OnCampus vs Top Hat
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
OnCampus
Navigate and engage with university life through real-time information on campus services, transportation, and emergency alerts. Access course catalogs, dining options, and campus maps to enhance your experience.
- Emergency alerts
- Course catalog browsing
- Live bus tracking
- Campus directory
- Interactive campus map
- Real-time parking data
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OnCampus is your live connection to NC State. Track Wolfline buses, see open dining spots, check how busy the gym is and find open parking. BUS TRACKING • Real-time arrival predictions for Wolfline, GoRaleigh and GoTriangle buses • Watch buses move along their routes • Plan your trips on campus DINING • See which dining locations are nearby and open right now • Find hours and service updates at a glance LIVE CROWD LEVELS • Real-time crowd levels at gyms and libraries • Pick the right time to work out or find a quiet spot to study PARKING AVAILABILITY • See live space counts in campus parking decks and lots • Find visitor and permit areas before you drive in INTERACTIVE CAMPUS MAP • Find buildings, dining, bus stops, parking, bike racks and accessible routes • Search with walking, driving and transit directions CAMPUS RESOURCES • Search NC State services, offices and tools • Tailored to students, faculty, staff, parents and visitors WOLFALERTS AND NOTIFICATIONS • Get WolfAlert emergency notifications • Opt in to updates on campus topics of interest EVENTS, NEWS AND CAMPUS MEDIA • Browse what's happening on campus • Find university news and media in one place
Top Hat
Enhance your learning experience with interactive resources, in-class participation tools, and dynamic digital textbooks. Engage with professors and peers, and test your knowledge with quizzes and polls to improve comprehension and retention.
- Follow lecture slides on your device
- In-class response system
- In-app discussions with peers and professors
- Dynamic, interactive digital textbooks
- Take polls and quizzes
- Access graded and non-graded homework
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Top Hat is the perfect companion app to our comprehensive assessment platform that helps you learn better before, during and after class. Top Hat makes learning fun and engaging (seriously!) and sets you up for success, helping you connect with your professors, your peers and the content you’re learning in and out of the classroom. Here’s what Top Hat offers you: Compelling resources, delivered on your smartphone or laptop: • Follow your prof’s lecture slides on your own device • Contribute in class with an easy-to-use response system that’s always with you • Participate with your profs and peers using in-app discussions Content tailored to your course: • Experience dynamic, interactive textbooks loaded up with images, videos, audio clips and more • Read your digital materials from anywhere and keep them forever Quizzes, tests and polls that improve learning comprehension: • Challenge yourself by taking polls and quizzes on your own devices • Improve your knowledge retention with interactive assessment elements • Check for gaps in your understanding with graded and non-graded homework and short quizzes Thanks for using Top Hat. As you experience the app, we’d love to get your feedback: support@tophat.com or follow us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook @TopHat
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ratings volume: Top Hat at 23K against OnCampus's 43. Top Hat also leads on update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 6 weeks) and chart position (#198 vs unranked). OnCampus's advantage is review sentiment (36% vs 15%) and rating (4.8 vs 4.6). On price, 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
OnCampus holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Top Hat has 23K ratings behind it against 43, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 36% of OnCampus's written reviews are positive against 15% of Top Hat's.
OnCampus ships an update every 6 weeks, Top Hat every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 16, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | OnCampus | Top Hat |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (43 ratings) — better | 4.6 (23K ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 35.7% of reviews — better | 14.6% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 43 | 23K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Best chart rank | — | #198 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 30 MB | 152 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | North Carolina State University | Top Hat Monocle |
Customer experience
OnCampus
Top Hat
Bugs and requests
OnCampus
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Top Hat
Reported bugs
3 issues- Answers not registering correctly
- Slides not loading properly on mobile devices
- Inconsistent performance across platforms
Requested features
3 requests- Add page numbers and search functionality to ebooks
- Improve syncing between mobile and web versions
- Allow more flexible location settings for attendance
In-app purchases
OnCampus
No in-app purchases
Top Hat
No in-app purchases
