Comparison

real vs Shutter Clique

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

real

This social network encourages real-life interactions by connecting you with nearby friends for spontaneous or planned activities. It prioritizes genuine human connections over algorithmic feeds, keeping your location private.

Highlights
  • Connect with available friends nearby
  • Schedule activities with friends
  • Announce community events
  • Discover nearby old friends
  • Privacy-focused location sharing
Read full description

real leverages technology to help us disconnect from screens and have more human-to-human interactions. It's a healthier social network: has real people, with real relationships, doing real-life activities. It effectively eliminates uncertainties associated with such activities: not knowing who is nearby, who is available, and who should initiate interactions. real overcomes these challenges while keeping one's whereabouts hidden from everyone else. Uniquely, it is not driven by any algorithms but is based on our real-life behavior. Main Features: - up for: make yourself available and get connected to your available friends in the area - let's hang: schedule specific activity with your friends and they get invited if nearby - community bulletin: let everyone in your community know of an event (e.g., a yard sale) - missed connections: real will let you know if an old friend happens to be close by

About

Shutter Clique

A private social network for sharing daily photos with a small, trusted circle. It prioritizes privacy with no ads, public posts, or user discovery. Connect with up to 15 friends using their contact information and enjoy secure, encrypted photo sharing.

Highlights
  • Private photo sharing
  • Limited friend count (15 max)
  • Encrypted photo transfer
  • No ads or public posts
  • Comment and reaction features
  • Save and delete photos
  • 1-month free trial
Features
Read full description

Shutter Clique is a private social network to share daily photos with your closest friends and family. There are no ads, no public posts, no user discovery, no reading your personal contacts, and no infinite scroll. Just the features you need to stay connected with the closest people in your life. To stay true to that goal, you are limited to a maximum of 15 friends. And you have to already know the email address or phone number of someone to connect with them, i.e., random people you don't know can't connect with you on Shutter Clique. You can see the most recent photo that each friend has posted in the last day, with the ability to add comments and reactions. Photos are transferred over encrypted channels and your photos are never shared publicly. Letting you stay safely connected and engaged with what’s going on in the lives of your trusted inner circle. You have full access to all the photos you've taken. You can save any of your photos to your device's Photos app (with no corporate branding added to your photos), and you can delete anything you've posted at any time. Most public social networks make money by selling your personal information to advertisers. Shutter Clique doesn’t do that. Instead we charge a small nominal fee of $0.99 / month to cover our infrastructure costs so we can keep the service running and keep your data private. You can use the app for free for 1 month to see if you like it before having to pay. Even if you don't pay, you will continue to have access to all your data captured during the trial period. Subscription details: You will be prompted to subscribe after a 1 month trial period, or you can elect to subscribe during the trial period via the Account tab in the app. A $0.99 / month purchase will be applied to your iTunes account on confirmation. Subscriptions will automatically renew unless canceled within 24-hours before the end of the current period. You can cancel anytime with your iTunes account settings. Any unused portion of a free trial will be forfeited if you purchase a subscription. For more information, see our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy below. Documentation: https://shutterclique.com/docs Terms of Service: https://shutterclique.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://shutterclique.com/privacy

Screenshots

real4 screens
Shutter Clique4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: real at none against Shutter Clique's 1. Shutter Clique's advantage is ratings volume (8 vs 2). On price, rating, update cadence and ads 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Shutter Clique sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $0.99 per month. real asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for real against 5.0 for Shutter Clique. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 8 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

real ships an update monthly, Shutter Clique every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 20, 2026 and October 27, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
real versus Shutter Clique: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterrealShutter Clique
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (2 ratings)5.0 (8 ratings)
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings28 — better
Update frequencyMonthlyEvery 3 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterSubscription
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.0 — better15.1
Further details — not scored
Size69 MB23 MB
Age rating17+17+
DeveloperSandalwood Research LLCGallus Soft LLC

Customer experience

real

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Shutter Clique

All ratings8 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews4 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

real

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Shutter Clique

Subscriptions1
  • $0.99 / month$0.991 Month

Questions

Is real free?
real is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Shutter Clique free?
Shutter Clique is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, real or Shutter Clique?
real and Shutter Clique are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 2 and 8 ratings respectively.
Do real or Shutter Clique have ads?
Neither real nor Shutter Clique shows ads.
Which is updated more often, real or Shutter Clique?
real ships an update monthly, and Shutter Clique every 3 weeks. Most recently, real was updated on October 20, 2026 and Shutter Clique on October 27, 2026.

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