Comparison

WeatherBolt vs Elseweather

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

Head to head
About

WeatherBolt

Visualize live lightning strikes on a detailed radar map and receive storm proximity alerts. Access high-resolution weather data including radar, satellite imagery, wind, waves, and tides. Customize forecasts and safety thresholds to your needs.

Highlights
  • Live lightning strike visualization
  • High-resolution radar and satellite maps
  • Customizable storm proximity alerts
  • Detailed wind, wave, and tide data
  • Hourly and 7-day forecasts
  • Apple Watch complications
Features
Read full description

WeatherBolt (formerly HarborCast) shows radar, lightning and the forecast for the places you save, with tides and marine tools you can turn on if you are out on the water. RADAR A radar map that plays back the last 2 hours. Pan, zoom and scrub back through time to see where rain is heading. Radar is free. LIVE LIGHTNING See lightning strikes on the map as they happen, with the distance to the nearest one. A short free preview is included. Live lightning is part of Pro. ALERTS AND STORMS Pro sends a notification when lightning is close, or when a tropical storm's forecast path comes within the distance you pick, even when the app is closed. Pro also adds storm tracks, cones and forecast points. FORECAST Current conditions, the next hours and a daily forecast. Free shows today and the next 3 days. Pro shows all 7 days. YOUR OWN LIMITS Set your own numbers for wind, gusts, rain and visibility (and waves with Tides & marine on). The app rates each hour Good, Caution or Danger against them. Saving your limits is part of Pro. WIDGETS AND APPLE WATCH Home Screen widgets and Watch complications show current conditions. TIDES AND MARINE Optional. Turn on tides and the marine forecast if you spend time on the water. DATA Weather data comes from NOAA, the National Weather Service and NASA imagery. WeatherBolt is not endorsed by NOAA. Pricing and any free trial are shown in the app and on the App Store before you subscribe. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://topshopnation.com/weatherbolt/privacy.html

About

Elseweather

Read full description

Most weather apps answer what. You name a place, they draw you the sky. Elseweather answers where. Pan the map, set the conditions you’re after, and the cities that match are the ones left on the screen. The map is the search Pan to a region and the largest cities in view pick up a temperature, a condition icon and a fortnight of trend. Set a filter and the ones that don’t match drop away, so what’s left is an answer rather than a picture. Conditions, not just places Pick the conditions you’ll accept, sunny, cloudy, fog, rain, snow, storm, then drag a temperature band, cap the rain chance, the wind or the air quality index. They combine, and they’re read over whichever days you point them at: all of them, or any one. Now, then fourteen days A slider steps from the live reading out to a fortnight ahead. The map redraws for the day you’re on, and a filter can sit on a window of days that isn’t the one you’re looking at. Tap a city for the rest A scrubbable chart, a day-by-day table that unfolds into hours, rainfall in millimetres, wind, humidity and air quality, as far ahead as the forecast actually reaches, and no further. Layers over the top Temperature, precipitation, wind and pressure as raster layers under the annotations. Widgets Add the Here widget to your home or lock screen and it shows the conditions where you are — the temperature, the sky, and the hours coming up with the chance of rain under them. It takes its own reading in the background, so it's current when you glance at it, and a tap opens the full forecast for wherever you're standing. No account, no tracking There’s no sign-in, no profile and no analytics or advertising code. Nothing is watching which buttons you press. Elseweather Plus The first three days stay free for everyone. Plus opens all 14, on the map, in the search filter and in every city you tap. Terms of use Elseweather supplies no licence of its own, so it’s covered by Apple’s standard end user licence agreement: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

WeatherBolt4 screens
Elseweather4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Elseweather at none against WeatherBolt's 2. Elseweather also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs every 4 days). WeatherBolt's advantage is iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). 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. WeatherBolt sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Elseweather asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

WeatherBolt ships an update every 4 days, Elseweather every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on November 5, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
WeatherBolt versus Elseweather: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterWeatherBoltElseweather
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (4 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings4 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 4 daysEvery 2 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple WatchiPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS17.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size15 MB11 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperCoreForge LLCJasper Bel

In-app purchases

2 purchases

WeatherBolt

Subscriptions2
  • WeatherBolt Pro3 Days trial$3.991 Month
  • WeatherBolt Pro3 Days trial$24.991 Year
None

Elseweather

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is WeatherBolt free?
WeatherBolt is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Elseweather free?
Elseweather is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do WeatherBolt or Elseweather have ads?
Neither WeatherBolt nor Elseweather shows ads.
Which is updated more often, WeatherBolt or Elseweather?
WeatherBolt ships an update every 4 days, and Elseweather every 2 days. Most recently, WeatherBolt was updated on November 5, 2026 and Elseweather on October 31, 2026.

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