Comparison

UpToDate vs ARF RHD Guidelines

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

Head to head
About

UpToDate

This medical app provides clinicians with evidence-based decision support, featuring AI-powered conversational guidance, comprehensive clinical content, and practice-changing updates. It offers tools for patient education, drug reference, and clinical calculations to enhance care delivery and patient outcomes.

Highlights
  • Expert AI conversational guidance
  • Gold standard clinical content
  • Practice-changing updates
  • Patient education leaflets
  • Drug reference & interactions
  • Clinical calculators
  • Kidney dosing guidance
Features
Read full description

UpToDate is the clinical decision support solution trusted by over 3M healthcare professionals to help improve care delivery and patient outcomes. Now powered by UpToDate Expert AI, a generative AI experience built on rigorously maintained UpToDate clinical intelligence to delivers fast, clinically grounded answers through a conversational interface. Expert AI, available in select packages and applications, brings together the latest evidence and real-world clinical expertise and provides transparent sourcing, embedded guardrails, and oversight, supporting clinical reasoning and helping clinicians make confident, informed decisions. Key features include: • Expert AI: Conversational guidance that mirrors how clinicians think. • Gold Standard Clinical Content: Clinician-authored clinical intelligence and graded recommendation, enriched with clinical algorithms, graphics, videos, and continuously updated to reflect the latest evidence and clinical care experience. • Practice-Changing Updates: Timely insights that reflect the latest evidence and how it impacts patient care. • Patient Education: Thousands of patient education leaflets in up to 19 different languages to improve patient understanding and support care plan adherence. • Key Points Panels: Quick, clinically actionable guidance to help clinicians avoid common diagnostic and treatment errors embedded in UpToDate search results. • Drug Reference & Interactions: Evidence-based drug monographs and interaction analysis to support safe and informed prescribing decisions. • Clinical Calculators: Over 200 tools to support dosing, risk scoring, and patient assessments. • Rx Transitions: Step-by-step support for switching antidepressants safely. • Kidney Dosing: Drug dosing guidance for patients with renal impairment. Available on mobile, desktop, and integrated into EHRs, ensuring you can access UpToDate’s trusted guidance where and when you need it. Access to features will vary depending on your UpToDate account. Expert AI is now available in personal trainee subscriptions and UpToDate Pro Plus subscriptions in the US, and through select Enterprise Edition accounts. To get access, explore personal subscription options on the UpToDate website or contact your Enterprise account lead. This app is designed for use by medical professionals. If you are not a medical professional, please consult a qualified healthcare provider before making any medical decisions.

About

ARF RHD Guidelines

This app provides clinicians with up-to-date evidence and guidance for diagnosing and managing acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease. It includes a diagnostic calculator based on global criteria to simplify complex algorithms.

Highlights
  • Diagnosis and management of ARF/RHD
  • Up-to-date evidence-based information
  • ARF Diagnosis Calculator
  • Global diagnostic criteria compliance
  • Published by RHDAustralia
Features
Read full description

Rheumatic heart disease represents the greatest cardiovascular inequality between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. From 2013 to 2017, 94% of all new rheumatic heart disease cases were among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This app assists clinicians in the diagnosis and management of acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease. Published by RHDAustralia, based at Menzies School of Health Research, the app contains the most up-to-date evidence and details various aspects of patient care. It is informed by the 2020 Australian guideline for prevention, diagnosis and management of acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease (3rd edition), available at https://www.rhdaustralia.org.au/arf-rhd-guideline. The app also contains an ARF Diagnosis Calculator which embeds the lengthy and complex ARF diagnosis algorithms into a series of simple questions that assist clinicians to diagnose ARF. The algorithms comply with the 2015 American Heart Association revision of the Jones Criteria for diagnosis of ARF, which has been endorsed by the World Heart Federation, making the Diagnosis Calculator now able to be used globally.

Screenshots

UpToDate4 screens
ARF RHD Guidelines3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: ARF RHD Guidelines at 100% against UpToDate's 28%. ARF RHD Guidelines also leads on rating (5.0 vs 3.6) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 18.0). UpToDate's advantage is update cadence (every 2 months vs every 16 months) and ratings volume (587 vs 1). 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

ARF RHD Guidelines holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: UpToDate has 587 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 28% of UpToDate's written reviews are positive against 100% of ARF RHD Guidelines's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

UpToDate ships an update every 2 months, ARF RHD Guidelines every 16 months. The most recent releases landed on November 13, 2026 and November 1, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
UpToDate versus ARF RHD Guidelines: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterUpToDateARF RHD Guidelines
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.6 (587 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews28.4% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings587 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 2 months — betterEvery 16 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS18.013.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size56 MB9 MB
Age rating17+12+
DeveloperUpToDate, Inc.Menzies School of Health Research

Customer experience

UpToDate

All ratings587 ratings
Positive60.3%
Neutral10.2%
Negative29.5%
Written reviews387 reviews
Positive28.4%
Neutral9.6%
Negative62.0%

ARF RHD Guidelines

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

UpToDate

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Inability to download offline content
  • Constant need to re-authenticate
  • Incompatibility with recent iOS updates

Requested features

3 requests
  • Highlight and annotate content
  • Improved institutional login support
  • Dark mode and font size options

ARF RHD Guidelines

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

UpToDate

No in-app purchases

None

ARF RHD Guidelines

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is UpToDate free?
UpToDate is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is ARF RHD Guidelines free?
ARF RHD Guidelines is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, UpToDate or ARF RHD Guidelines?
ARF RHD Guidelines is rated higher. UpToDate averages 3.6 out of 5 from 587 ratings, while ARF RHD Guidelines averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do UpToDate or ARF RHD Guidelines have ads?
Neither UpToDate nor ARF RHD Guidelines shows ads.
Which is updated more often, UpToDate or ARF RHD Guidelines?
UpToDate ships an update every 2 months, and ARF RHD Guidelines every 16 months. Most recently, UpToDate was updated on November 13, 2026 and ARF RHD Guidelines on November 1, 2026.

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