CharMap vs Symbols
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
CharMap
Explore and manage Unicode characters with this utility. Organize favorites, view details, and copy characters to your clipboard. Use the custom keyboard to insert them anywhere and sync collections across devices.
- Browse curated character categories
- Organize favorite characters
- View character details and copy to clipboard
- Insert characters with custom keyboard
- Discover characters and blocks
- Sync collections across devices
- Preview system fonts
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CharMap allows to you discover, organize, and use unicode characters. FEATURES • Browse a collection of curated character categories, and organize your favourite characters into custom collections. • View character details and copy characters to the clipboard in a variety of formats. • Enable the CharMap keyboard to insert characters wherever custom keyboards are supported. • Discover unicode characters and blocks using a dedicated unicode browser. • Automatically sync your collections between devices. • Quickly access your custom collections using the collection widget. • Browse system fonts and view font metadata. • No ads, trackers, or analytics. Your data is stored on-device, and optionally synced across your private iCloud account.
Symbols
Access and discover a vast collection of Unicode characters. Find specific symbols, view their HTML and Unicode information, and save frequently used characters to a favorites list for quick access.
- Access all Unicode characters
- View HTML and Unicode info
- Search for specific characters
- Add characters to Favorites
- Copy characters easily
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Fancy fonts for your bio, posts and messages, and every symbol one tap away. Turn any text into cool, aesthetic letters: bold, italic, cursive, gothic, Ⓒⓘⓡⓒⓛⓔⓓ and more, frame your name with decorations, and add cute kaomoji text faces. Then search, copy and paste more than 26,000 special characters: arrows, hearts, stars, check marks, math signs, currency signs, letters from every script and more, straight from the Unicode 18 standard. FANCY TEXT • Type anything and copy it as fancy letters in Ⓒⓘⓡⓒⓛⓔⓓ and more • 23 text styles: bold, italic, script, gothic, double-struck, circled, squared, wide, small caps, upside down, strikethrough and more • Paste it anywhere: bios, messages, posts and notes • Bold, Italic and Strikethrough are free; every style comes with Symbols Pro DECORATIONS AND KAOMOJI • Frame your name with more than 30 decorations: stars, hearts, sparkles, brackets and more • Over 80 kaomoji text faces for every mood: happy, love, sad, angry, shy, animals and more • Tap to copy, then paste into your bio, nickname or chat • A few decorations and faces in every group are free; all of them come with Symbols Pro FIND ANY CHARACTER • Search by name ("arrow", "check mark", "degree") or by hex code ("2192") • Browse all 249 Unicode blocks, or group by category • Filter by letters, marks, numbers, punctuation, symbols or spaces COPY IT YOUR WAY • Tap any character to copy it instantly, with optional sound and haptic feedback • Long-press to copy its code: Unicode (U+2192), HTML (→), HTML hex, CSS, Swift or JavaScript • Share characters to any app SYMBOLS KEYBOARD • Type any character in any app with the Symbols keyboard • Characters are grouped into symbols, punctuation, numbers, letters, marks and spaces • Symbols never records what you type FAVORITES AND HISTORY • Save the characters you use most to Favorites • Every character you copy is kept in History, ready to use again SYMBOLS PRO • No ads • All 23 Fancy Text styles • Every decoration and kaomoji • Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets with your favorite and recent characters • Your Favorites and Recents inside the Symbols keyboard Symbols Pro is available as a weekly or monthly auto-renewable subscription, or as a one-time lifetime purchase. Prices are shown in the app and may vary by country. Payment is charged to your Apple Account when you confirm the purchase. A subscription renews automatically unless it is cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period, and your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours before the period ends. You can manage or cancel your subscription in your App Store account settings at any time after purchase. Any unused part of a free trial, if offered, is forfeited when you purchase a subscription. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://kreatimont.com/apps/symbols/privacy.html
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Symbols at 4.5 against CharMap's 4.0. Symbols also leads on update cadence (every 3 days vs every 4 months) and review sentiment (75% vs 54%). CharMap's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3) and ads (none vs shown). On price, monetization model and device support 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. Symbols sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per 7 days. CharMap asks for nothing beyond the download.
Symbols holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: CharMap has 57 ratings behind it against 11, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 54% of CharMap's written reviews are positive against 75% of Symbols's.
CharMap ships an update every 4 months, Symbols every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 19, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | CharMap | Symbols |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.0 (57 ratings) | 4.5 (11 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 53.7% of reviews | 75.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 57 — better | 11 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 3 days — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 28 MB | 19 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Conor Mulligan | Alexandr Nadtoka |
Customer experience
CharMap
Symbols
Bugs and requests
CharMap
Reported bugs
12 issues- Characters omitted in other apps
- Keyboard looks like white rectangle in some apps
- Private Use Area characters not shown
- Collections feature quit working
- App crashes every time it's opened
Show 7 moreShow fewer
- App crashes on iPad Pro
- App crashes on iPad
- Everything gone after update
- App doesn't open after update
- Some symbols are not shown
- Keyboard not showing up immediately
- Preferences -> font closes app
Requested features
20 requests- Add return/enter key
- Batch add characters to collections
- Multi-font support
- Unicode 18.0 support
- Add Unicode 17.0
Show 15 moreShow fewer
- Ability to select characters with single click
- Add 'raised to the power of x' symbol
- Add superscripts in letter, equation, and inequality form
- Option to format characters (LTR/RTL)
- Make fonts usable in 'Unicode'
- Implement custom font API
- Search for character option
- Search by character name
- Add Sutton SignWriting block
- Add symbol search
- Update UI with SF symbols
- Add dark mode support
- Rename collections
- Backup and Restore collections
- Put collections on top of list when using as keyboard
Symbols
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
CharMap
No in-app purchases
Symbols
- Pro Weekly$0.997 Days
- Pro7 Days trial$2.991 Month
- Pro Lifetime$29.99
Questions
Is CharMap free?
Is Symbols free?
Which has better reviews, CharMap or Symbols?
Do CharMap or Symbols have ads?
Which is updated more often, CharMap or Symbols?
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