Sky Guide vs areoHDR
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Sky Guide
Identify stars, constellations, planets, and satellites in real-time by holding your device overhead. Explore celestial bodies with AR overlays, track satellites like the ISS, and travel through time to view past and future astronomical events. Perfect for both novice and experienced stargazers.
- Automatic celestial object identification
- Augmented reality sky overlay
- Satellite tracking and notifications
- Time travel for past/future viewing
- Personalized astronomical event calendar
- Offline functionality
Read full descriptionHide full description
Bring the beauty of the stars down to Earth. Hold Sky Guide® overhead to automatically identify any star, constellation, planet or satellite! Easy to use and powerful, it’s epic stargazing for any experience level. Is it a star or the planet Mars? Knowing what’s up in your night sky is easier than ever. Sky Guide’s AR mode superimposes figures onto your real sky so visualizing the heavens becomes effortless. Have you ever wished you could recognize constellations but didn’t want to fumble around with paper star charts? Now you can. A speck of light crosses the night sky, growing brighter. What could it be? You don’t have to wonder anymore. Track a bright satellite and receive perfectly-timed notifications whenever the International Space Station is about to fly over your location. With Sky Guide, you’ll be saying ‘Goodbye, aliens’ and ‘Hellooooo, astronauts!’ Voyage to the past or future with cinematic time controls. Know where the Moon will be later in the evening so you can capture that perfect photo or be an eyewitness to history’s greatest comets. Whether you’re searching for Sagittarius, Saturn, or the next big meteor shower, Sky Guide is jam-packed with information and rich graphics that will satisfy the most curious minds. Plus, stay current with location-filtered events like solar and lunar eclipses with Sky Guide’s personalized Calendar. Camping in the backcountry? Sky Guide can function with or without Wi-Fi, cellular service or GPS, so everything is at your fingertips no matter where you go. Join the millions who have discovered a more personal connection to the stars with Sky Guide. It might forever change the way you look up. Terms of Use: https://www.fifthstarlabs.com/terms-of-use
areoHDR
Experience real images from the Mars Perseverance Rover in high dynamic range (HDR) and color calibrated for human vision. Navigate through sols and images, zoom in, and access a Mars calendar. The free version offers access to the latest 200 sols.
- High Dynamic Range (HDR) Mars images
- Color calibrated for human vision
- Navigate sols and images
- Zoom and rotate controls
- Mars calendar feature
- Access to latest 200 sols (free)
Read full descriptionHide full description
With HDR, the images glow brightly in high contrast on the screen, not visible here in the screenshots as it can only be experienced on the device. The areoHDR app shows images taken only a few hours ago on planet Mars by NASA Perseverance Rover, which landed on 18 February 2021 and is currently driving in and around Jezero Crater. Since version 1.5.0 all color images taken by Viking Lander 1 & 2 are also available. Viking Lander 1 touched down on 20 July 1976 as first successful landing on another planet. This is currently the only app showing real Mars images in high dynamic range (HDR) and color calibrated for human vision to bring the experience, human explorers on Mars would have themselves, to iPhone and iPad. To navigate through the sols (days on Mars since landing) and images of each sol, either tap on the two up/down buttons on the right side or swipe horizontally or vertically or rotate the wheel with the sol numbers. Double tap or pinch with two fingers to zoom in and out. The images are taken by the 20 Megapixel Navcam pair inside the rover's "head" 2m above the surface, the two 20MP front and rear Hazcam pairs near the ground, Watson Camera on the robotic arm and Cachecam in the underside sample storage bay. A Mars calendar ist now available by long press on the arrow-down button where the day on Mars (sol) can be selected via the position in the astronomical solar year or the date on Earth. HDR works on all iPhone & iPad Pro models released since late 2018 and all Macbook Pro since M1. Other devices will also show the images, but not in full HDR. No AI processing is applied to the images and no artificial color adjustment. This is the real view on Mars! The color processing uses a preset white-balance set to sunny daylight on Earth, to visualize the experience a human explorer would have on the Mars surface. That is the same configuration available on any commercial digitial camera when setting it to manual daylight white-balance. The raw image data used to produce the color processed images is publicly provided by NASA / JPL-Caltech. The color processed images shown by the App are separate derived data products and created by the app author's backend system. The free version allows access to the latest 200 sols (days on Mars since landing). By subscribing within the app, you can access all more than 1500 Mars-days since landing sol 0. The standard Apple Terms of Use apply for this app: https://apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ratings volume: Sky Guide at 377K against areoHDR's 4. Sky Guide also leads on update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 2 months) and chart position (#26 vs unranked). areoHDR's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.8) and review sentiment (100% vs 86%). 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. Sky Guide sells 6 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and areoHDR sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
areoHDR holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Sky Guide has 377K ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 86% of Sky Guide's written reviews are positive against 100% of areoHDR's.
Sky Guide ships an update every 2 weeks, areoHDR every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Sky Guide | areoHDR |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (377K ratings) | 5.0 (4 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 86.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 377K — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Best chart rank | #26 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Vision Pro — better | iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 380 MB | 2 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Fifth Star Labs LLC | Holger Isenberg |
Customer experience
Sky Guide
areoHDR
Bugs and requests
Sky Guide
Reported bugs
2 issues- App freezes when near polar regions
- Occasional crashes or performance issues
Requested features
5 requests- Add more detailed information on moons of planets
- Implement mosaic planning tools for astrophotography
- Provide earlier notifications for satellite/ISS passes
- Allow users to share their observations and photos
- Improve integration with telescope/camera equipment
areoHDR
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Sky Guide
- PLUS$4.991 Month
- PRO$8.991 Month
- PLUS7 Days trial$39.991 Year
Show 1 moreShow fewer
- PRO7 Days trial$59.991 Year
- All Constellations$1.99
- PRO Lifetime$249.99
areoHDR
- Mars 2020 monthly renewing$1.991 Month
- Mars 2020 1 week non-renewing$0.99






