CitSci vs Zooniverse
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
CitSci
Empower your community with a tool for collecting and uploading scientific observations. This app facilitates citizen science projects, allowing users to contribute valuable data directly to a central platform.
- Data collection for citizen science
- Upload observations to CitSci.org
- Empowers community science projects
- Syncs with web platform
- Facilitates observation contribution
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The CitSci mobile app is a data collection app for citizen scientists that syncs up with CitSci.org. The app augments the web site by empowering users to collect and upload observations to CitSci.org. The app helps people and communities do great citizen science.
Zooniverse
Participate in real scientific research by classifying data for projects across various disciplines. Contribute to discoveries and datasets that advance knowledge, all from your mobile device. This platform connects volunteers with professional researchers for impactful citizen science.
- People-powered research platform
- Volunteer opportunities
- Access to mobile-friendly projects
- Push notification updates
- View publications
- Contribute to scientific discoveries
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The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research. This research is made possible by volunteers—hundreds of thousands of people around the world who come together to assist professional researchers. Our goal is to enable research that would not be possible, or practical, otherwise. Zooniverse research results in new discoveries, datasets useful to the wider research community, and many publications. The Zooniverse Mobile App provides push notification updates about our projects, as well as access to our most mobile-friendly projects and publications.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: CitSci at 4.5 against Zooniverse's 3.7. Zooniverse's advantage is ratings volume (37 vs 2). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
CitSci holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 3.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Zooniverse has 37 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two.
CitSci ships an update every 6 weeks, Zooniverse every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 10, 2026 and September 14, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | CitSci | Zooniverse |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (2 ratings) — better | 3.7 (37 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | — | 58.8% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 37 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 15.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 33 MB | 50 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Greg Newman | Zooniverse |
Customer experience
CitSci
Zooniverse
In-app purchases
CitSci
No in-app purchases
Zooniverse
No in-app purchases
