Top Hat vs Professor Index
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
Read full descriptionHide full description
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
Professor Index
This app allows college students to rate and review professors and courses, providing insights into teaching effectiveness and course relevance. Students can compare professor profiles and make informed enrollment decisions based on peer feedback.
- Rate and review professors
- Get feedback on future professors
- Compare professor profiles
- Make data-informed enrollment decisions
- Gamified review incentives
Read full descriptionHide full description
Professor Index (PI) is a user-friendly mobile app that enables college students to voice their opinions on various aspects of their higher educational experience, ranging from the effectiveness of their professors’ teaching methodologies to the relevance of their course materials. Students can rate and review their professors, request and get feedback about their future professors and courses at a glance, compare different professor profiles, and ultimately, make data-informed class enrollment decisions. To enhance engagement and response rates, PI uses gamification and nudging algorithms to incentivize students to actively review their professors by rewarding meaningful, objective, and fair reviews.
Screenshots
Verdict
Top Hat and Professor Index both sit at 4.6 stars, but that hides the real split: 88% of Professor Index's written reviews are positive against 15% of Top Hat's. Professor Index also leads on iOS requirement (13.0 vs 17.0). Top Hat's advantage is ratings volume (23K vs 59) and chart position (#194 vs unranked). 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Top Hat against 4.5 for Professor Index. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Top Hat has 23K ratings behind it against 59, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 15% of Top Hat's written reviews are positive against 88% of Professor Index's.
Top Hat ships an update every 2 weeks, Professor Index monthly. The most recent releases landed on October 22, 2026 and October 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Top Hat | Professor Index |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (23K ratings) — better | 4.5 (59 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 14.6% of reviews | 88.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 23K — better | 59 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Monthly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Best chart rank | #194 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 152 MB | 57 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Top Hat Monocle | Professor Index, LLC |
Customer experience
Top Hat
Professor Index
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
Professor Index
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Top Hat
No in-app purchases
Professor Index
No in-app purchases
