Moon Globe HD vs GlobeViewer PRO
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Moon Globe HD
Explore Earth's Moon in realistic 3D with this app. View detailed satellite imagery, observe real-time lighting changes, and identify lunar terrain and spacecraft. Switch to Telescope mode to see the Moon from your Earthly perspective.
- Real-time 3D lunar rendering
- Realistic lighting simulation
- Multitouch navigation
- Telescope mode
- Labeled terrain and spacecraft
- Dynamic sky compass
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Hold the Moon in your hands. Moon Globe HD turns your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad into a precision instrument for viewing Earth's Moon. Satellite imagery and topographic laser altimeter data are combined to render the Moon with realistic lighting in realtime 3D. Use the multitouch screen to manipulate the view. Spin above the surface, or switch to Telescope mode to see the Moon as it appears from your location on Earth. Adjust the display time and watch the sunlight shift over the lunar landscape. A "tag cloud" floats just above the surface, labeling terrain features and spacecraft; touch any label to find out more about that feature. Moon Globe also shows you where the Moon and Sun are in the sky with its dynamic sky compass. PLEASE NOTE: Regular Moon Globe is a smaller download and is free. This HD version has slightly, not extremely, better resolution.
GlobeViewer PRO
Explore Earth with a high-resolution 3D globe and detailed topography maps. View surface and underwater features, track natural events, and discover millions of place names. Offline data caching is available for continued exploration.
- Interactive 3D globe
- High-resolution topography maps
- Surface and underwater views
- Natural event tracking
- Offline data caching
- Millions of place names
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GlobeViewer is a high resolution 3D terrestrial globe with topography and surface maps. This app enables a high-quality view of the surface of our blue planet. It is divided into two areas: the rotatable, global view as an interactive globe and a high-resolution 3D map representation of the Earth's topography. - Interactive 3D globe with surface, underwater and topography maps - High-resolution 3D topography map set of the entire Earth's surface - divided into 22,912 individual tiles. You can load 110 different regions onto the interactive globe, which then present the many individual tiles in a meaningful, connected way and reload them automatically. The app initially only contains the textures for the globe in low resolution. All required downloads are automatically loaded from our server. A total of around 105 GB of data is available. The data remains in the cache on your device for offline use, but can be deleted at any time in the main menu. Furthermore, all events recorded by the GDACS, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, etc., are entered on the globe. The 3D topography map is based on the elevation data from the NASA Terra probe, which recorded 83° of the northern and southern hemispheres between 2000 and 2013 - this is the result of the ASTER3-DEM. With version 0.10.0, the map is enriched with around 7.5 million place names from geonames.org. This means that all the towns, mountains, lakes, deserts and many other geographical features entered there are shown on the map. From version 0.12.0, data from OpenStreetMaps (buildings, borders, streets...) is also available on the tiles - but only for the demos and the purchased maps. Use the tutorial in the app to get started quickly or read the manual to find out which functions are included in this app. Since the app is still under development, some functions may still change. We hope you enjoy using GlobeViewer!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Moon Globe HD at 91% against GlobeViewer PRO's 0%. Moon Globe HD also leads on price ($0.99 vs $14.99) and rating (4.7 vs 1.0). On update cadence, 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
Moon Globe HD costs $0.99 and GlobeViewer PRO $14.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Moon Globe HD holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 1.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Moon Globe HD has 149 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 91% of Moon Globe HD's written reviews are positive against 0% of GlobeViewer PRO's.
Moon Globe HD ships an update every 6 months, GlobeViewer PRO every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and August 26, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Moon Globe HD | GlobeViewer PRO |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.99 — better | $14.99 |
| Rating | 4.7 (149 ratings) — better | 1.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 90.6% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 149 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 months | Every 3 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Best chart rank | #183 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 7.0 — better | 12.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 245 MB | 236 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Midnight Martian | RAB-Software |
Customer experience
Moon Globe HD
GlobeViewer PRO
Bugs and requests
Moon Globe HD
Reported bugs
13 issues- App not updated in 8 years, compatibility concerns
- Support links lead to dead URLs
- Location services don't work accurately
- Terminator line appears fuzzy instead of sharp
- iPad version lacks smooth telescope view access
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- Search feature causes app to exit telescope mode
- Feature search doesn't maintain feature visibility after search
- White text invisible on bright crater areas
- No zoom difference between free and HD versions (reported by some users)
- Unexpected app closure when sharing wiki pages to OneNote
- Aliasing/jagging artifacts along lunar horizon
- Label resolution degrades when zoomed in
- Latitude/longitude perspective feature not functioning
Requested features
21 requests- Mouse and trackpad support for Mac and iPad
- Zoom and scroll buttons for easier navigation
- Update with latest lunar landers and missions
- Topography, gravity, and magnetic field maps
- Moon phase names (full moon, new moon, etc.)
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- Grid overlay for scale reference
- Measurement tool similar to Google Earth
- Higher resolution imagery and greater zoom depth
- Lunar latitude and longitude coordinates display
- Libration information and ephemeris data
- Selenographic co-longitude of sun
- Secondary crater nomenclature
- Ranger spacecraft impact points
- Print and save functionality
- Earth glow simulation option
- Transparent labels to show terrain context
- Improved text contrast with black borders on white labels
- Observing list feature to keep selected features highlighted
- Manual coordinate entry for location
- High-resolution labels when zoomed in
- Automatic location feature improvements
GlobeViewer PRO
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Moon Globe HD
No in-app purchases
GlobeViewer PRO
No in-app purchases








