RainAware vs wXL23
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
RainAware
Get precise rain timing and severe weather alerts for your location. Visualize weather data with interactive graphs and maps, and customize notifications to stay informed about changing conditions.
- Rain Clock with precise timing
- Customizable rain and severe weather notifications
- Interactive temperature and wind graphs
- Weather map overlays with watches and warnings
- Satellite and radar imagery
- Forecast clock for 8-day outlook
- Site lists for nearby locations
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Know exactly when rain will start and stop at your location. RainAware, the original hyperlocal rain app with RainClock, push alerts, live radar, satellite, lightning & storm tracking. ***** INCLUDED IN THE STANDARD VERSION ***** • Rain Clock See rain timing for your location up to 3 hours ahead. Example: “Rain starts in 1 hr 30 min and ends at 4:30 PM.” Background images match the weather outside. • Alerts & notifications Get notified when rain is coming or ending, or when severe weather threatens. Customize alert timing, rain-duration thresholds, proximity settings, and alert frequency. • Regional radar, satellite, and 1-hour precipitation View live weather imagery over a regional domain, then move the domain anywhere to inspect weather there. • Watches, warnings, and advisories View active hazards including severe storms, floods, winter weather, wind, fire, marine alerts, and more. • Weather map overlays Analyze the map with overlays for surface observations, lightning, hurricane tracks, storm reports, moving ship observations, and more. • Landscape mode & fast looping Use landscape mode for a larger map with extra pan and zoom controls. Long-press to burst-loop imagery faster and spot trends. • Current conditions ticker Cycles through the nearest surface observation and also shows nearby lightning, precipitation, and storm reports when relevant. Tap icons to jump to the location. • Interactive graphs View 36-hour trend graphs for temperature, wind, cloud cover, precipitation amount and type. • Forecast Clock See the next 8 days in a concise Today/Tonight format, including sunrise, sunset, and moon phase. • Site lists Quickly check weather for nearby cities, airports, ballparks, speedways, golf courses, and more. Stadium views include wind direction for in, out, or across-field awareness. • Drawing tools Draw on the map, add text, overlay it on weather imagery, and share. • Weather badges Badges show when rapid changes in rain, temperature, clouds, or wind are forecast. Configurable. • Deep customization RainAware includes extensive settings so you can tune the app to your workflow. ***** SUBSCRIPTION FEATURES ***** Subscriptions are available in-app and work across supported devices. • Full-map access View the full weather map without regional limits. • Storm cell tracking Filter storm cells and view motion, hail potential, rotation, and more. • National radar products Includes Echo Tops, Hail Swaths, and Rotation Tracks. • Single-site radar Access reflectivity and velocity products, with options to merge Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico radar into the national view. • Expanded satellite imagery Adds water vapor and colorized visible imagery for enhanced cloud-top analysis. • More alert types Add lightning proximity alerts, severe storm report alerts, and alerts for another location. • RainPro tool Interactively refine precipitation motion for even more precise rain timing. • Environmental fields Display threat areas, VAD wind profiles, isobars, CAPE, updraft helicity, 500 & 850 mb charts & more. • Warning & observation monitor Filter and sort warnings and surface observations. • Advanced surface observations Plot thousands of stations, ships, and buoys, including water temperature and wave height. • Longer loops Animate up to 36 frames and as much as 12 hours ahead on capable devices. • Aviation mode Use FAA sectional maps as an underlay, display flight rules at stations, and view winds aloft at VWP locations. • Advanced drawing tools Draw fronts, time-match drawings to imagery, and create lines, polygons, circles, and squares. • Faster data updates Get more frequent radar, satellite, and surface data refreshes. • Performance controls Manage memory, cache behavior, panning, and image tiling. Coverage is best across the USA and southern Canada. Satellite and local radar coverage also extends from Hawaii to the Caribbean. https://www.rainaware.com/rainaware_coverage_map.webp
wXL23
An advanced, open-source weather application focused on US weather data, optimized for storm chasers and meteorologists. It provides detailed NWS data, including radar, model outputs, and specialized products, with a focus on information depth over flashy graphics.
- NWS data for US locations
- Level 3 Nexrad radar viewer
- Optimized text product viewer
- Mosaic viewer with animations
- SPC, WPC, NHC product access
- Weather models
- Customizable home screen
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For USA Weather only: wXL23 is a free, no-ads, and open-source ( GNU GPLv3 / APL2.0 ) advanced weather application that is geared towards storm chasers, meteorologists, and weather enthusiasts. NWS ( National Weather Service ) data is optimized for mobile format and provided for divisions not normally covered together in the mobile space: SPC, WPC, NHC, OPC, etc. Level 3 Nexrad radar (single, dual, quad pane). This weather app is not affiliated with NOAA or the National Weather Service. If you *only* need current conditions and your local 7 day forecast then this app is probably more then you need although it will easily provide those 2 things as well. If you are looking for wasted screen real estate or fancy graphics this app is not for you. Given the depth of information covered there is a steep learning curve if you seek to use the program in it's entirety, help information is available and touched on below. Common weather acronyms are used throughout so you should be familiar with those as well. Currently United States locations are supported. - Current forecast, 7 day conditions, sounding data for an unlimited number of locations from NWS. - Customizable home screen - Metal based Nexrad radar interface with numerous options. 2 pane and 4 pane version also available in MISC tab. - Optimized text product viewer for easy access to AFD, HWO and others from any NWS WFO. - Vis/IR/WV/Radar mosaic viewer ( with animations ). - SPC products (such as Watches/MCDs/Convective Outlooks/Mesoanalysis) - WPC products - Weather models - NHC products NOTE: iPhone 5s or newer required for Nexrad radar viewer.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: wXL23 at 96% against RainAware's 51%. wXL23 also leads on price (Free vs $4.99) and rating (4.9 vs 3.9). RainAware's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 2 months) and chart position (#19 vs unranked). On ads, device support and iOS requirement 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
wXL23 is free to download; RainAware costs $4.99 up front. RainAware sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $6.99 per month. wXL23 asks for nothing beyond the download.
wXL23 holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 3.9. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1.1K and 214 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 51% of RainAware's written reviews are positive against 96% of wXL23's.
RainAware ships an update every 2 weeks, wXL23 every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 13, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | RainAware | wXL23 |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 3.9 (1.1K ratings) | 4.9 (214 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 50.6% of reviews | 96.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 1.1K — better | 214 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #19 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 43 MB | 29 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | RainAware LLC | Josh Green |
Customer experience
RainAware
wXL23
User reviews
RainAware
From 1.1K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Quick and Accurate
- 👍 Easy to use
- 👍 Very dependable
- 👍 Pretty accurate
- 👍 Reliable - Accurate - Worth Every Penny
Room to improve
- 🐛 Worse lately
- 🐛 Very disappointed
- 🐛 do not waste your money
- 🐛 You never Know!
- 🐛 Not reliable
wXL23
From 214 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 📊 Comprehensive weather data from NWS, SPC, and multiple sources
- 💰 Completely free with no ads or paywalls
- 🎯 Advanced radar features including dual polarization and velocity
- 📱 All-in-one consolidation of weather resources
- 🔧 Highly customizable with multiple viewing options
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent app crashes on recent iOS versions
- 📚 Steep learning curve for new users
- 🎨 UI/UX could be more intuitive and polished
- ⚙️ Radar animations occasionally slow or crash
- 🖼️ Radar image quality not as high as competitors
Bugs and requests
RainAware
Reported bugs
3 issues- Login screen freezes
- Incompatible with older devices
- JSON could not be serialized because of error: The data couldn't be read because it isn't in the correct format. [47
Requested features
3 requests- Dark mode option
- Advanced analytics dashboard
- Push notifications to alert you to rain within 3 hours
wXL23
Reported bugs
8 issues- App crashes on iOS 26 and iOS 18.1.1 after updates
- Radar animations crash app when playing frames
- Play button malfunction on radar displays
- App crashes on open after certain updates
- Radar product glitching on iOS 14 and iPhone 12 Pro Max
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- Current conditions loading issue at single stations
- Radar display crashes when added to home screen
- Models slow to load or fail to load data
Requested features
11 requests- Dark mode icon support for iOS
- Bottom navigation bar with category icons
- Widget support for home screen
- Push notifications for SPC outlooks and mesoscale discussions
- Personal Weather Station (PWS) integration
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- Map scrolling improvements
- Annotation feature for radar
- Custom color code input for radar color tables
- Additional mesoanalysis subregions (sectors 21 and 22)
- Enhanced hourly forecast display with more data points
- Windows 11 application version
In-app purchases
RainAware
- RainAware Suite - Monthly$6.991 Month
- RainAware Suite - Annual$69.991 Year
- RainAware Suite - Day Pass$0.99
wXL23
No in-app purchases








