vTree vs Urban Trees
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
vTree
Identify woody plants across North America with detailed fact sheets, thousands of images, and location-based filtering. Get expert help from "Dr. Dendro" for tricky identifications.
- 969 North American woody plants
- Thousands of color images
- Location-based species filtering
- Search by keyword
- Identify via attribute questions
- Expert identification help
Read full descriptionHide full description
Virginia Tech Tree Identification brings the award winning Virginia Tech digital dendrology material to your iPhone. It contains fact sheets for 969 woody plants from all over North America with an in-depth description, range map and thousands of color images of leaves, flowers, fruit, twigs, bark and form. Users can narrow the species list for any location in North America using the phone's GPS or any entered address or zip code. Basically the application can become "The Woody Plants of Where You Are Standing." For example, it can become "The Woody Plants of Southwestern Oregon," "The Woody Plants of Central Park," or "The Woody Plants of 37.108 lat., -80.452 long., elevation 2118." Users can further narrow the species list by answering a series of very simple tree attribute questions such as where the plant is growing, leaf shape, leaf arrangement, flower color or fruit type. The species list can also be narrowed by typing a keyword such as oak, Abies, red or palm. For example, if "oak" is typed, only oaks found in the defined area will be listed. A feature also allows you to send any tree related question to "Dr. Dendro," a tree expert in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation at Virginia Tech. You can send a tree description or pictures of your plant and experts will help with identification. KEY FEATURES •969 woody plants from all over North America. •Over 6,400 color photographs of leaves, flowers, fruit, twig, bark, form, and range map for each species. •In depth description of all plant parts. •Narrows species list based on your location and elevation using the device's GPS or user entered location. •Search for species by a key word, e.g. maple. •Identify species by answering a series of simple questions. A picture is displayed showing what is being asked. •Navigate between species with a push of a button. •Send a tree question to "Dr. Dendro," a tree expert at Virginia Tech. VIRGINIA TECH TREE IDENTIFICATION DIGITAL MATERIAL Visit our web sites at: http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu Woody Plants in North America, 2012, Kendall/Hunt Publishing is a multimedia tutorial on DVD covering 920 woody plants with over 23,000 color photographs of leaves (summer and fall), flowers, fruits, twigs, bark and form for each plant. The software displays multiple images of all plant parts so user can develop a "feel" for normal field variation. A customizable self-quizzing section allows users to evaluate their progress in plant identification. For more features on this software, visit: http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/wpina.htm NOTES The 650 MB database of tree photographs and text is downloaded from our server. We recommend you install Virginia Tech Tree Identification using a fast WIFI connection. A cellular connection will generally be too slow. Text and photography by John R. Seiler, John A. Peterson Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, Virginia Tech and Ed Jensen, Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State University.
Urban Trees
Identify trees in supported cities using augmented reality. Point your device at a tree to see its species label, or view nearby trees on a map. Access Wikipedia details for each species.
- Augmented reality tree identification
- Species labels displayed via AR
- Map view of nearby trees
- Access to Wikipedia species details
- Supported by open city data
- Apple Watch integration
Read full descriptionHide full description
The Urban Trees app allows you to identify the trees around you using your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch. ___ Supported Cities --- • Alblasserdam • Amersfoort • Amsterdam • Arnhem • Assen • Austin • Baltimore • Barcelona • Barendrecht • Basel • Belfast • Berlin • Birmingham • Bonn • Boston • Bristol • Buenos Aires • Buffalo, NY • Cambridge, MA • Chemnitz • Clark County • Cupertino • Delft • Den Haag • Denver • Dordrecht • Edmonton • Eindhoven • Frankfurt • Fingal • Gelsenkirchen • Groningen • Haarlem • Halle (Saale) • Hamburg • Hilversum • København • Köln • Las Vegas • Leipzig • Lelystad • Linz • Lisboa • London • Los Angeles • Melbourne • Mississauga • Montréal • Mulhouse • New York • Nijmegen • Oslo • Palmerston North • Paris • Philadelphia • Portland • Rostock • San Francisco • San Jose • Santa Monica • Seattle • Sliedrecht • Tilburg • Toronto • Ulm • Umeå • Utrecht • Valencia • Vancouver and Surrounding Areas • Vejle • Washington DC • Watertown, MA • Wien • Zaanstad • Zürich • ...more cities are added regularly Non-Urban Areas: • Sweden A big thank you to the Open Data portals of those cities! ___ iPhone (iPad) --- Just point your device at the tree you want to identify. Using Augmented Reality (AR), the app will display a label with the species right next to the tree. (Use the map view, if the label won't line up...) Tapping on the label will display the Wikipedia page about that tree's species. In addition to the AR mode, Urban Trees features also a map mode. Notes: • Urban Trees does NOT use image recognition but uses OPEN DATA, which provides the exact location and species of every PUBLIC tree in the supported cities • Check the help section within the app if the label locations in AR are off. ___ Apple Watch --- On the Apple Watch the five nearest trees are shown on a map. Tap the screen to display the species of those trees. ___ iPad & GPS --- Please note: only iPad models with cellular do have GPS built-in. ___ Less is More --- • NO ads • NO storing of any private data • NO accounts/logins • NO in-app purchases (but you can leave me a tip...)
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: vTree at 3.3 against Urban Trees's 2.3. vTree also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 1) and review sentiment (37% vs 17%). Urban Trees's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 11 months) and device support (4 vs 2). On price, ads 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
Both are free to download. Urban Trees sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. vTree asks for nothing beyond the download.
vTree holds the better App Store score, 3.3 against 2.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: vTree has 46 ratings behind it against 9, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 37% of vTree's written reviews are positive against 17% of Urban Trees's.
vTree ships an update every 11 months, Urban Trees every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 11, 2026 and October 15, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | vTree | Urban Trees |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.3 (46 ratings) — better | 2.3 (9 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 36.5% of reviews — better | 16.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 46 — better | 9 |
| Update frequency | Every 11 months | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 | 13.2 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 10 MB | 39 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | John Peterson | Harald Lamer |
Customer experience
vTree
Urban Trees
Bugs and requests
vTree
Reported bugs
31 issues- Eternally spinning “loading species” then crashes
- Won’t open, downloads to 123% then freezes
- Stuck “downloading species”
- Crashes when updating location off grid
- Missing photos
Show 26 moreShow fewer
- Crashes when I try to open the app
- Down problem, takes back to app store
- Search locations brings back incomplete results
- Pictures will not display when individual species are selected
- Photos do not load
- The last update caused issues
- App crashes constantly
- User unfriendly
- Using the search function causes the app to crash
- When I hit the "identify trees" button it crashes
- Page disappears into the background when searching
- App crashes when connection is poor
- Crashes any time you use the search function
- Searching repeatedly crashes the app
- App freezes when opening after downloading fact sheets
- GPS function doesn't work
- Manually entered location doesn't stay remembered
- App closes when putting in location
- Glitching when trying to download again
- App is bugging out when I go to put in my location and then it closes
- No true way to narrow the results down
- Urban trees are missing
- Almost none of the pictures work
- Pictures are downloading but very slowly
- One ID was totally wrong, others could not give a possibility
- Encountered a glitch when selecting a particular arrangement of leaves
Requested features
8 requests- Allow offline use by downloading all fact sheets
- Update app for newer iPhone screen sizes
- Editable list of recently identified trees
- Search trees by leaf
- Break down database into regions/states
Show 3 moreShow fewer
- Ability to discard unnecessary data
- Ability to swipe through photos
- ID plants from a photo
Urban Trees
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
vTree
No in-app purchases
Urban Trees
- Small Tip$0.99



