Comparison

Prowl vs Charles Proxy

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

Head to head
About

Prowl

Receive push notifications from your computer and various apps directly on your iOS device. Integrate the API into your own applications for custom alerts. Supports email-to-push and offers features like quiet hours and notification history.

Highlights
  • Push notifications from Mac/Windows
  • Support for numerous apps/services
  • Email to push functionality
  • Customizable notification delivery
  • Quiet Hours and Do Not Disturb modes
  • Notification history and control
Features
Read full description

Prowl is an easy push notifications client iOS. Push to your device notifications from your Mac or Windows computer, or from a multitude of apps and services. Easily integrate the Prowl API into your applications. A list of supported apps/services: http://prowlapp.com/apps.php The only limit of what the service can do is your imagination. REQUIREMENTS To receive notifications from your computer, you need the latest: • Growl on your Mac @ growl.info, or • Growl for Windows @ growlforwindows.com, or • Snarl on Windows @ fullphat.net, or • Any program or web service using the public API. THE CRITICS "I was extremely impressed with Prowl and the elegance with which I was able to view Growl notifications on my iPhone.” —Aron Trimble, TUAW "[A] powerful tool to connect your Mac with your iPhone, seamlessly over the air. —Federico Viticci, MacStories "Great idea. This opens up iPhone push notifications for anything you can think of.” —John Gruber, Daring Fireball "Probably the best $3 I’ve ever spent in the App Store.” —Darrell Etherington, The Apple Blog FEATURES • Push Notifications—When a Growl notification pops up on your computer, it's sent to Prowl and displayed on your iOS device within seconds. • Sweet application support—Prowl has support from a bunch of cool applications and services. Check out the full list at http://prowlapp.com/apps.php • Redirections—Launch a different application when you open a push notification. For example, a notification from your desktop Twitter client can relaunch into your favorite mobile client. You can even pick custom URLs to launch, so you can go anywhere! • Email to push—Use your Prowl email address (from the Prowl homepage's "API keys" tab) to get email delivery right on your device. Generate as many email addresses as you need! • An amazing API—Use the Prowl API with a multitude of libraries in various programming languages. You can send notifications from anything that can talk to the internet, and do some fun things along with it. • Quiet Hours—During the hours you specify, only the badge numbers are updated. No matter the source. Instead of getting a noisy alert, messages are quietly delivered. You can allow emergency-priority items to break quiet hours. • Do Not Disturb—Keep the application quiet whenever you're busy, or when you need a break from a constant alert. Controllable from within the application. • Control—Open the edit view to get a quick glance at your notifications, and do away with pesky ones. Quickly copy, email or SMS a notification directly from Prowl (depending on device and iOS version). • Browse quickly—Use Prowl's internal browser to quickly open links from a notification without having to open Safari. • History—Up to 10 days of notifications are kept on the server. You can delete notifications that you don't want to see any more, or remove all of your history. • Customized notifications—Only events you want are sent to Prowl. You can specify all kinds of conditions from the Prowl plugin for Growl. • Send any message to your device—From the Prowl website, you can send any text to your device: links and phone numbers are automatically linked, so you can easily navigate around without having to worry about typos. From the website or API, you can also automatically redirect to the attached URL. SETUP Prowl is built into Growl 2.0. For earlier versions: http://prowlapp.com/installation.php — for Mac. http://growlforwindows.com — for Windows. SUPPORT @prowlapp on Twitter http://prowlapp.com/support.php

About

Charles Proxy

Capture and inspect network requests and responses directly on your iOS device. Debug networking issues without needing a computer. View detailed metadata, headers, and bodies, and even transfer sessions to a desktop for further analysis.

Highlights
  • Capture network requests and responses
  • Inspect metadata, headers, and bodies
  • SSL Proxying for plain text viewing
  • Measure network performance
  • Block requests to specific hosts
  • DNS spoofing
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

Charles Proxy for iOS lets you capture, inspect and modify network requests and responses on your iOS device. You can view metadata, headers and bodies in the app, so you can finally debug your app’s networking issues without a computer. Charles Proxy for iOS is an app from the creator of Charles Proxy for desktop. HOW IT WORKS Turn Charles on when you want to start capturing. Charles captures your network requests and responses in the background while you test your app or website. Return to Charles to inspect the requests and responses. If you also have Charles on your desktop, you can transfer recorded sessions to your desktop to explore them on the big screen. Charles creates a local VPN on your device. All of your network traffic passes through Charles on your device, and then out to the internet as usual over either WiFi or Mobile / Cellular data. There is no remote server involved, and your data always remains private to you. FEATURES * SSL Proxying to view SSL requests in plain text * View and share request and responses bodies * Syntax highlighting for text request and response bodies * Measure network performance over WiFi or Mobile / Cellular networks * Block requests to nominated hosts * DNS spoofing

Screenshots

Prowl3 screens
Charles Proxy4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Prowl at 4.6 against Charles Proxy's 4.0. Prowl also leads on review sentiment (88% vs 52%) and price ($2.99 vs $8.99). Charles Proxy's advantage is chart position (#93 vs unranked) and update cadence (every 4 months vs every 7 months). On ratings volume, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Prowl costs $2.99 and Charles Proxy $8.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Prowl holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 106 and 185 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 88% of Prowl's written reviews are positive against 52% of Charles Proxy's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Prowl ships an update every 7 months, Charles Proxy every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
Prowl versus Charles Proxy: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterProwlCharles Proxy
Price$2.99 — better$8.99
Rating4.6 (106 ratings) — better4.0 (185 ratings)
Positive reviews87.7% of reviews — better51.9% of reviews
Number of ratings106185 — better
Update frequencyEvery 7 monthsEvery 4 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidPaid
Best chart rank—#93 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS8.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size3 MB20 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperProwl Solutions LLCXK72 Limited

Customer experience

Prowl

All ratings106 ratings
Positive90.6%
Neutral1.9%
Negative7.5%
Written reviews243 reviews
Positive87.7%
Neutral3.3%
Negative9.1%

Charles Proxy

All ratings185 ratings
Positive74.6%
Neutral5.4%
Negative20.0%
Written reviews231 reviews
Positive51.9%
Neutral11.7%
Negative36.4%

User reviews

Prowl

From 106 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Works consistently and reliably
  • 🚀 Versatile and customizable
  • 👍 Easy to set up and use
  • 👍 Indispensable for monitoring and notifications
  • 🚀 Prompt and fast push notifications

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional visual bugs or glitches
  • 📚 Interface looks dated and needs update
  • 🔋 High battery consumption when used extensively

Charles Proxy

From 185 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Great tool for developers
  • 👍 Useful for debugging
  • 🔒 SSL proxying works
  • 💡 Convenient to use on mobile

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Stability issues, crashes
  • 🐛 SSL certificate not trusted
  • 🐛 Doesn't handle gzip compression
  • 🐛 Slow performance compared to desktop

Bugs and requests

Prowl

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Inconsistent notification delivery
  • Login issues on mobile app

Requested features

4 requests
  • Support for modern iPhone screen sizes
  • Custom notification sounds
  • Improved notification management (e.g. delete multiple)
  • Integration with Apple Watch

Charles Proxy

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Doesn't work with latest iOS versions
  • Fails to export sessions frequently
  • Incompatible with apps using VPN
  • Large JSON bodies not displayed properly

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add ability to edit and replay requests
  • Improve JSON viewer and formatting
  • Add support for WebSockets
  • Provide option to map to local
  • Add scripting and breakpoint features

In-app purchases

None

Prowl

No in-app purchases

None

Charles Proxy

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Prowl free?
Prowl costs $2.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Charles Proxy free?
Charles Proxy costs $8.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Prowl or Charles Proxy?
Prowl is rated higher. Prowl averages 4.6 out of 5 from 106 ratings, while Charles Proxy averages 4.0 from 185 ratings.
Do Prowl or Charles Proxy have ads?
Neither Prowl nor Charles Proxy shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Prowl or Charles Proxy?
Prowl ships an update every 7 months, and Charles Proxy every 4 months. Most recently, Prowl was updated on September 22, 2026 and Charles Proxy on September 24, 2026.

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