ioda vs StellarMate
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
ioda
This scientific application allows users to read and visualize data from various file formats commonly used in astronomy and high-energy physics. It supports formats like FITS, ROOT, HDF5, JPG, and FOG, and can execute specific script files.
- Read FITS, ROOT, HDF5, JPG, and FOG files
- Browse and visualize data
- Execute .kumac files
- Includes gopaw core
- Supports various scientific data schemas
Read full descriptionHide full description
ioda should be read "IO-DA", for Input/Output and for Data Analysis. It is a scientific application that permits to read files at various formats as FITS used in astronomy, ROOT and AIDA used in high energy physics (HEP), HDF5 with the g4tools data schema semantic, JPG format to store images and FOG developed at CEA/Saclay (France) to describe the LHC/ATLAS geometry. ioda permits to browse these files and visualise some of their data. Since 1.14.x, ioda contains the gopaw (=Good Old PAW) core and can execute .kumac files.
StellarMate
Control your astrophotography equipment remotely. Capture images, stream video, and perform precise alignment. Automatically back up your photos to the cloud with rich metadata for easy searching.
- Remote equipment control
- Image capture and video streaming
- Polar alignment assistant
- Cloud image backup
- Metadata search and sorting
- Software updates
Read full descriptionHide full description
Use StellarMate App to discover and connect to your StellarMate controller. Control StellarMate functions and access the Web Manager and Web based VNC Viewer. Join StellarMate to your home WiFi network. Use Ekos to capture images, stream video, guide, focus, and align. With Polar Alignment Assistant tool, get very accurate polar alignment using internal astrometry engine. Never lose your images again with EkosLive Pro. All captured images are automatically uploaded to the cloud with a rich set of metadata that enables powerful search and sorting. Use custom tags to uniquely tag important frames for later use. Check the health of your device, and use the software updater to keep it up to date.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: StellarMate at every 8 days against ioda's every 5 months. StellarMate also leads on ratings volume (24 vs 2). ioda's advantage is iOS requirement (8.0 vs 15.1). On price, rating, review sentiment and ads 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.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 3.0 for ioda against 3.1 for StellarMate. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: StellarMate has 24 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 33% and 33% positive.
ioda ships an update every 5 months, StellarMate every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on September 27, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | ioda | StellarMate |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.0 (2 ratings) | 3.1 (24 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 33.3% of reviews | 33.3% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 24 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 5 months | Every 8 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 8.0 — better | 15.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 64 MB | 114 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Guy Barrand | Ikarus Astronomy Company For Scientific Instruments & Tools |
Customer experience
ioda
StellarMate
In-app purchases
ioda
No in-app purchases
StellarMate
No in-app purchases
