Comparison

tldiagram vs Apperture

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

Head to head
About

tldiagram

Features
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Software system-architecture diagramming app that helps engineering teams design, debug, and communicate complex distributed systems. tldiagram makes it easy to create nested views of a complex system with higher detail as you go deeper that can be zoomed in and out to give you the context you need without the noise.

About

Apperture

Features
Read full description

Apperture lets you see and control one Mac app right from your iPhone — not your whole desktop. Apperture mirrors just the app that matters, full-screen on your phone, so it feels like the app is running in your hand. Traditional screen sharing puts a 27-inch desktop on a 6-inch screen and makes you pan, zoom, and hunt for windows. Apperture takes the opposite approach: pick a single running Mac app and it fills your iPhone with a sharp, low-latency live view sized for the screen you're actually holding. BUILT FOR DEVELOPERS • Mirror the iOS Simulator and it feels native: touches map directly, and rotating your phone rotates the simulated app. • Keep working while your Mac builds and runs. Perfect for agent-assisted coding — let Claude Code or your favorite agent build and launch the app on your Mac, then review and interact with the result from anywhere in the house. • Stream any Xcode-launched Mac app with its real window chrome intact. FULL CONTROL, NOT JUST A VIEW • Tap, drag, long-press for right-click, two-finger scroll — touch input translated naturally to the Mac. • Type with the iPhone keyboard, including full Unicode text entry. • Browse and run the Mac app's real menu bar commands from a searchable, touch-friendly palette. • Send clipboard text securely between devices. • Fit-width, fit-height, and readable-zoom layout modes in portrait and landscape. PRIVATE BY DESIGN • No accounts. No cloud relay. Your screen never touches our servers. • Pairing starts with a short-lived QR code on your Mac, and the Mac owner must explicitly approve every phone. • Connections work only over private networks — your Wi-Fi or your own VPN such as Tailscale. Public endpoints are rejected by design. • Every session is encrypted. Pairing trust is stored in the device Keychain and never synced to the cloud. • Review or revoke paired devices anytime. The Mac keeps a local 30-day session history — device, time, and app names only, never keystrokes or screen contents. GOOD TO KNOW • Apperture requires the free companion Mac app from runapperture.com. It's notarized by Apple and distributed directly because it uses Screen Recording and Accessibility permissions the Mac App Store doesn't allow. • Away from home, you'll need a VPN to reach your Mac — Tailscale takes about five minutes to set up, works beautifully, and is free for personal use. • Your Mac does all the work, so it needs to be on, awake, and logged in. Apperture is a viewer and controller for your own Mac, not a way to run Mac apps on iPhone. • Apperture streams one selected window at a time — that focus is the point. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

tldiagram4 screens
Apperture4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: tldiagram at none against Apperture's 1. tldiagram also leads on update cadence (every 2 weeks vs monthly) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.0). On price, ads 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Apperture sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. tldiagram asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

tldiagram ships an update every 2 weeks, Apperture monthly. The most recent releases landed on October 9, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 6 level
tldiagram versus Apperture: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParametertldiagramApperture
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—1 — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeks — betterMonthly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size47 MB13 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developermert can ciklaLAND MK 1

In-app purchases

None

tldiagram

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Apperture

One-time1
  • Early Adopter$24.99

Questions

Is tldiagram free?
tldiagram is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Apperture free?
Apperture is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do tldiagram or Apperture have ads?
Neither tldiagram nor Apperture shows ads.
Which is updated more often, tldiagram or Apperture?
tldiagram ships an update every 2 weeks, and Apperture monthly. Most recently, tldiagram was updated on October 9, 2026 and Apperture on October 25, 2026.

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