Comparison

Garmin Catalyst™ vs Drive

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

Head to head
About

Garmin Catalyst™

Access and analyze your motorsports performance data on your smartphone. Review lap times, session summaries, and driver profiles. Track annual driving activity and session weather conditions.

Highlights
  • Access performance data
  • View lap times
  • Session summaries
  • Customizable driver profiles
  • Track annual activity
  • Record weather conditions
Read full description

For motorsports drivers of all levels, the Garmin Catalyst™ app provides a simple, intuitive way to access your Garmin Catalyst™ performance data — including lap times, session summaries and customizable driver profiles— on your compatible smartphone or tablet. The app also tracks your annual driving activity metrics and provides a record of weather conditions for each session. Garmin Catalyst™ App • Easily access your Garmin Catalyst™ performance data with use of this app on your compatible smartphone or tablet • Shows your session summaries, lap times, session weather conditions, lap-by-lap data and annual driving activity metrics • Customizable icons within the app let you tailor the look of your driver profile and vehicle icons • View vehicles and track notes from your Garmin Catalyst™ device

About

Drive

This app transforms your phone into a telemetry logger, recording your car's performance metrics like G-force, speed, and acceleration. Analyze your drives, track favorite roads, and get alerts for speed cameras.

Highlights
  • Real-time G-force friction circle
  • Customizable performance stats
  • Standing-start time tracking (0-60, 1/4 mile)
  • Drive history and mapping
  • Speed camera alerts
  • Road memory and reminders
Features
Read full description

Drive turns the phone in your pocket into a telemetry logger for the days you actually care about driving. Mount it on the dash before you set off. Drive reads the sensors already inside your iPhone — the accelerometer, the gyroscope, the barometer and GPS — and records what the car did. Then you can export your session as a poster to share. --- THE GAUGE A live friction circle shows the forces on the car: braking up, throttle down, cornering left and right. The border is one g. A blue trail keeps the last two seconds, so a corner's shape stays visible. Peak markers hold the hardest moments of the session. Your speed, your max g-force and the outside temperature sit alongside it. --- HUD MODE On a windshield mount, tap the windshield button and the screen turns see-through: the road ahead fills the background, lined up with where you sit, your stats on top. Nothing from the camera is recorded or leaves your phone. --- PICK YOUR FOUR Tap + to choose the four stats under the gauge: • Turns and best corner speed, distance, elevation and grade, density altitude • Butt dyno — your estimated peak horsepower, from how hard the car pulls. Add your cars once and switch between them in a tap. • 0-60 mph, 0-100 mph, 1/4 mile and 1 mile — your best standing-start times. Track use only. --- RECORD THE RUN Press record and Drive keeps the whole drive: the route as a GPS trace, a pin where you cornered hardest, and the stats that go with it. Every drive lands in a history, one card per drive with its own map, and any drive can be sent as a poster. --- ROADS YOU LOVE Drive remembers the roads you record. Arrive at one again and it can offer to record; on a Friday evening it can suggest a Saturday morning run. --- PLATE READERS, ON THE MAP Automatic licence-plate readers have gone up on most main roads. Drive shows the ones the OpenStreetMap community has mapped: a marker for every camera near you, and a heads-up as you approach one, with the distance and which way the lens faces. The list is built into the app, so nothing about your drive leaves your phone to look a camera up. It is community-mapped and incomplete — no alert does not mean no camera. Drive is a privacy tool, not a law-evasion tool; you are responsible for how you use it. --- WHAT PRO ADDS The live gauge, your speed and the outside temperature are free, and stay free. Pro unlocks the stat cards, the map with its plate-reader markers and heads-up, and the drive history. Try it free for a week with no payment details, then buy it once or subscribe monthly. --- BUILT FOR THE PASSENGER SEAT AND THE PADDOCK Drive is set up before you move and read after you stop: track days, autocross, a morning on a road you love. It is not a driving aid, and nothing in it should be operated while you are driving. Drive asks you to confirm that every single time it opens. --- PRIVACY No account. No sign-in. No ads. Your drives, roads and cars stay on your phone — never uploaded. The camera, in HUD mode, is only ever shown on screen. Drive uses your location for speed, distance, the map, the plate-reader heads-up and road reminders, all worked out on the phone. It sends your coordinates to Apple Weather for the outside temperature, and a car's name to Google only when you tap Find weight. Usage analytics are anonymous and aggregate: no advertising identifier, no cross-app tracking. --- REQUIREMENTS iPhone with iOS 17 or later. Drive needs location and motion access to do anything; both are requested on first open, with the reason shown in each prompt. Use a dash, vent or windshield mount. --- SUBSCRIPTION TERMS Drive Pro Monthly ($2.99 per month) renews automatically until cancelled in your App Store settings. Drive Pro Lifetime ($19.99) is a one-time purchase and does not renew. The free week needs no purchase and charges nothing. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://viablelabs.ai/privacy

Screenshots

Garmin Catalyst™4 screens
Drive4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Garmin Catalyst™ at none against Drive's 3. Garmin Catalyst™ also leads on ratings volume (120 vs 1). Drive's advantage is update cadence (every 2 days vs monthly) and review sentiment (100% vs 80%). 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Drive sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Garmin Catalyst™ asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Drive holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Garmin Catalyst™ has 120 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 80% of Garmin Catalyst™'s written reviews are positive against 100% of Drive's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Garmin Catalyst™ ships an update monthly, Drive every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 17, 2026 and October 15, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Garmin Catalyst™ versus Drive: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGarmin Catalyst™Drive
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (120 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews80.3% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings120 — better1
Update frequencyMonthlyEvery 2 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFreemium
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS16.5 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size220 MB18 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperGarminViable Labs LLC

Customer experience

Garmin Catalyst™

All ratings120 ratings
Positive94.2%
Neutral2.5%
Negative3.3%
Written reviews61 reviews
Positive80.3%
Neutral8.2%
Negative11.5%

Drive

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Garmin Catalyst™

Reported bugs

7 issues
  • Everytime you try logging in the app just glitches anyways can’t even get logged in.
  • Comparing to others frequently fails
  • Compare to friend feature way to frequently fails with the message about the tracks not matching well enough despite being the same track on the same days even.
  • New version is off
  • It won’t let me compare the laps with other friends on the same day. Says lap not similar. Literally same day same track same session.
Show 2 more
  • Friend integration is currently pretty lacking. When I try to compare laps it complains that the tracks aren't similar enough.
  • Worse though is that there's no apparent way of sharing your sessions with friends.

Requested features

17 requests
  • Option to select 1-5 laps for optimum view
  • Watch reference videos side by side on the Catalyst
  • Add video review on phone or iPad
  • Allow moving videos to iCloud for review
  • Ability to download in-car camera footage directly from device to app
Show 12 more
  • Compare data from other sessions
  • Use for Sim racing games
  • More functionality to come
  • Make it even more simple
  • Overall leaderboard
  • Leaderboards of other tracks
  • Compare session data between friends
  • Fix track matching issues for friend comparison
  • Allow browsing friend's sessions
  • Add option to compare against other sessions
  • Add dark mode option
  • Add advanced analytics dashboard

Drive

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Garmin Catalyst™

No in-app purchases

3 purchases

Drive

Subscriptions2
  • Drive Pro Monthly$2.991 Month
  • Drive Pro Annual$9.991 Year
One-time1
  • Drive Pro Lifetime$19.99

Questions

Is Garmin Catalyst™ free?
Garmin Catalyst™ is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Drive free?
Drive is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Garmin Catalyst™ or Drive?
Drive is rated higher. Garmin Catalyst™ averages 4.8 out of 5 from 120 ratings, while Drive averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Garmin Catalyst™ or Drive have ads?
Neither Garmin Catalyst™ nor Drive shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Garmin Catalyst™ or Drive?
Garmin Catalyst™ ships an update monthly, and Drive every 2 days. Most recently, Garmin Catalyst™ was updated on October 17, 2026 and Drive on October 15, 2026.

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