CharMap vs alt Codes
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.
alt Codes
Discover Windows keyboard shortcuts for typing special characters and symbols not on your keyboard. Quickly copy symbols to your iOS device's clipboard for easy pasting on your Mac via Universal Clipboard.
- Find Windows keyboard shortcuts
- Type special characters and symbols
- Copy symbols to iOS clipboard
- Paste on Mac with Universal Clipboard
- Quick symbol lookup
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alt Codes enables you to quickly and easily find the keyboard combinations in Windows to type symbols and characters that are not found on traditional keyboards. In addition to discovering the keyboard code for a character or symbol, you can quickly copy the character or symbol to the clipboard of your iOS device. With Universal Clipboard, any character or symbol copied on your iOS device can be instantly pasted on your Mac.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: alt Codes at 4.3 against CharMap's 4.0. alt Codes also leads on update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 4 months) and review sentiment (75% vs 54%). CharMap's advantage is ratings volume (57 vs 10). 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
alt Codes holds the better App Store score, 4.3 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: CharMap has 57 ratings behind it against 10, 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 alt Codes's.
CharMap ships an update every 4 months, alt Codes every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 1, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | CharMap | alt Codes |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.0 (57 ratings) | 4.3 (10 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 53.7% of reviews | 75.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 57 — better | 10 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 28 MB | 0 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Conor Mulligan | Jared Lipton |
Customer experience
CharMap
alt Codes
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
alt Codes
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
CharMap
No in-app purchases
alt Codes
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is CharMap free?
Is alt Codes free?
Which has better reviews, CharMap or alt Codes?
Do CharMap or alt Codes have ads?
Which is updated more often, CharMap or alt Codes?
Other comparisons
