Comparison

CharMap vs Unicode Pad

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

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
Read full description

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.

About

Unicode Pad

Access and copy thousands of Unicode characters to use in any app. Create custom keyboards for frequently used symbols and share them with friends. Search characters by name, codepoint, or glyph, and view detailed descriptions.

Highlights
  • Copy characters to clipboard
  • Customizable keyboards
  • Share custom keyboards
  • Search characters by name/codepoint/glyph
  • View extended character descriptions
  • Thousands of symbols available
Currently charting
Read full description

Note: This app supports only in-app custom keyboards! For a fancier version which also supports iOS 8 and later custom keyboards, check out the Unicode Pad Pro app! • Tested on latest iOS 11 • Support for Unicode 11 standard • Copy characters to clipboard for use in other apps, like web, mail, chat, notes… practically any iOS app! • Notepad with customizable keyboards, for your often-used characters and for copying several characters at once. Great for casual writing, too! • Share your custom keyboards with your friends! • Send mail and tweets right from within the app! • Huge selection of symbols (thousands), in fact all that are available on your device. Database itself actually contains data for all Unicode characters (over 100,000), but only glyphs available in iOS system font are actually visible. • Quick acces to many groups of commonly used symbols! • Search for characters by name, hexadecimal codepoint or glyph! Find similar and related characters instantly! • Streamlined design, specifically optimized for each device. Support for all device orientations and Retina display. • Support for Backspace, New line, Shift and Alternate special keys on custom keyboards. • Custom keyboard sizes up to 6x16=96 keys. • View extended character descriptions on Wikipedia, right inside the app! This works particularly great for emoticons! • One universal application works on iPhone, iPod and iPad! • Reference booklet of characters available on modern computers! Paper Unicode maps are over 1000 pages long! • Developers: see which characters are available on your iOS device! • Great for scientific, mathematical and physics notation, handles many superscripts, subscripts and other symbols! • Excellent for phonetic notation! • Perfect for writing Unicode poetry! • Awesome for making interesting app names! • HTML entity names for relevant characters • UNIHAN english definitions for CJK ideograms for many characters • Flick left and right for next and previous characters in detail view • Affordable price!

Screenshots

CharMap4 screens
Unicode Pad4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: CharMap at Free against Unicode Pad's $2.99. CharMap also leads on rating (4.0 vs 3.5) and ratings volume (57 vs 8). Unicode Pad's advantage is review sentiment (74% vs 54%) and chart position (#184 vs unranked). On update cadence, ads, in-app purchases 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

CharMap is free to download; Unicode Pad costs $2.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

CharMap holds the better App Store score, 4.0 against 3.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: CharMap has 57 ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 54% of CharMap's written reviews are positive against 74% of Unicode Pad's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

CharMap ships an update every 4 months, Unicode Pad every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 20, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 4 level
CharMap versus Unicode Pad: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCharMapUnicode Pad
PriceFree — better$2.99
Rating4.0 (57 ratings) — better3.5 (8 ratings)
Positive reviews53.7% of reviews73.7% of reviews — better
Number of ratings57 — better8
Update frequencyEvery 4 monthsEvery 3 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree — betterPaid
Best chart rank—#184 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS26.011.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size28 MB140 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperConor MulliganZiga Kranjec

Customer experience

CharMap

All ratings57 ratings
Positive71.9%
Neutral8.8%
Negative19.3%
Written reviews67 reviews
Positive53.7%
Neutral6.0%
Negative40.3%

Unicode Pad

All ratings8 ratings
Positive62.5%
Neutral12.5%
Negative25.0%
Written reviews171 reviews
Positive73.7%
Neutral7.6%
Negative18.7%

User reviews

CharMap

From 57 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🌟 Genuinely amazing for needs
  • 💡 Custom keyboards brilliant
  • 💯 Has every Unicode
  • ✨ Very impressive
  • 👍 Great for computer science

Room to improve

  • ❌ No return/enter key
  • ❓ Feature not obvious
  • ⚠️ Characters omitted in other apps
  • ⚪ Keyboard looks like white rectangle
  • 😵 UI is ugly and old

Unicode Pad

From 8 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Comprehensive symbol catalog
  • 💡 Customizable keyboards
  • 🚀 Easy to use interface
  • 🔍 Powerful search functionality
  • 🌟 Useful for nicknames and special characters

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional crashes
  • 📦 Some characters display as boxes
  • 🐌 Laggy scrolling and slow loading
  • 🖱️ Manual copy-pasting required
  • ⌨️ Limited keyboard space for custom keyboards

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 more
  • 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 more
  • 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

Unicode Pad

Reported bugs

17 issues
  • App crashes when selecting notepad
  • App crashes on startup
  • Scrolling is laggy
  • Custom keyboards take time to load
  • Characters not appearing on keyboard after adding
Show 12 more
  • Some symbols don't copy properly (show as boxes)
  • App won't update
  • App becomes very slow after updates
  • Custom keyboards are hard to see after update
  • Buttons disappear
  • Detail window cannot be closed
  • Glyph description length exceeds screen
  • App freezes and requires device reset
  • Favorites/copy buttons sometimes go invisible
  • Cannot get to clipboard to post to other apps
  • App doesn't work with Facebook
  • Characters not displayed (show as squares)

Requested features

15 requests
  • Ability to add keyboards to other apps
  • More space for custom keyboards
  • Integration with iOS keyboard
  • Add backspace/delete/return keys to custom keyboards
  • Ability to rearrange keys on custom keyboards
Show 10 more
  • Ability to remove custom keys while on the keyboard
  • Sort Unicode blocks numerically
  • Save/swap out keyboards from within the app
  • Option to hide iOS incompatible characters
  • Add space bar to custom keyboard layouts
  • Copy as HTML option
  • Precise selection and editing features
  • Macros for multiple keystrokes
  • Dark mode option
  • Advanced analytics dashboard

In-app purchases

None

CharMap

No in-app purchases

None

Unicode Pad

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is CharMap free?
CharMap is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Unicode Pad free?
Unicode Pad costs $2.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, CharMap or Unicode Pad?
CharMap is rated higher. CharMap averages 4.0 out of 5 from 57 ratings, while Unicode Pad averages 3.5 from 8 ratings.
Do CharMap or Unicode Pad have ads?
Neither CharMap nor Unicode Pad shows ads.
Which is updated more often, CharMap or Unicode Pad?
CharMap ships an update every 4 months, and Unicode Pad every 3 months. Most recently, CharMap was updated on October 23, 2026 and Unicode Pad on October 20, 2026.

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