Comparison

Forest Weather vs LensTrails

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

Head to head
About

Forest Weather

Features
Read full description

This is not a weather app. It's a photography planning tool Get notified when conditions are perfect for your next sunrise shoot. Forest Weather uses high-resolution models like KNMI Harmonie (2 km) to alert you about fog, sun rays, snow, and visibility, so you never miss the perfect morning. Built by a professional landscape photographer with 15+ years of field experience. Features no other app offers: sun ray (crepuscular ray) alerts, fully customizable condition-based notifications, and a sunrise conditions map covering up to 600x900 km. No ads, no tracking, no data collection. Just the data photographers need. WIDGET - Home screen widget with visibility, humidity, sun percentage, and rain - Color-coded indicators when conditions meet your thresholds - Sunrise and sunset times at a glance - Customizable background color and transparency - Automatic updates at configurable intervals FORECAST - Conditions at sunrise - the golden window for forest photography - Fog, sunray, and snow alerts based on your thresholds - Hourly graphs for visibility, humidity, sun percentage, rain, and snow - Sunrise markers on graphs to plan your timing - Switches to tomorrow's forecast after sunrise TABLE - 3-day hourly table with clouds, afterglow, sun%, visibility, temperature, dew point, humidity, dew, frost, rain, snow, wind speed, and wind direction - Sunlight and moon bars with solar noon and moon transit markers - Color-coded cells for quick visual assessment - Up to 5 custom alert profiles with rules on any parameter, notified within 24 or 48 hours MAP - Sunrise visibility map with interpolated conditions on a meteorological color scale - Sunrise alert map with fog, sunray, and snow alerts - Toggle visibility/alert view or current/+24h with one tap - Grid area: 200x300, 400x600, or 600x900 km - Color-coded: blue for fog, yellow for sunrays, green for both, white for snow LOCATIONS - Fog, sunray, and snow alerts for popular forest locations in the Netherlands - Add custom locations by name or by tapping the map - Per-location notifications - Select which locations to monitor ALERTS & NOTIFICATIONS - Push notifications for fog, sunray, and snow conditions - Forest location notifications - All thresholds fully customizable SETTINGS - GPS or custom location - Metric or Imperial units - Multiple weather models: Auto, KNMI HARMONIE, DMI HARMONIE, DWD ICON-EU, HRRR, CMA GRAPES - Update intervals: 1 to 12 hours - Light, dark, or system theme - English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and French PRIVACY Your privacy matters. Forest Weather: - Does NOT collect any personal data - Does NOT use analytics or ads - Location is only used to fetch weather data - All data stays on your device SUBSCRIPTION Forest Weather is free to use for 7 days - no subscription needed during the trial. After the trial period, the app will stop working. To continue using it, a monthly subscription is required. - Price shown in App Store - Payment is charged to your Apple ID - Subscription renews automatically each month - Cancel anytime in Settings - Subscriptions Privacy Policy: https://ios_apps712614.gitlab.io/ForestWeatherWidget_iOS/ Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Built with care by Martin Podt - www.martinpodt.com

About

LensTrails

Features
Read full description

LensTrails is a private photography journal and intelligent shoot planner for photographers who collect places, ideas and experiences, not just pictures. Try LensTrails Pro free for one month, with no registration. Viewpoints are available through the separate LensTrails Complete subscription. After the trial, an active subscription is required. BUILD YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY JOURNAL Save locations from the map, Google Maps, a new photo or a geolocated camera-roll image. Keep: โ€ข Photos, notes and creative ideas โ€ข Tags, ratings and location types โ€ข Preferred month and time of day โ€ข Shooting direction โ€ข Address, coordinates, elevation and distance โ€ข Visit and return-planning details Browse your journal on a map, in a searchable list or as a photo grid. Filter by name, notes, tags, type, rating, distance or preferred shooting time. DISCOVER VIEWPOINTS LensTrails introduces Viewpoints, a curated worldwide catalog of promising photography locations. Explore Viewpoints on the map, open a location to see its available photos, notes, tags, address and photographic context, then evaluate its conditions using LensTrails planning tools. Import the locations that interest you into your private journal and add your own photos, notes, tags, rating, shooting direction and preferred timing. Viewpoints help you discover places. LensTrails helps you plan the photograph. Your personal locations remain private and are never published, crowdsourced or added to the public catalog. GET SMART SHOOT SUGGESTIONS LensTrails evaluates saved locations using their character, tags, preferred timing, shooting direction, weather, clouds, fog, sunrise and sunset quality, sun position, moonlight, night-sky conditions, aurora potential, light pollution and tides where relevant. Each suggestion provides a score, recommended time window, direction to face and an explanation of why the conditions may work. Long-term suggestions identify useful months and times to return. PLAN WEATHER, LIGHT AND SKY See current conditions and a five-day forecast, including temperature, rain, wind, humidity, visibility and cloud layers. A 24-hour cloud graph helps reveal changing conditions. Plan daylight, golden hour, blue hour, sunrise, sunset, moon, stars, Milky Way and aurora photography. Use map overlays and Sky Path camera previews to understand how light and sky objects move around a scene. FIND DARKER SKIES Explore light pollution on the map and understand how nearby light sources may affect night photography. PLAN COASTAL PHOTOGRAPHY See five-day tide forecasts and detailed tide curves. LensTrails can consider tides when suggesting shoots involving beaches, rocks, reflections, access and moving water. MADE FOR THE FIELD Search by address or place, check elevation, navigate with your preferred mapping app, share locations and receive reminders. Export your journal as GPX or CSV. Your locations remain private on your iPhone, with optional private iCloud sync between Apple devices. LensTrails is made for landscape, cityscape, seascape, travel, drone, street, wildlife and outdoor photographers. Terms of Use: https://lenstrails.jerome.photo/eula.html Privacy Policy: https://lenstrails.jerome.photo/privacy.html

Screenshots

Forest Weather4 screens
LensTrails4 screens

Verdict

The call

Forest Weather and LensTrails are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters โ€” price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them โ€” neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Forest Weather sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $1.99 per month and LensTrails sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Forest Weather ships an update every 2 days, LensTrails every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 9, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Forest Weather versus LensTrails: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterForest WeatherLensTrails
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 2 days โ€” betterEvery 3 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
DevicesiPhone, iPad โ€” betteriPhone
Requires iOS16.0 โ€” better17.0
Further details โ€” not scored
Size11 MB87 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMarinus PodtJerome Bei

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Forest Weather

Subscriptions1
  • Forest Weather Monthly$1.991 Month
2 purchases

LensTrails

Subscriptions2
  • Pro Monthly$3.991 Month
  • Pro Yearly$44.991 Year

Questions

Is Forest Weather free?
Forest Weather is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is LensTrails free?
LensTrails is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Forest Weather or LensTrails have ads?
Neither Forest Weather nor LensTrails shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Forest Weather or LensTrails?
Forest Weather ships an update every 2 days, and LensTrails every 3 days. Most recently, Forest Weather was updated on October 9, 2026 and LensTrails on October 25, 2026.

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