Top Hat vs AskCalStateLA
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Top Hat
Enhance your learning experience with interactive resources, in-class participation tools, and dynamic digital textbooks. Engage with professors and peers, and test your knowledge with quizzes and polls to improve comprehension and retention.
- Follow lecture slides on your device
- In-class response system
- In-app discussions with peers and professors
- Dynamic, interactive digital textbooks
- Take polls and quizzes
- Access graded and non-graded homework
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Top Hat is the perfect companion app to our comprehensive assessment platform that helps you learn better before, during and after class. Top Hat makes learning fun and engaging (seriously!) and sets you up for success, helping you connect with your professors, your peers and the content you’re learning in and out of the classroom. Here’s what Top Hat offers you: Compelling resources, delivered on your smartphone or laptop: • Follow your prof’s lecture slides on your own device • Contribute in class with an easy-to-use response system that’s always with you • Participate with your profs and peers using in-app discussions Content tailored to your course: • Experience dynamic, interactive textbooks loaded up with images, videos, audio clips and more • Read your digital materials from anywhere and keep them forever Quizzes, tests and polls that improve learning comprehension: • Challenge yourself by taking polls and quizzes on your own devices • Improve your knowledge retention with interactive assessment elements • Check for gaps in your understanding with graded and non-graded homework and short quizzes Thanks for using Top Hat. As you experience the app, we’d love to get your feedback: support@tophat.com or follow us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook @TopHat
AskCalStateLA
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Welcome to the Ask Cal State LA chatbot, developed to answer the most frequently asked questions about the University. Your participation will help improve the accuracy of the information. For official policies and dates, always refer to the University web pages for current information.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Top Hat at fortnightly against AskCalStateLA's every 3 months. AskCalStateLA's advantage is iOS requirement (15.6 vs 17.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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.
Top Hat ships an update fortnightly, AskCalStateLA every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 2, 2026 and September 17, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Top Hat | AskCalStateLA |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (23K ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 14.6% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 23K — better | — |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 15.6 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 162 MB | 52 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Top Hat Monocle | California State University, Los Angeles |
Bugs and requests
Top Hat
Reported bugs
3 issues- Answers not registering correctly
- Slides not loading properly on mobile devices
- Inconsistent performance across platforms
Requested features
3 requests- Add page numbers and search functionality to ebooks
- Improve syncing between mobile and web versions
- Allow more flexible location settings for attendance
AskCalStateLA
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Top Hat
No in-app purchases
AskCalStateLA
No in-app purchases
