Farcaster vs Beaconaut
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Farcaster
A decentralized social network where users control their identity and data. Connect with a global community by creating a profile, posting public messages, and engaging in private conversations. Experience a new way to socialize online.
- Decentralized social network
- User-controlled identity
- Create public profile
- Post public messages
- Send private messages
- Discover users and profiles
Read full descriptionHide full description
Sign up requires an in-app purchase. Farcaster is a new type of social network. It's decentralized, like email, which means you control your account and identity. It's an ever-growing community of interesting, curious people from all over the world. Connect with others by creating a profile and posting public messages. What can you do with Farcaster: - Create a Farcaster account and public profile - Post and reply to public messages - Send private messages to friends - Find other users and visit public profiles You can keep updated by following us on (@farcaster) or on X (@farcaster_xyz). If you need to contact support, please send an email to support+ios@neynar.com.
Beaconaut
This app facilitates spontaneous social connections by allowing users to share their current location with trusted friends. It focuses on low-pressure invitations and a sense of shared presence, rather than direct navigation or performance metrics.
- Send temporary location beacons
- See friends' general presence on a globe
- Invite-only circles
- No public profiles or performance metrics
- Temporary beacons expire automatically
- Shared gallery within circles
Read full descriptionHide full description
Beaconaut is for the friends you'd see far more often if seeing them took no planning. Somewhere between a text you never send and an evening nobody gets around to organising, there is a much smaller thing: letting your people know you're around. THE INVITATION Send up a beacon and your circle sees where you are — I'm here, come find me. There is no note to write and nothing to arrange; the place and the moment are the whole message. Answering costs one tap. So does saying you can't. Saying nothing costs nothing at all, and nobody is ever told you stayed quiet. That lightness is the point. An invitation this cheap to send gets sent on an ordinary Tuesday, which is exactly when you needed it. YOUR PEOPLE, OUT THERE Atlas is the globe on your home screen: everyone you share a circle with gathered around it, the threads between you lit where you have been talking lately. It will not help you find anybody, and it is not trying to. It is there so that on an evening when nobody is free, you can still see that your people exist, somewhere, getting on with their lives. Company rather than navigation. CLOSER, ONLY IF IT'S OFFERED The app gets more precise only as people choose it. Atlas is a feeling. The compass is an approximation — roughly which way someone is, roughly how far, never a route, and enough to feel them nearby without being enough to arrive at them. A beacon is the one exact thing, and it exists only because somebody decided they wanted to be found. Nothing sharpens on its own. THE CIRCLE Circles stay small, and they are invite-only. That limit isn't a tier you can pay to raise; keeping a circle small is what makes it a circle. One shared thread, a shared gallery, and the people already in your life. No feed. No followers. No public profile, no like counts, nothing to perform for. IT ENDS ON ITS OWN A beacon is temporary by design. It closes itself, with nothing to cancel and nobody notified that it lapsed. What stays is the warm part — who came, who sent love — and that is what makes the next one easy to send.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Beaconaut at none against Farcaster's 10. Beaconaut also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.6). Farcaster's advantage is ratings volume (1.1K vs 1) and device support (3 vs 1). On price, update cadence and ads 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. Farcaster sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. Beaconaut asks for nothing beyond the download.
Beaconaut holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Farcaster has 1.1K ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on November 7, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Farcaster | Beaconaut |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (1.1K ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 50.4% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 1.1K — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 days | Every 5 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 92 MB | 15 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Merkle Manufactory | FutureNow, Inc |
Customer experience
Farcaster
Beaconaut
Bugs and requests
Farcaster
Reported bugs
5 issues- Registration issues
- Inability to upload photos
- Crashes and app instability
- Problems with in-app purchases
- Sync issues between devices
Requested features
5 requests- Multi-language support
- Improved notifications
- Expanded content sharing options
- Better integration with web3 tools
- Enhanced analytics and metrics
Beaconaut
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Farcaster
- Warpcast Gas Fee$1.00
- Warpcast Gas Fee$2.00
- Warpcast Gas Fee$3.00
Show 7 moreShow fewer
- Onchain Gas Fee$5.00
- Onchain Gas Fee$9.00
- Warpcast Gas Fee$12.00
- Onchain Gas Fee$18.00
- Warpcast Gas Fee$24.00
- Onchain Gas Fee$27.00
- Onchain Gas Fee$45.00
Beaconaut
No in-app purchases









