Comparison

Unicode Pad vs Character Pad

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

Head to head
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
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!

About

Character Pad

Easily copy and paste hundreds of special characters and symbols to enhance your messages, emails, and documents. Customize your text with a wide selection including Greek letters, math symbols, and more.

Highlights
  • Hundreds of special characters
  • Copy to clipboard
  • Paste into any app
  • Greek alphabet
  • Math symbols
  • Customizable text
Features
Read full description

Character Pad gives you quick access to hundreds of beautiful and useful special characters, which you can use in any application. Simply tap on a character to copy it to your device's clipboard, open any other app, and paste it anywhere you like. Done. Easy! Customise your IMs, emails, documents and other texts with this great selection of special characters & symbols. Characters include: - Greek alphabet - Numbers - Math symbols - Bullets - Letterlike symbols - Many more! What two App Store reviewers had to say about Character Pad: "Dead easy to use and works a treat! Update with more characters some time........" - Soxcat "Fast, simple, does one thing and does it seemlessly. No more having to write ½ as 1/2. Thank you, well worth the dollar!" - Auntmarge64 Please Note: Characters will be readable from any iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Mac and most PCs. Some special characters may appear as question marks (?) or squares for some recipients of text messages whom use non-iPhone mobiles.

Screenshots

Unicode Pad4 screens
Character Pad4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Character Pad at Free against Unicode Pad's $2.99. Character Pad also leads on rating (4.5 vs 3.5) and ratings volume (606 vs 8). Unicode Pad's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3) and review sentiment (74% vs 47%). On update cadence, ads 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

Character Pad is free to download; Unicode Pad costs $2.99 up front. Character Pad sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Unicode Pad asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Character Pad holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 3.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Character Pad has 606 ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 74% of Unicode Pad's written reviews are positive against 47% of Character Pad's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Unicode Pad ships an update every 3 months, Character Pad every 6 months. The most recent releases landed on November 13, 2026 and November 12, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Unicode Pad versus Character Pad: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterUnicode PadCharacter Pad
Price$2.99Free — better
Rating3.5 (8 ratings)4.5 (606 ratings) — better
Positive reviews73.7% of reviews — better46.8% of reviews
Number of ratings8606 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 months — betterEvery 6 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaidFree with in-app purchases — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS11.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size140 MB15 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperZiga KranjecArmchair Engineering

Customer experience

Unicode Pad

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

Character Pad

All ratings606 ratings
Positive88.6%
Neutral3.3%
Negative8.1%
Written reviews126 reviews
Positive46.8%
Neutral8.7%
Negative44.4%

User reviews

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

Character Pad

From 606 App Store ratings

What we love

  • ⭐ Great
  • 🙌 Useful
  • 👍 Easy to use
  • 🔍 Essential
  • 🤩 Fun

Room to improve

  • 💰 Paid features
  • 🔒 Limited access
  • 🐛 Crashes
  • 📍 Outdated
  • 🚫 Removed features

Bugs and requests

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

Character Pad

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Restore purchases not working
  • Compatibility issues with new iOS versions

Requested features

4 requests
  • More characters and symbols
  • Search functionality
  • Improved clipboard management
  • Compatibility updates

In-app purchases

None

Unicode Pad

No in-app purchases

3 purchases

Character Pad

One-time3
  • Full Upgrade - Reduced Price$1.99
  • More Characters$2.99
  • Full Upgrade - Hero Price$4.99

Questions

Is Unicode Pad free?
Unicode Pad costs $2.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Character Pad free?
Character Pad is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Unicode Pad or Character Pad?
Character Pad is rated higher. Unicode Pad averages 3.5 out of 5 from 8 ratings, while Character Pad averages 4.5 from 606 ratings.
Do Unicode Pad or Character Pad have ads?
Neither Unicode Pad nor Character Pad shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Unicode Pad or Character Pad?
Unicode Pad ships an update every 3 months, and Character Pad every 6 months. Most recently, Unicode Pad was updated on November 13, 2026 and Character Pad on November 12, 2026.

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