UC San Diego vs Piazza
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
UC San Diego
Access essential campus information and services with a mobile-first approach. Log in securely, view your schedule, find dining options, and navigate campus with ease. Stay updated on news and events, and access your student or employee ID.
- Single Sign-On login
- Class and finals schedule
- Student/Employee ID
- Campus map search
- Dining locations
- Shuttle arrival times
- Campus news and events
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The official UC San Diego Mobile app connects you to the UC San Diego campus with mobile-focused: • User login with Single Sign-On • Class and finals schedule information • Student and Employee ID • Dining locations • Shuttle arrivals • Campus busyness • Campus news and events • Access to MyUCSDChart • Map search • TritonGPT
Piazza
This platform facilitates communication and learning for higher education. Students can ask and answer questions, while instructors can monitor student engagement. It provides real-time updates and a centralized space for class interactions.
- Ask and answer questions
- Real-time updates
- Centralized class communication
- Student engagement monitoring
- Mobile access for students and instructors
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Piazza is the leading social learning platform for higher education, used by hundreds of thousands of students and more than 15 thousand professors for centralized class communications and polling. If you're a student, the Piazza app lets you ask and answer questions in all your Piazza classes from your mobile device, and updates you in real time when your peers are engaged. If you're an instructor, the app gives you a simple way to check in on your students during those spare moments between meetings. Stay connected to your class with Piazza!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: UC San Diego at 3.1 against Piazza's 2.1. UC San Diego also leads on review sentiment (51% vs 14%). Piazza's advantage is update cadence (every 11 days vs every 3 months) and ratings volume (282 vs 61). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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.
UC San Diego holds the better App Store score, 3.1 against 2.1. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 61 and 282 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 51% of UC San Diego's written reviews are positive against 14% of Piazza's.
UC San Diego ships an update every 3 months, Piazza every 11 days. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and November 1, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | UC San Diego | Piazza |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.1 (61 ratings) — better | 2.1 (282 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 50.6% of reviews — better | 13.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 61 | 282 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 11 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 15.6 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 52 MB | 3 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | University of California, San Diego (Business Affairs) | Piazza Technologies, Inc. |
Customer experience
UC San Diego
Piazza
User reviews
UC San Diego
From 61 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Useful for shuttle tracking (historically)
- 👍 Informative for course and DH hours (historically)
- 👍 Good for incoming freshmen (historically)
- 👍 Directory is very useful (historically)
- 👍 Map is helpful (historically)
Room to improve
- 🐛 Horrible to use
- 🐛 One of the worst apps ever used
- 🐛 Insanely bad app
- 🐛 Unintuitive UI
- 🐛 Cards don’t stay on consistently
Piazza
From 282 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Useful app
- 🚀 Great for tracking classes
- 🚀 Convenient mobile access
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes frequently
- 🐛 Buggy and unreliable
- 🐛 Lacks key features from web version
- 🐛 Poor user interface and navigation
- 🔒 Login and authentication issues
Bugs and requests
UC San Diego
Reported bugs
33 issues- App needs to be deleted and reinstalled every few weeks
- Login doesn't work without opening and closing the app
- Cards don't stay on consistently
- Map is dysfunctional
- Building searches yield no or spurious results
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- Parking structures removed
- Shuttle tracker is not functional
- Loading errors and no useful data
- App doesn't always save personalized card selection
- Cannot personalize Cards selection sometimes
- Option to see classes doesn't show up
- Restaurant/market hours are inaccurate
- Functions disappear after reinstalling
- ID card function disappears
- ID card shows loading throbber
- ID card not successful with various internet connections
- App not formatted for iPhone 10 sizes
- Classes card always shows Monday
- App is cluttered and unprofessional
- App fails to open
- App crashes on startup
- App crashes after updates
- App quits unexpectedly
- App is slow and less usable
- Webpage doesn't fit properly within the app frame
- App is filled with bugs
- Update made the app completely useless
- Too many bugs
- Clunky approach to accessing bus map
- Map doesn't show current location
- Login process is difficult
- Recent updates have improved the user experience
- New AI features will be available soon
Requested features
32 requests- Bring back the previous shuttle tracker
- Bring back Hopkins and Gilman parking structures
- Add option to hide restaurants or favorite them
- List restaurants by closest to farthest
- Push notification when class starts
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- Bring back class/bus schedule cards
- Integrate Bus map with GPS tracking
- List of upcoming seminars and their locations
- Ability to electronically buy a parking permit
- Access to various blink services
- Integration of Calit Southern California Traffic App
- Inclusion of access to AtYourService
- Add events from Student Flyers
- Add a calendar feature
- Add student login with course information
- Use push notification for events, emergencies, class changes
- Integrate UCSD bus schedule into the app
- Add course information to calendar
- Include amount of open seats in course discussions/lectures
- Button for UCSD news
- iPad version
- Dark mode option
- Advanced analytics dashboard
- Make the app more intuitive
- Improve UI for scrolling through cards
- Add a search function for buildings
- Make the map more functional
- Add current location to the map
- Provide walking directions
- Make ID card more consistent
- Improve login process
- Add AI features
Piazza
Reported bugs
4 issues- Inability to post or reply
- Randomly logs out users
- Fails to load posts and resources
- Incompatible with newer iOS versions
Requested features
5 requests- Dark mode option
- Ability to access course materials
- Improved formatting and editing tools
- Better organization of posts and discussions
- Seamless integration with web version
In-app purchases
UC San Diego
No in-app purchases
Piazza
No in-app purchases
