TimeTree vs ICS
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
TimeTree
Explore a vast public knowledge base of evolutionary timescales and divergence times among organisms. This app uses a hierarchical system to find and present molecular time estimates from scientific literature, allowing users to compare species and view summary statistics.
- Explore evolutionary timescales
- View organism divergence times
- Access scientific literature data
- Hierarchical tree-based system
- Compute summary statistics
- Compare species divergence
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TimeTree 4 is a public knowledge-base for information on the evolutionary timescale of life. This application allows easy exploration of the thousands of divergence times among organisms in the scientific literature. A tree-based (hierarchical) system is used to identify all published molecular time estimates bearing on the divergence of two chosen organisms, such as species, compute summary statistics, and present the results. Names of two taxa to be compared are entered in the search window and the results are presented on a set of self-explanatory tabs. TimeTree 4 contains data from 2,274 studies including 50,632 species. We will be adding more data in the future as it comes in from researchers. TimeTree 4 requires iOS 8.0 or newer. The TimeTree project is jointly directed by Blair Hedges (Center for Biodiversity, Temple University) and Sudhir Kumar (Institute for Genomics and Evolutionary Medicine, Temple University). This project has been supported, in part, by grants from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, NASA Astrobiology Institute, and Science Foundation of Arizona.
ICS
Access authoritative geological time scale data and information on Global Boundary Stratotype Sections and Points (GSSPs). Explore charts, detailed GSSP information, and relevant statistics.
- Demonstration of ICS chart
- Detailed GSSP information
- GSSP statistics
- Authoritative data service
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ICS Timescale is the official APP of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It is designed to provide authoritative data service of ICS. The main functions include: 1) Demonstration of the ICS chart. 2) Detail information about each GSSP. 3) Statistics of the GSSPs.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: ICS at 4.3 against TimeTree's 4.0. ICS also leads on update cadence (every 2 months vs every 8 months). TimeTree's advantage is review sentiment (65% vs 50%) and ratings volume (10 vs 3). 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.
ICS holds the better App Store score, 4.3 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 10 and 3 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 65% of TimeTree's written reviews are positive against 50% of ICS's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
TimeTree ships an update every 8 months, ICS every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 4, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | TimeTree | ICS |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.0 (10 ratings) | 4.3 (3 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 65.1% of reviews — better | 50.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 10 — better | 3 |
| Update frequency | Every 8 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 8.0 — better | 9.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 66 MB | 20 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Arizona and Penn State Universities | 隽轩 樊 |
Customer experience
TimeTree
ICS
In-app purchases
TimeTree
No in-app purchases
ICS
No in-app purchases







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