Course Vaults vs Plumb Bob
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Course Vaults
Track, rate, and rank every golf course you've played. Discover top courses through honest player reviews and build personalized lists of your favorites. This app serves as a digital golf passport for serious players.
- Log every golf course played
- Rate and rank courses personally
- Discover courses via player ratings
- Build bucket lists and collections
- Follow other golfers' rankings
- No ads or paid placements
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Course Vaults is a golf course tracking and discovery app for golfers who want to log every course they’ve played, rate and rank their favorites, build a golf passport, and discover where to play next. As seen in MyGolfSpy, Course Vaults brings golf course tracking, community ratings, rankings, reviews, lists and discovery into one place. Build your passport. Rank the courses you’ve played. See what thousands of other golfers think. Find the next course worth the trip. YOUR GOLF PASSPORT Track every golf course you’ve played and build a personal record of your golf history. See your played courses on a map, revisit where you’ve been, and watch your golf passport grow as you play new places around the world. RATE & RANK GOLF COURSES Rate every course you’ve played from 0–10 and create your own personal golf course ranking. Compare your ratings with the Course Vaults community, see how other golfers rate each course, and find out where your favorites stack up. DISCOVER WHERE TO PLAY Find golf courses around the world using community ratings, rankings and filters. Explore courses by location, architect, public or private access, rating and more. Discover nearby golf courses, browse top-ranked courses, and find places worth adding to your next golf trip. BUILD YOUR GOLF BUCKET LIST Create lists for anything: bucket-list courses, upcoming golf trips, favorite public courses, regional rankings or your own Top 100. Sort and filter your lists by location, access, Course Vaults rating or your personal rating. SEE WHAT OTHER GOLFERS THINK Follow friends and other golfers whose opinions you trust. See what they’re playing, discover courses through their ratings and reviews, and get a better sense of what a golf course is actually like from people who have played it. COURSE VAULTS PRO Upgrade to Course Vaults Pro for unlimited course logging and lists, expanded rankings, advanced map filters, course insights, partner perks and more. BUILT FOR GOLF COURSES, NOT GOLF SHOTS Course Vaults isn’t a GPS, rangefinder, scorecard or shot-tracking app. It’s a golf course tracker for the places themselves — a home for your golf passport, course ratings, personal rankings, bucket lists and golf course discoveries. Track where you’ve played. Remember what you loved. Discover what’s next. Terms of Use: https://www.coursevaults.com/terms
Plumb Bob
This app transforms your iPhone into a sophisticated golf green reader. It accurately maps slopes, calculates break, and measures green speed, helping you visualize your putt and improve your putting score. Designed for golfers of all levels, it offers offline functionality and integrates seamlessly with iPhone features.
- Vertical line from phone sensors
- Maps putt slope and break
- Measures green speed (Stimp)
- Calculates strokes gained putting score
- Offline functionality
- iPhone Lock Screen and Dynamic Island integration
- VoiceOver and Dynamic Type support
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Plumb Bob turns your iPhone into a green reader. Golfers have plumb-bobbed putts with a putter shaft for a hundred years. Plumb Bob gives you a truly vertical line from the phone's sensors, maps the slope of the whole putt as you walk from your ball to the cup, and rolls test putts over it at the green's speed. The line, the aim spot and the break appear on the grass in about twenty seconds. BALL. HOLE. PLUMB. • Mark your ball, walk your line to the hole and aim at the cup • Stand behind the ball and hold the phone up: the plumb line shows which way it breaks • See the putting line on the green, where to aim, how much it breaks and how long it plays GREEN SPEED FROM ONE ROLL • Roll any ball 8–15 ft and Plumb Bob measures the Stimp • Roll one back the other way to cancel out slope • Or pick Slow, Medium, Fast or Tour YOUR PUTTING SCORE • Play a round and every putt you read is scored against a tour putter (strokes gained) • Make percentages by distance and by slope, and what to work on • A recap card for every round, ready to share BUILT FOR iPHONE • Haptics you feel as the ball drops • Your round on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island • Siri, the Action Button and Control Center: straight into a read • Home and Lock Screen widgets • Full VoiceOver and Dynamic Type support PRIVATE BY DESIGN No account. Everything is worked out on your phone, it works offline, and it collects no data. Try the demo green without going to the course. Measuring green speed is always free. Plumb Bob Pro unlocks unlimited reads, rounds with strokes gained, and stats, with a free week to start. Terms of use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is monetization model: Course Vaults at free against Plumb Bob's freemium. Course Vaults also leads on ratings volume (155 vs 2) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 18.0). Plumb Bob's advantage is review sentiment (100% vs 90%). 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. Course Vaults sells 9 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and Plumb Bob sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Plumb Bob holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Course Vaults has 155 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 90% of Course Vaults's written reviews are positive against 100% of Plumb Bob's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 21, 2026 and October 18, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Course Vaults | Plumb Bob |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (155 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 90.4% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 155 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Weekly | Weekly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 124 MB | 18 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Andreoni-Group LLC | KATHERINE YVONNE PATTON |
Customer experience
Course Vaults
Plumb Bob
In-app purchases
Course Vaults
- Course Vaults Pro$4.991 Month
- Course Vaults Pro$6.991 Month
- Monthly$9.991 Month
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- Seasonal$23.993 Months
- Founding Member$44.951 Year
- Course Vaults Pro$49.991 Year
- Pro+ Annual$54.991 Year
- Course Vaults Pro$59.991 Year
- Annual$74.991 Year
Plumb Bob
- Plumb Bob Pro (Monthly)7 Days trial$9.991 Month
- Plumb Bob Pro (Annual)7 Days trial$59.991 Year
Questions
Is Course Vaults free?
Is Plumb Bob free?
Which has better reviews, Course Vaults or Plumb Bob?
Do Course Vaults or Plumb Bob have ads?
Which is updated more often, Course Vaults or Plumb Bob?
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