CharMap vs Grapheme
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.
Grapheme
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Grapheme is a pocket museum of the characters the world writes with, as Unicode records them. The entire code space is laid out in one grid, grouped by block and ready to wander. A COLLECTION FULL OF SURPRISES • The complete Unicode 16 code space, organized by block • Wander from Egyptian hieroglyphs to alchemical symbols, Byzantine musical notation, mahjong tiles, and emoji • Jump to any block instantly with the block picker, and pin the ones you visit most • Even characters your device has no font for get a meaningful placeholder glyph, so nothing shows up as an empty box CHARACTER DETAILS AT A TAP Tap any cell to see everything about that character: • Official Unicode name and block • Code point in U+ notation • Byte encodings: UTF-8, UTF-16 (BE and LE), UTF-32 (BE and LE) • HTML entity FAST SEARCH • Find characters by name: try “snowman”, “dragon”, or “pile of poo” • Look up a code point directly by its hex value • Paste in any text to see the code points it breaks down into, including the ZWJ sequences inside an emoji FAVORITES • Mark characters you use often and come back to them in one tap WORKS COMPLETELY OFFLINE The full Unicode 16 character database ships inside the app. Browse, search, and inspect encodings anywhere, with no network connection required. MADE FOR DEVELOPERS, DESIGNERS, AND THE CURIOUS Debugging a text-encoding issue? Hunting for the perfect arrow, box-drawing character, or mathematical symbol? Exploring ancient scripts and the far reaches of the astral planes? Grapheme puts the entire Unicode standard at your fingertips.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: CharMap at none against Grapheme's shown. Grapheme's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs every 4 months) and iOS requirement (18.2 vs 26.0). On price, 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
CharMap ships an update every 4 months, Grapheme every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | CharMap | Grapheme |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.0 (57 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 53.7% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 57 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 3 days — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 18.2 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 28 MB | 51 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Conor Mulligan | Hsingchien Cheng |
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
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- 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
Grapheme
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
CharMap
No in-app purchases
Grapheme
No in-app purchases








