Comparison

Sunset Roaster vs LightTide

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

Head to head
About

Sunset Roaster

Features
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Sunset Roaster is a simple sunset photo journal for people who never want a great sky to disappear into their camera roll. Capture a sunset with a new photo or choose one from your library, then save the note and place behind the moment. With Sunset Roaster you can: - Save sunset photos with notes and location details - Auto-fill places from your current location or photo metadata when available - Browse past sunsets in a calm, swipeable timeline - View saved sunset locations on a map - Unlock Sunset Reminders Pro with a one-time purchase for local sunset notifications Private by design: - Your photos, notes, and location data stay on your device - No account required - No ads - No third-party analytics or tracking Sunset Reminders Pro is an optional one-time, non-subscription purchase. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

LightTide

Features
Read full description

Drag the time bar and the light moves across the map. Golden hour, blue hour and the Milky Way window on one screen, in the local time of the point you pick. No account, no server of ours. Your coordinates stay on the phone, and the calculations keep running where there is no signal. A map where the light moves Drag the time bar and the sky over the map, the lines pointing to the sun and the moon, and the band the Milky Way traces all move to that moment together. It is not a table of times: you run a finger across a whole day of light. A short haptic marks the moment you cross into golden hour or out of it. Nothing animates on its own โ€” the light moves while your finger does. Tonight's Milky Way window The hours when the galactic core sits above the horizon and the sky is dark enough that astronomical twilight has ended. You get the direction and the altitude of the core at its highest point, and where the moon stands over it: No moonlight, Faint moonlight or Strong moonlight. Moon and season Moon phase, moonrise and moonset, plus a season calendar that lays out a month one night at a time. Among the nights the Milky Way is up, pick the nights with little moonlight and set your shoot date. Spots and heads-ups Save the places you shoot from. Each one lists today's golden hour and Milky Way window in a single line. Notifications before evening golden hour and before the Milky Way rises are optional. Checked, not guessed Positions of the sun, the moon and the galactic core are computed with established astronomical algorithms (the NOAA solar equations and Meeus) and checked against published sunrise and sunset times. Every definition the app uses is written out in Settings. On a night the Milky Way stays down you get the reason โ€” the latitude is too high for the core, the sky never gets dark enough, the season is wrong โ€” and the next chance. Weather is not part of this LightTide tells you where the sun, the moon and the galactic core are, and when. Clouds and light pollution sit outside the math, so nothing here is promised as visible; reading the sky that night is yours to do. Privacy No account. No usage tracking. No server of ours. The only network traffic is map tiles, and LightTide has the map provider's usage tracking switched off. Fetching tiles does tell that provider which area you are viewing โ€” true of every app that draws a map. Once the tiles are cached, the app keeps working at a trailhead with no bars.

Screenshots

Sunset Roaster4 screens
LightTide4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: LightTide at none against Sunset Roaster's 1. LightTide also leads on iOS requirement (16.4 vs 26.0). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.

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. Sunset Roaster sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. LightTide asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard2 real differences ยท 3 level
Sunset Roaster versus LightTide: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSunset RoasterLightTide
PriceFreeFree
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo โ€” better
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS26.016.4 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size9 MB70 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMing tai LinKYUNGHWAN KIM

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Sunset Roaster

One-time1
  • Sunset Reminders Pro$1.99
None

LightTide

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Sunset Roaster free?
Sunset Roaster is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is LightTide free?
LightTide is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Sunset Roaster or LightTide have ads?
Neither Sunset Roaster nor LightTide shows ads.

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