and full-screen or PIP mode viewing - Keyword filters to hide posts behind a warning or remove them from your timelines completely Premium Features: - Submit posts with images, videos, media descriptions, and content warnings - Sync reading position across multiple devices - Follow new hashtags and users - Create and edit custom lists - Add multiple accounts from all supported servers - Enable push notifications - Create and edit filters - Bookmark posts - Pin timelines - Create hashtag groups and follow remote instances Unlock all premium features with: - One-time purchase - Monthly subscription - Yearly subscription Privacy Policy: https://pipilo.thanel.me/privacy/ Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Beluga

Share your thoughts and updates with friends and followers through a "tweet-like" feed. It generates a mini-website for easy sharing, even with non-users, and supports RSS feed readers for broader reach. This decentralized app ensures you own your data.

Highlights
  • Tweet-like content publishing
  • Personalized mini-website generation
  • JSON Feed compatibility
  • Decentralized data ownership
  • RSS feed reader integration
  • Multiple S3-compatible storage support
Features
Read full description

Publish your thoughts and keep your friends and followers informed of what you are up to. This app is ideal for publishing self-hosted tweets with photos and links. All your posts are added to your Beluga feed, and a mini-website is generated and published so you can easily share with everyone, even people that don’t use the app. You can think of Beluga as a feed reader/writer. All Beluga feeds are JSON Feed and RSS compatible, so your friends can follow you on many popular feed reader apps like NetNewsWire and others available on iOS and macOS. Beluga is decentralized. We don’t have any servers. So you are the owner of your data, and your self-hosted tweets live wherever you like. Beluga runs on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Your devices stay in sync through your own site, so you can post from any of them and pick up right where you left off. To publish your Beluga feed and mini-website, you must have a web server or an account with a hosting provider. We currently support SFTP, WebDAV, Neocities, Netlify, GitHub Pages, Bunny.net, and S3-compatible object storage like Amazon Web Services S3, Cloudflare R2, Wasabi, Digital Ocean Spaces, Linode Objects, Backblaze B2, DreamHost, and many others.

Screenshots

Pipilo4 screens
Beluga4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Beluga at none against Pipilo's 3. Beluga also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.6). Pipilo's advantage is update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 6 months) and ratings volume (5 vs 1). On price, ads and device support 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Pipilo sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Beluga asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Beluga holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Pipilo has 5 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pipilo ships an update every 3 weeks, Beluga every 6 months. The most recent releases landed on November 11, 2026 and November 12, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Pipilo versus Beluga: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPipiloBeluga
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (5 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews75.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings5 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeks — betterEvery 6 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS16.4 — better27.0
Further details — not scored
Size78 MB11 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperLukasz RutkowskiBlimp

Customer experience

Pipilo

All ratings5 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews8 reviews
Positive75.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative25.0%

Beluga

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Pipilo

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly Pipilo Premium7 Days trial$0.991 Month
  • Yearly Pipilo Premium7 Days trial$9.991 Year
One-time1
  • Lifetime Pipilo Premium$29.99
None

Beluga

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Pipilo free?
Pipilo is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Beluga free?
Beluga is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Pipilo or Beluga?
Beluga is rated higher. Pipilo averages 4.6 out of 5 from 5 ratings, while Beluga averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Pipilo or Beluga have ads?
Neither Pipilo nor Beluga shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Pipilo or Beluga?
Pipilo ships an update every 3 weeks, and Beluga every 6 months. Most recently, Pipilo was updated on November 11, 2026 and Beluga on November 12, 2026.

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