Harry's LapTimer Petrolhead vs Garmin Catalyst™
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Harry's LapTimer Petrolhead
This app is an advanced tool for car enthusiasts to record and analyze sensor data for optimizing driving performance. It offers automated lap timing, video recording with data overlays, and real-time online racing competition features.
- Records sensor data (GPS, OBD II)
- Automated lap timing with 1300+ predefined tracks
- In-car video recording with data overlays
- Real-time online racing and competition
- Driving performance analysis and optimization
- Step-by-step sensor integration
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Harry's LapTimer is the advanced tool for car enthusiast. It records all types of sensor data provided by your iPhone/iPod/iPad (or external sensors), combines them, and makes them available to optimize your drive. Over time, you will get insights on your car and in your driving, not known before. LapTimer offers more than 1300 predefined tracks world wide. With its assistants, it is extremely easy to setup - just click your track and drive. It fully automates your lap timing using GPS, and presents the results to all kinds of media. You are not limited to track driving only. For example, you may define your home and working locations as a 'track', collect statistics on different ways chosen, and analyze / optimize the time used every day. Want to show your drive to your friends? LapTimer Petrolhead and above generates beautiful in car video recordings with all kinds of data overlaid, ready to be presented - e.g. on youtube. Even without video, recorded data can be analyzed using purpose designed views, making it easy to analyze and improve your driving performance. Using online racing, you can use LapTimer in competition. LapTimer offers a Hall of Fame, allows watching you and your friends on track - all in real time. Compare your sector times, braking / acceleration points, and learn from each other. You can start with your plain iPhone in the beginning and add external GPS and OBD II sensors later, step by step, and as you need it. LapTimer itself comes in three different editions: LapTimer Rookie is the entry level with all you need for lap timing; LapTimer Petrolhead is the advanced version including lots of video features, and LapTimer Grand Prix is the edition for professionals including Multi Cam recording, Health Kit integration, and advanced sensor and analytics functionality. Please note that functionality depends on your device, the LapTimer edition chosen, and sometimes even external sensors added (like OBD II). Please visit our web page to get the full story. All edition can be upgraded later, all editions come with native iPhone and iPad support. There are quite expensive stand alone solutions for track days available. Be smart and own the leading edge tool simply by using your iPhone and LapTimer. Besides the professional area, there is no known solution that offers more functionality than LapTimer does - across the market. As our ambition is to offer the best tool, LapTimer is enhanced continuously. Please visit http://www.gps-laptimer.de for detailed information on versions, FAQs / documentation, in depth technology background information, online racing, and supported device configurations. Join our user community on http://www.gps-laptimer-forum.de to be involved in future development - all with first class support.
Garmin Catalyst™
Access and analyze your motorsports performance data, including lap times, session summaries, and driver profiles, on your smartphone or tablet. Track annual driving metrics and record weather conditions for each session. Customize driver and vehicle icons for a personalized experience.
- Access performance data
- View session summaries
- Track lap times
- Record weather conditions
- Customizable driver profiles
- Track annual driving metrics
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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
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Garmin Catalyst™ at Free against Harry's LapTimer Petrolhead's $19.99. Garmin Catalyst™ also leads on rating (4.8 vs 3.8) and in-app purchases (none vs 1). Harry's LapTimer Petrolhead's advantage is chart position (#74 vs unranked) and device support (4 vs 2). On review sentiment, ratings volume, ads 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
Garmin Catalyst™ is free to download; Harry's LapTimer Petrolhead costs $19.99 up front. Harry's LapTimer Petrolhead sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Garmin Catalyst™ asks for nothing beyond the download.
Garmin Catalyst™ holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 3.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 153 and 120 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 77% of Harry's LapTimer Petrolhead's written reviews are positive against 80% of Garmin Catalyst™'s.
Harry's LapTimer Petrolhead ships an update every 2 months, Garmin Catalyst™ monthly. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 4, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Harry's LapTimer Petrolhead | Garmin Catalyst™ |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $19.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 3.8 (153 ratings) | 4.8 (120 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 76.6% of reviews | 80.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 153 — better | 120 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #74 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 16.5 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 78 MB | 223 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Harald Schlangmann | Garmin |
Customer experience
Harry's LapTimer Petrolhead
Garmin Catalyst™
User reviews
Harry's LapTimer Petrolhead
From 153 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 📊 Comprehensive data logging and telemetry analysis
- 🎥 Excellent video overlay capabilities with telemetry
- 💰 Affordable alternative to expensive professional systems
- 🛠️ Highly responsive developer with active support
- 🏁 Accurate lap timing when properly configured
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent app crashes and freezes
- 🎮 Confusing and unintuitive user interface
- 📍 Unreliable GPS tracking without external devices
- 🔌 Poor Bluetooth connectivity with accessories
- 📹 Video export causes app malfunction
Garmin Catalyst™
From 120 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Easy to use interface
- 🚀 Great performance data
- 💡 Actionable driving insights
- 👍 Simple setup
- 👍 Great for track drivers
Room to improve
- 🐛 Glitches when logging in
- 🐛 App just glitches
- 🐛 Loading is soooo slow
- 🐛 Not user friendly
- 🐛 Comparing to friends frequently fails
Bugs and requests
Harry's LapTimer Petrolhead
Reported bugs
14 issues- App crashes when overlaying videos
- Video playback fails in Photos app until phone reboot
- Lap data not recording at certain tracks
- GPS location not recognized at specific venues
- Timer fails to start or record laps inconsistently
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- Screen freezes during lap analysis
- Video recording stops mid-session
- App locks up entire phone requiring hard restart
- Inaccurate speed and elevation data
- Inability to delete laps without app hanging
- Track loading failures and truncated track names
- Overlay settings reset after each use
- Incompatibility with newer iOS versions
- External GPS and OBD2 connection drops
Requested features
10 requests- Ability to pause timer between sessions
- Automatic video overlay for all laps without manual processing
- Better track variant identification in database
- Improved nearby track suggestions based on location
- Dark mode option
Show 5 moreShow fewer
- Call blocking during track sessions
- More Canadian track coverage
- Custom vehicle profile support for newer models
- Simplified user interface redesign
- Better export format compatibility for Mac users
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.
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- 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 moreShow fewer
- 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
In-app purchases
Harry's LapTimer Petrolhead
- Grand Prix Upgrade$9.99
Garmin Catalyst™
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Harry's LapTimer Petrolhead free?
Is Garmin Catalyst™ free?
Which has better reviews, Harry's LapTimer Petrolhead or Garmin Catalyst™?
Do Harry's LapTimer Petrolhead or Garmin Catalyst™ have ads?
Which is updated more often, Harry's LapTimer Petrolhead or Garmin Catalyst™?
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