Comparison

Pulseway vs irBoard Player

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

Head to head
About

Pulseway

Securely monitor and manage your IT systems from any mobile device. Get real-time status updates, receive instant alerts for issues, and resolve problems remotely. Supports Windows, Linux, and Mac, offering comprehensive control over your infrastructure.

Highlights
  • Remote system monitoring
  • Real-time status alerts
  • System management and control
  • Cross-platform support (Windows, Linux, Mac)
  • Process and service management
  • Event log analysis
  • Active Directory management
Features
Read full description

Remotely monitor and manage your IT systems securely from any smartphone or tablet. Pulseway gives you complete control of your computers and applications from anywhere, at any time. You can monitor and control Windows, Linux and Mac Operating Systems as well as any application using the monitoring API. Pulseway dramatically reduces the level of manual checks for support engineers and provides them with a real time status of their monitored systems. You are the first to know about any potential issues affecting your systems and can resolve those issues immediately. *** IMPORTANT *** • To monitor a computer, download and install the agent software from our website; • The communication between this application and the monitored computers is always encrypted. MONITOR: • The status and uptime of all systems • CPU usage and usage history chart • Current available memory and usage history chart • External IP address and the location on the map using GeoIP • Ping round trip response time and response time chart • Status of local hard disks • Services status • Network interfaces status and traffic chart • Running processes • Event logs • Scheduled tasks status • Ports status • Logged in users • Hardware details • Status of web sites and application pools in Internet Information Server • User accounts status in Active Directory including locked user accounts • View and manage Windows updates • Performance counters • ... and more MANAGE: • Start, pause, continue and stop a service • Kill a process • Start and stop a scheduled task • Log off any logged in user • Send a message to the logged in users • Command prompt and PowerShell support • Restart, wake up (Wake on WAN over Internet supported), shutdown, power off, suspend or send the computer into hibernation • Send commands to multiple systems in the same group • Start/stop/restart Internet Information Server web sites • Start/stop/recycle Internet Information Server application pools • Mobile device authorization for system commands - only selected authorized devices on your account can be allowed to send system commands • Enable, disable, unlock and reset password for user accounts in Active Directory • Add and remove groups for a user account in Active Directory • Hyper-V and VMware support, start and stop virtual machines • Run SQL Server queries • ... and more GET NOTIFIED: • When a system goes offline, starts up, shuts down, suspends and resumes • When a monitored service stopped unexpectedly • When the free memory is below a specified percentage • When the processor usage is above or below a specified percentage for a specified period of time • When the free space of a hard disk drive is below a specified percentage • When a user logs in or logs out • When ping round trip time is above a specified value for a specified period of time • When a monitored port is closed • When an event log entry is generated and it matches a specified filter (Windows only) • When the CPU, system or HDD temperature exceeds a specified threshold • When a web site or app pool stopped on Internet Information Server • ... and more The application will work even if the system cannot be directly accessed from the Internet (i.e. does not have a routable IP address or sits behind a firewall). Operating Systems supported: • Server: Windows 2003 or higher • Desktop: Windows XP or higher • Linux: All major distributions • Mac: OS X 10.8+

About

irBoard Player

Features
Read full description

Using irBoard Player, you can conveniently monitor the status and operation of FA equipment and IoT devices through an iPad or any other iOS device. The control device known as a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) has communication protocols. irBoard Player communicates with PLCs via its protocol. Additionally, it has the capability to communicate effectively with IoT devices, specifically the ESP32 device at present. For creating project data, you need to use the paid version of irBoard or purchase an In-app-purcahse item of irBoard Lite. FEATURE: - You can conveniently monitor the status and operation of FA equipment and IoT devices. - Although the FA equipment has fixed touch panels installed, the irBoard Player on iOS devices offers superior portability. - It is possible to remotely check the status of a device in PLCs. - To ensure safety, manipulating connected PLC devices is only allowed on a single iOS device. - By switching projects, you can easily connect to multiple FA machines using just one iOS device. - irBoard Player supports the following PLCs via Ethernet connection: MITSUBISHI Electric, KEYENCE, OMRON, and YOKOGAWA Electric, and support Modbus/TCP. - It can also connect to an open-source PLC LadderDrive running on Raspberry Pi. (https://github.com/ito-soft-design/ladder_drive) - The irBoard Library for ESP32 library supports ESP32 devices.(https://github.com/ito-soft-design/irboard_esp32) - The irBoard.NET library supports Windows .NET applications.(https://github.com/ito-soft-design/irboard-dotnet) - Using the LadderDrive protocol, allows for communication with IoT devices such as ESP32 without any difficulty. ===================================== --- Notes --- With irBoard Player, you have the ability to turn devices on and off. If you require the interlocking of PLC-controlled devices, it is necessary to configure this on the PLC. To ensure safety, we suggest setting the status of such devices to read-only. You can monitor the health status to determine if the connection is stable. If the connection is lost, it’s important to take precautionary measures when operating your PLC. =====================================

Screenshots

Pulseway4 screens
irBoard Player2 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Pulseway at Free against irBoard Player's $229.99. Pulseway also leads on update cadence (every 6 weeks vs every 3 months) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 16.0). On ads, in-app purchases 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

Pulseway is free to download; irBoard Player costs $229.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pulseway ships an update every 6 weeks, irBoard Player every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 19, 2026 and October 18, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Pulseway versus irBoard Player: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPulsewayirBoard Player
PriceFree — better$229.99
Rating4.6 (614 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews86.4% of reviews—
Number of ratings614 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeks — betterEvery 3 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS13.0 — better16.0
Further details — not scored
Size98 MB40 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperMMSOFT Design Ltd.ITO SOFT DESIGN Inc.

Bugs and requests

Pulseway

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Compatibility issues with newer iOS/macOS versions
  • Login/authentication problems for some users
  • Inconsistent behavior when switching between devices

Requested features

5 requests
  • Remote desktop/screen sharing functionality
  • Improved multi-account/multi-device management
  • Expanded support for macOS and Linux systems
  • Enhanced notification and alerting options
  • Ability to view and manage GPU/hardware details

irBoard Player

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Pulseway

No in-app purchases

None

irBoard Player

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Pulseway free?
Pulseway is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is irBoard Player free?
irBoard Player costs $229.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do Pulseway or irBoard Player have ads?
Neither Pulseway nor irBoard Player shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Pulseway or irBoard Player?
Pulseway ships an update every 6 weeks, and irBoard Player every 3 months. Most recently, Pulseway was updated on October 19, 2026 and irBoard Player on October 18, 2026.

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