rakkup vs Climbing Pins
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
rakkup
Access a vast library of climbing and backcountry skiing guidebooks on your mobile device, even without an internet connection. Navigate trails to your destination with turn-by-turn directions and detailed maps. Explore climbs and descents with rich visuals and discover new routes.
- Offline guidebook access
- Turn-by-turn trail navigation
- GPS-enabled route finding
- Map and list browsing
- Search and filter capabilities
- Color photos and topo drawings
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rakkup allows you to access an entire bookshelf of climbing and backcountry skiing guidebooks on your iPhone, even beyond the reach of cell phone coverage. Once downloaded, guidebooks work offline with no Internet connection! It is also the first and only mobile climbing app that navigates you through the trail system to your climb, turn by turn. Produced in partnership with Outdoor Research, rakkup reinvents the guidebook for the smartphone era. We've partnered with Beacon Guidebooks, Wolverine Publishing ,and other publishers to bring you rich guidebooks complete with color photos and topo drawings. Free sample climbs and ski descents are included. Browse climbs and descents on a map or in the list format of your choice, filter and search in seconds, then navigate using your phone's GPS with a single tap. In climbing guidebooks, the app continuously calculates the easiest route through the trail system from your current location. Simply follow the arrow and moving map. Note: When actively navigating to a climb, rakkup uses GPS in background. Continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life.
Climbing Pins
This app allows climbers to upload photos and automatically tag them with location, climb, and area names. Discover nearby climbs on a map, track approaches, and get directions. Search for climbs, areas, or users and filter results by quality and difficulty.
- Automatic location tagging for climbing photos
- Tag photos with climb and area names
- Discover nearby climbs and areas on a map
- Track approaches and drop parking pins
- Get driving directions
- Search climbs, areas, and users
- Filter search results by quality and difficulty
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Upload climbing photos to automatically drop location markers Tag photos with climb and area names Home Explore climb and area photos within 100, 10, or 1 km Map Find nearby climbs and get additional climb and area info Track approaches and drop parking pins Get driving directions Help keep markers accurate by tapping to select then tapping and dragging to suggest location corrections Search Search by climb, area, city or user Filter by quality, difficulty, alphabetically, and recently added Add Upload images with location info from camera and photo roll
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Climbing Pins at 5.0 against rakkup's 2.2. Climbing Pins also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 10). rakkup's advantage is ratings volume (25 vs 6). On price, update cadence, ads 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
Both are free to download. rakkup sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. Climbing Pins asks for nothing beyond the download.
Climbing Pins holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 2.2. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 25 and 6 respectively.
rakkup ships an update every 2 months, Climbing Pins every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | rakkup | Climbing Pins |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.2 (25 ratings) | 5.0 (6 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 53.9% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 25 — better | 6 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 6 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 14.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 86 MB | 32 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Outdoor Geeks, LLC | Ben Spannuth |
Customer experience
rakkup
Climbing Pins
Bugs and requests
rakkup
Reported bugs
13 issues- App crashes on login
- App freezes when opening routes
- Crashes every 30 seconds to few minutes
- Splash screen appears repeatedly despite cached data
- Collapse/expand toggles stop working
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- Route selection auto-selects wrong area
- Maps fail to load without internet connectivity
- Bookshelf is buggy and inaccessible
- Password field incompatible with password managers
- Specific routes cause crashes (e.g., Sun Kissed)
- iOS 15 compatibility issues
- Frozen screens requiring app reinstall
- GPS functionality unreliable (20% success rate)
Requested features
12 requests- Simplified and more intuitive UI redesign
- Gear and rack information for routes
- Pitch length specifications
- User ratings and comments system
- Personalization settings (filter preferences)
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- PDF guidebook downloads
- YouTube tutorial videos for app navigation
- Climbing log with progress tracking
- Route notes and personal annotations
- Better offline map handling
- Access codes for physical guidebook purchases
- Improved map clustering for nearby crags
Climbing Pins
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
rakkup
- Elizabeth Furnace$2.99
- Long Branch and Guide Walls$3.99
- Reed's Creek$4.99
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- Exit 38 Rock Climbs$9.99
- Staunton State Park Climbing$9.99
- Powerlinez$11.99
- Teton Pass Descents$14.99
- Red Rocks Climbs by SuperTopo$19.99
- Potrero Chico$19.99
- Backcountry Skiing California's Eastern Sierra$19.99
Climbing Pins
No in-app purchases
