Comparison

SA Contacts Lite vs CircleBack

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

Head to head
About

SA Contacts Lite

Streamline your address book with a comprehensive contact management solution. Easily sync, organize, import, export, and merge duplicates to keep your contacts clean and accessible. Supports multiple local address books and contact photos.

Highlights
  • Smart real-time contact sync
  • Create multiple personalized address books
  • Import/export contacts via Excel and VCF
  • Automatic duplicate contact merging
  • Batch cleanup of invalid contacts
  • Import and export contact photos
Features
Read full description

Looking for a more efficient way to manage your contacts? SA Contacts offers a one-stop solution that makes managing your address book a breeze. Whether it’s syncing, organizing, importing/exporting, or merging duplicates, SA Contacts has you covered, helping you handle your contacts with ease. Key Features: • Smart Sync: Manage a duplicate copy of your phone contacts with real-time sync, ensuring no data is ever lost. • Personalized Address Books: Create multiple local address books to suit your needs, and easily import/export contacts. • Effortless Import/Export: Supports Excel and VCF formats for quick and easy contact management, with cloud storage integration for secure backups. • Accurate Merging: Automatically detect and merge duplicate contact information, keeping your address book clean and accurate. • Comprehensive Management: Batch clean up invalid contacts, quickly find the contacts you need, and manage contact groups effortlessly. • Unique Photo Support: Import and export contact photos, even embedding them into Excel cells for a more personalized address book. Additionally, SA Contacts provides a way for millions of existing users to continue using the old version, preserving their classic experience. Whether you’re a new or existing user, you’ll find the perfect management method in SA Contacts. SA Contacts makes it easy to handle any contact management needs, ensuring your address book stays organized. The Lite version offers all the features of the paid version without any usage limits, only with some ads. Download SA Contacts now and start a new journey in contact management!

About

CircleBack

This app intelligently updates your contacts, finds new ones from email, and cleans duplicates. It also allows scanning business cards and offers unified contact management across devices.

Highlights
  • Automatic contact updates
  • Duplicate contact merging
  • New contact discovery from emails
  • Business card scanning
  • Unified address book
  • Contact sync across devices
Features
Read full description

CircleBack is the only address book manager that updates your contacts intelligently, discovers new contacts in your Google and Microsoft inboxes, cleans up duplicates, and allows you to scan business cards and save them as contacts. Packed with everything you need to stay organized while building and maintaining productive professional relationships, CircleBack makes it easier than ever to keep connections alive and get stuff done. CIRCLEBACK FEATURES • Contact updates when people in your network change jobs, roles & more • Intelligent merging / management of duplicate contacts • “New Contact” discovery from email signatures in Outlook, Gmail & the entire Microsoft account suite (Outlook.com, Hotmail, MSN, etc.) • Contact grouping by favorite, old/archived, or business card scans • A single, unified address book that imports from Outlook/Exchange , Gmail (Google Apps), Microsoft account suite, Facebook & more • Contact sync across multiple devices and platforms • Export contacts to Salesforce & ACT! • Best-in-class OCR business card scanning • Deleted contact recovery for the moments you make a mistake WHAT THE MEDIA IS SAYING • “CircleBack lets you sit back as it does the real-time contact updates and management for you.”— iphoneappsreviewonline.com • “Every once in a while I have this fever dream that I’d have a smartphone contact book that would be up-to-date and completely filled out, but that’s all it is—just a dream. But with CircleBack, I have a fighting chance.” — Gizmodo • “CircleBack uses artificial intelligence and crowd-based intelligence technology to automate contact updating and management. A useful tool to activate your contact list.” — Computerworld • “The modern world is busy and engaged, and your professional and personal contacts merge. But how can you keep up with what they’re doing? CircleBack uses artificial intelligence and crowd-based intelligence technology to automate contact updating and management.” — TechCrunch • “CircleBack knows your contacts better than you do. By automatically cleaning, completing, and updating your contacts, as well as removing duplicates, CircleBack keeps your address book organized and up-to-date.” — abduzeedo • “CircleBack is helpful app that makes sure that you address book is up-to-date. But, the app also consolidates all of your contacts by removing duplicate entries and repairing errors like typos. It can also locate missing contact information or updated information from outdated contacts.” — Forbes REVIEWS LEFT ON THE APP STORE • “Continuously improving” • “Simple, Powerful, intuitive” • “Very Useful Complement To Apple's Contacts App” • “Great & Simple App” MORE ABOUT CIRCLEBACK CircleBack’s unique answer to contact management is a single tool that ensures your address book is up-to-date, unified & accessible on all your devices. CircleBack handles the time-consuming organization of your digital address book while you do what you do best: crush it daily. DATA USAGE Crowdsourcing powers CircleBack’s core, allowing you (and everyone else) to anonymously contribute to the intelligence of our database. Your contributions are matched with billions of other data points from millions of other users to provide the best, most up-to-date info for anyone that’s outdated or duplicated in your address book. We love hearing from you! Keep the comments coming by emailing us anytime at support@circleback.com.

Screenshots

SA Contacts Lite4 screens
CircleBack4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: CircleBack at none against SA Contacts Lite's shown. CircleBack also leads on monetization model (free vs free with in-app purchases) and ratings volume (2.5K vs 132). SA Contacts Lite's advantage is iOS requirement (13.0 vs 17.6). On price, rating, review sentiment and update cadence 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

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.5 for SA Contacts Lite against 4.5 for CircleBack. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: CircleBack has 2.5K ratings behind it against 132, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 68% of SA Contacts Lite's written reviews are positive against 61% of CircleBack's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

SA Contacts Lite ships an update every 3 months, CircleBack every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
SA Contacts Lite versus CircleBack: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSA Contacts LiteCircleBack
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.5 (132 ratings) — better4.5 (2.5K ratings)
Positive reviews68.3% of reviews — better60.9% of reviews
Number of ratings1322.5K — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsEvery 2 months — better
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS13.0 — better17.6
Further details — not scored
Size31 MB118 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperShenZhen SamApp Technology Development Co., LtdCircleBack, Inc.

Customer experience

SA Contacts Lite

All ratings132 ratings
Positive86.4%
Neutral3.8%
Negative9.8%
Written reviews221 reviews
Positive68.3%
Neutral2.3%
Negative29.4%

CircleBack

All ratings2,543 ratings
Positive88.2%
Neutral5.1%
Negative6.7%
Written reviews128 reviews
Positive60.9%
Neutral8.6%
Negative30.5%

User reviews

SA Contacts Lite

From 132 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Fast and quick export/import process
  • 👍 Simple and easy to use interface
  • 💾 Effective contact backup to Excel/spreadsheet format
  • 📧 Multiple transfer methods (email, WiFi, USB, Dropbox)
  • 💰 Free lite version available for up to 150 contacts

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent export/import failures and errors
  • ❌ Incomplete contact transfers (missing data, partial exports)
  • 📉 Inconsistent performance across different iOS versions
  • 🎥 Intrusive full-screen video ads in recent versions
  • 🔐 Security concerns - potential for contact data theft

CircleBack

From 2.5K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Easy to use
  • 📚 Helpful for managing contacts
  • 💾 Keeps contacts synced
  • 🔍 Useful for finding updated contact info
  • 🧹 Helps clean up duplicate contacts

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Crashes or freezes
  • 🔁 Duplicates keep reappearing
  • 🔒 Google login issues
  • 🤯 Messes up or deletes contacts
  • 🕰️ Slow performance

Bugs and requests

SA Contacts Lite

Reported bugs

12 issues
  • Export validation errors when creating Excel files
  • Contacts missing or duplicated after import
  • Incomplete exports - only partial contact list transferred
  • Import fails with Dropbox and OneDrive integration
  • File format incompatibility with Outlook and other programs
Show 7 more
  • App crashes or freezes during large transfers
  • WiFi import/export connection issues
  • CSV file imports missing phone numbers
  • Zip file creation failures
  • Privacy settings access problems on iPhone 6+
  • Exported Excel files appearing empty
  • Contact data not syncing properly after updates

Requested features

8 requests
  • Prevent app from being default handler for Excel files
  • Preserve contact photos during export/import
  • Preserve contact ringtones and custom settings
  • Support for larger contact lists in free version
  • Better error messages and validation feedback
Show 3 more
  • Improved documentation and setup instructions
  • Contact deduplication feature
  • Better field mapping options for imports

CircleBack

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Fails to update contacts on devices
  • Incorrectly merges unrelated contacts
  • Loses contact notes and other data
  • Unreliable sync between app and phone contacts

Requested features

4 requests
  • Add ability to remove contacts from groups
  • Improve search functionality
  • Allow starting with a fresh contact list
  • Provide better backup/restore options

In-app purchases

None

SA Contacts Lite

No in-app purchases

None

CircleBack

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is SA Contacts Lite free?
SA Contacts Lite is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is CircleBack free?
CircleBack is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, SA Contacts Lite or CircleBack?
SA Contacts Lite is rated higher. SA Contacts Lite averages 4.5 out of 5 from 132 ratings, while CircleBack averages 4.5 from 2.5K ratings.
Do SA Contacts Lite or CircleBack have ads?
SA Contacts Lite shows ads; CircleBack does not.
Which is updated more often, SA Contacts Lite or CircleBack?
SA Contacts Lite ships an update every 3 months, and CircleBack every 2 months. Most recently, SA Contacts Lite was updated on September 22, 2026 and CircleBack on September 24, 2026.

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