Comparison

ApiNote vs WhisperBee

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

Head to head
About

ApiNote

This app helps beekeepers manage their apiaries and hives. It allows for detailed tracking of inspections, treatments, feedings, and honey harvests. Features include AI voice logging, weather tracking, and cloud storage for easy access and collaboration.

Highlights
  • AI Voice hive inspections
  • Track hive inspections and health
  • Manage apiary and hive data
  • Monitor honey production
  • Plan beekeeping tasks
  • Weather tracking
  • Cloud storage and multi-user access
Features
Read full description

ApiNote is a beekeeping hive log and apiary manager built for real work at the bee yard. Keep a complete history for every colony and know what needs attention before your next visit. HIVE RECORDS THAT STAY ORGANIZED • Record hive inspections and observations • Track queens and queen history • Log mite checks, treatments and feeding • Record honey and pollen harvests • Create tasks and reminders • Review hive history and statistics • Track income and expenses HANDS-FREE HIVE INSPECTIONS Keep your hands on the hive. Speak during an inspection and ApiNote can turn your observations into a structured hive record. MANAGE YOUR ENTIRE APIARY See apiaries, hives, recent activity and open tasks in one place. Check local weather, map bee flight ranges and use QR codes to open the right hive quickly. AI FOR BEEKEEPERS Use the AI Beekeeping Advisor for questions or the Voice Hive Inspection while working your bees. YOUR RECORDS ACROSS DEVICES ApiNote synchronizes your beekeeping records through the cloud so your hive history stays available on your devices. START FREE Manage up to 5 hives for free. ApiNote Pro unlocks unlimited hives, AI tools and advanced features. Less paperwork. Better hive records. More time with your bees.

About

WhisperBee

This app helps beekeepers manage their hives hands-free. It uses AI to transcribe voice notes into structured data, tracks hive health, and creates action items. Works offline and prioritizes user privacy.

Highlights
  • Hands-free voice recording for hive inspections
  • AI-powered transcription with beekeeping vocabulary
  • Structured data extraction (queen, brood, varroa)
  • Offline data saving and background syncing
  • QR code scanning for quick hive access
  • Action item generation from inspection notes
  • Privacy-focused data handling
Features
Read full description

WhisperBee is a hands-free assistant built for working beekeepers. Open a hive, speak the inspection out loud, and the structured data fills itself in — queen seen, brood pattern, varroa count, temperament, and more — into a clean record you can edit on your phone or in the web portal at whisperbee.app. WORKS OFFLINE Every write — voice recording, photo, edit, note — saves to a local database on your phone first. Audio queues for transcription. Photos queue for upload. Sync runs in the background the moment the network returns. No spinner, no lost work, no dead zones at the bee yard. SCAN-AND-SPEAK Stick a QR code sticker on each hive lid. Scan it from the Home tab to jump straight into that hive — last inspection's voice note ready to play back. Tap the mic to start today's recording, gloves on, no menus. BEEKEEPING-TUNED SPEECH-TO-TEXT Transcription is primed with a beekeeping vocabulary list and post-corrected by a deterministic rules layer. Supersedure, varroa, nuc, propolis, requeening — all come through correctly without you having to over-enunciate. YOU STAY IN CONTROL AI is for typing, not for diagnosing. Every extracted field is editable on the inspection screen. The call on what to do for your bees is yours. Disease and queen-status suggestions are clearly framed as suggestions, with the rules that produced them visible inline. ACTION ITEMS THAT DON'T SLIP THROUGH Concerns flagged in your voice notes — "low stores," "no eggs seen," "needs treatment" — become action items on the dashboard with due dates and priorities. Nothing lives only in last week's audio. YOUR APIARY, ORGANIZED Apiaries, hives, inspections, treatments, harvests, queens — all in one model, all in one record. PRIVACY-FIRST GPS coordinates are visible only to you and members of your organization — never aggregated, never shared outside it. Voice recordings stay encrypted in transit. We use OpenAI Whisper for transcription and Anthropic Claude for extraction — and neither retains your audio for training. You can export everything as JSON (GDPR Art. 20) or delete your account end-to-end from the app. NOT YET, BUT COMING Cross-hive reports, dashboards, equipment tracking, multi-user shared apiaries, and PDF exports for USDA ELAP are on the active roadmap. Photo analysis, conversational chat with the assistant, and Bluetooth-headset hands-free flow are tracked but deferred until pricing economics make sense. BUILT BY A BEEKEEPER WhisperBee is built by an active beekeeper who is also a software engineer, frustrated with taking notes in propolis-coated gloves. Every feature earns its place against one job: the part of beekeeping where your hands are full and the bees are loud. PRICING Free tier supports up to 2 hives. Paid plans: Backyard $8/mo (up to 10 hives), Sideliner $19/mo (up to 50 hives), Commercial $49/mo (up to 500 hives). Subscribe in the app or at whisperbee.app. Cancel anytime. Terms of Use (EULA): https://whisperbee.app/terms Privacy Policy: https://whisperbee.app/privacy

Screenshots

ApiNote4 screens
WhisperBee4 screens

Verdict

The call

ApiNote and WhisperBee both sit at 5.0 stars, but that hides the real split: 100% of WhisperBee's written reviews are positive against 67% of ApiNote's. WhisperBee also leads on update cadence (weekly vs every 2 weeks). On price, rating, ratings volume 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. ApiNote sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and WhisperBee sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $8.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for ApiNote against 5.0 for WhisperBee. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 4 and 2 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 67% of ApiNote's written reviews are positive against 100% of WhisperBee's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

ApiNote ships an update every 2 weeks, WhisperBee weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 12, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
ApiNote versus WhisperBee: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterApiNoteWhisperBee
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (4 ratings)5.0 (2 ratings)
Positive reviews66.7% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings4 — better2
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFreemium
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPod
Requires iOS15.0 — better15.1
Further details — not scored
Size150 MB54 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperPetr DrabekWhisperBee LLC

Customer experience

ApiNote

All ratings3 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive66.7%
Neutral33.3%
Negative0.0%

WhisperBee

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

3 purchases

ApiNote

Subscriptions3
  • ApiNote Pro$4.991 Month
  • ApiNote Pro monthly7 Days trial$4.991 Month
  • ApiNote Pro yearly$29.991 Year
3 purchases

WhisperBee

Subscriptions3
  • Backyard$8.991 Month
  • Sideliner$19.991 Month
  • Commercial$49.991 Month

Questions

Is ApiNote free?
ApiNote is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is WhisperBee free?
WhisperBee is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, ApiNote or WhisperBee?
ApiNote and WhisperBee are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 4 and 2 ratings respectively.
Do ApiNote or WhisperBee have ads?
Neither ApiNote nor WhisperBee shows ads.
Which is updated more often, ApiNote or WhisperBee?
ApiNote ships an update every 2 weeks, and WhisperBee weekly. Most recently, ApiNote was updated on October 24, 2026 and WhisperBee on October 12, 2026.

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