Mountain Project vs Hiking Buddies
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Mountain Project
Discover and navigate to outdoor climbing areas, and find specific routes with detailed filters. Access route beta, photos, and topos offline, and view climbing area statistics. Connect with other climbers in the forum, track your progress, and create to-do lists.
- Find and navigate to climbing areas
- Sort routes by discipline, difficulty, and rating
- Search 155,000+ climbing routes offline
- Download route beta, photos, and topos for offline use
- View climbing area route statistics and critical info
- Connect with climbers in the forum
- Track attempts, sends, and create to-do lists
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Beyond the Guidebook: The Definitive Rock Climbing Resource. • Find outdoor climbing areas near you, and navigate to them, using the map. This super-handy new feature is one of our personal faves. • The much requested route finder: Easily sort routes by discipline, difficulty, star ranking and more. If a 4-star M9 is your thing, we'll help you find it. • Search our entire database of 155,000+ climbing routes, even offline. • Download route beta, photos, and topos state by state for offline use — because the best crags often have the worst reception. • View a climbing area’s route stats (how many 5.11s are there?) and critical info (when is the raptor closure again?) in a single glance. • Chat, ask questions, or put out a call for partners in our forum. • Rate routes and photos, keep track of attempts & sends, or make a to-do list • It's free to download and free of advertising too. Everything you need, nothing you don't.
Hiking Buddies
Organize and discover hiking activities with this app. Create routes with estimated difficulty levels and track your fitness progress. Anyone can join or create events, fostering a community for outdoor exploration.
- Organize hiking activities
- Create and estimate route difficulties
- Join or create events
- Track fitness
- Community for hikers
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Hiking Buddies provides a platform to organize hiking activities. You can create a route and the platform estimates a difficulties based on various criteria. Anyone is free to organize/join the events. You can track your fitness in the app.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Mountain Project at 4.6 against Hiking Buddies's 3.0. Mountain Project also leads on ratings volume (4.6K vs 2). Hiking Buddies's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs every 3 weeks). On price, review sentiment, ads and in-app purchases 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.
Mountain Project holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 3.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Mountain Project has 4.6K ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 35% of Mountain Project's written reviews are positive against 33% of Hiking Buddies's.
Mountain Project ships an update every 3 weeks, Hiking Buddies every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Mountain Project | Hiking Buddies |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (4.6K ratings) — better | 3.0 (2 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 34.8% of reviews — better | 33.3% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 4.6K — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Every 3 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 79 MB | 30 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Adventure Projects Inc. | Amit Verma |
Customer experience
Mountain Project
Hiking Buddies
Bugs and requests
Mountain Project
Reported bugs
5 issues- App crashes when opening routes or areas
- Map not showing all available climbs
- Incorrect date recording for ticks
- Inability to delete downloaded areas
- Login issues and account sync problems
Requested features
5 requests- Add ability to add/update routes and areas
- Implement better offline map functionality
- Improve search and filtering options
- Add user profile and route tracking features
- Enhance community engagement tools
Hiking Buddies
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Mountain Project
No in-app purchases
Hiking Buddies
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Mountain Project free?
Is Hiking Buddies free?
Which has better reviews, Mountain Project or Hiking Buddies?
Do Mountain Project or Hiking Buddies have ads?
Which is updated more often, Mountain Project or Hiking Buddies?
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