Comparison

MergeKey vs Egress Recon

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

Head to head
About

MergeKey

This keyboard dynamically adjusts key sizes and visibility as you type, offering larger tap targets and fewer errors. It supports 20 languages and includes customizable styles and privacy-focused features.

Highlights
  • Dynamic key resizing
  • Hides impossible keys
  • Supports 20 languages
  • Customizable styles
  • Privacy-focused
  • Typing game
Read full description

MergeKey — the first keyboard that hides the keys you don't need. As you type, MergeKey dynamically removes impossible letters and expands the remaining keys, giving you bigger tap targets and fewer typos. It's like autocomplete, but visual — you see your options shrink in real time. MERGE MODE — UNIQUE TO MERGEKEY - Keys that can't continue your word disappear instantly - Remaining keys grow to fill the space — bigger keys, fewer mistakes - Learns new words you teach it - Toggle Merge Mode off if you prefer just the disappearing keys without resizing MADE FOR IPAD - Full-size layouts on large iPads, a roomier compact layout on smaller ones - Pinch to split the keyboard for thumb typing, with adjustable split distance - Two-finger trackpad: drag across the keys to move the cursor - Letters Only mode for a clean, focused board - Split typing on iPhone too, in landscape 31 LANGUAGES English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Czech, Slovenian, Greek, Turkish, Bulgarian, Russian, Ukrainian, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Romanian, Hungarian, Irish, Hebrew, Arabic, Urdu (Latin), Bangla and Hindi — each with native prediction and accented character variants. English (US/GB), Spanish (ES/MX) and Portuguese (BR/PT) with correct regional dictionaries. Hindi, Bangla and Urdu in Latin letters. SMART FEATURES - Quick Settings right in the keyboard — tap the MergeKey icon - Scrolling prediction bar with up to 9 word suggestions - Long-press for accented letters and symbols - Character preview bubble on key tap - Optional dedicated number row - Double-tap shift for caps lock - Backspace hold-to-accelerate (characters, then words) - Hold 123 for a fan of digits; hold the comma key for more signs CUSTOMIZABLE STYLE - 14 keyboard styles: Default, Liquid Glass (iOS 26), Classic, Ink on Paper, Typewriter, Keycaps, Sharp, Brick, Pixel, Glossy, Metal, Backlit, Calculator, Neon - Custom key fill, border, character and accent colors - Letters that grow with their keys as they merge (optional) - 6 key fonts - Keyboard height: Compact, Normal or Tall - Transparency slider for key fill opacity - Animation speed control - Live keyboard preview in Settings and Style - Own colors for single function keys, a Black and White accent and Reset Style BUILT FOR LEARNERS - Swipe up to teach MergeKey a new word - Swipe down for continuous mode (all keys visible) - Swipe left to delete whole words - Swipe right to paste the last thing you copied - Key heatmap per language shows which letters you type most and where your thumb lands - Built-in typing game to practice in any language - Live lessons in How to – every gesture plays on your own keyboard - 3 mini games: Tennis, Surfing, Penalty Kick PRIVACY FIRST MergeKey does not collect or transmit your typing data. Everything stays on your device. MergeKey never connects to the internet. The only network activity is the App Store handling the optional tips – that's why iOS shows a Mobile Data switch for MergeKey. The optional clipboard keeps your texts on this device only. Word lists based on the Leipzig Corpora Collection (CC BY 4.0). AI4Bharat Aksharantar (CC BY).

About

Egress Recon

Features
Read full description

You are on a guest Wi-Fi you did not choose. Something will not connect and nobody can tell you why. Egress Recon answers that from your phone, in under a second. WHICH PORTS GET OUT Sixteen common outbound ports, tried against real public services. You get more than "open" or "closed": • Refused and timed out are different answers. One means something on the network actively rejected the connection; the other means it was dropped silently. • Intercepted is its own finding. The connection succeeded, but the thing that replied was not the service you asked for — a portal, a proxy, or a middlebox re-signing TLS. WHAT NAT YOU ARE BEHIND Your public address, and whether your NAT gives you a reusable mapping or a symmetric one — the reason a video call falls back to a relay. Carrier-grade NAT is reported with its confidence and the evidence behind it, never as a bare label. IPv6 and NAT64 state, and whether you can reach your own public address from inside. WHAT IT DOES TO DNS Whether plain DNS gets out. Whether the network's resolver agrees with a public one. Whether it invents answers for names that cannot exist. And whether DNS over HTTPS and DNS over TLS still work when plain DNS does not — each tested with a real query, not just a connection. WI-FI VERSUS CELLULAR The most useful thing a network tool can tell you is "this Wi-Fi blocks it, and your cellular connection does not." Egress Recon runs the same tests over both and shows the difference — attributing it correctly in both directions, because blaming the café for something your carrier blocks helps nobody. BEHIND A CAPTIVE PORTAL It tells you the portal is there, shows the URL it is pushing you to, and labels the results "before you sign in." Sign in, run again, and it shows you exactly what changed. IT SHOWS ITS WORK Every verdict comes with what was actually observed: the banner the server sent, the certificate it presented and who issued it, the exact response that came back. You can check the reasoning instead of trusting a colored label. Where something cannot be determined, it says so and why. Two ports in the standard set have no public server to test against, so they stay untested rather than showing a red cell that means nothing. Share any run as text, a web page, a PDF, or JSON. Saved runs are grouped by network. PRIVACY • No analytics, no telemetry, no accounts, no ads, no third-party SDKs. • It never scans your network. Every probe goes to a public internet service — never your router, never your other devices. That is why it never asks for local network permission. • It does not read your Wi-Fi name. That needs location permission, which it never requests. • Saved runs stay on your device. A report leaves only when you share it. Egress Recon for Mac and for iPhone and iPad are both free apps on one App Store record. Requires iOS 17 or iPadOS 17.

Screenshots

MergeKey4 screens
Egress Recon4 screens

Verdict

The call

MergeKey and Egress Recon are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
MergeKey versus Egress Recon: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMergeKeyEgress Recon
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (3 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings3 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 days—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Mac — better
Requires iOS18.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size39 MB1 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAndrei AchzigerBrian Reed

In-app purchases

None

MergeKey

No in-app purchases

None

Egress Recon

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is MergeKey free?
MergeKey is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Egress Recon free?
Egress Recon is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do MergeKey or Egress Recon have ads?
Neither MergeKey nor Egress Recon shows ads.

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