Comparison

CicadaTAK vs Gear Locker

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

Head to head
About

CicadaTAK

This app transforms your phone into a live tactical display for areas without cell service or internet. It connects to custom-built mesh radio nodes to create a self-healing network for real-time location sharing, encrypted chat, and push-to-talk voice communication.

Highlights
  • Live tactical display without cell service
  • Self-healing mesh network with custom radio nodes
  • Real-time teammate location and breadcrumb trails
  • Encrypted team chat and photo sharing
  • Push-to-talk voice communication
  • Offline map browsing and layer downloads
  • Node setup and management from the app
Features
Read full description

CicadaTAK turns your phone into a live tactical display for places with no cell service and no internet — backcountry, disaster response, large properties, search grids, event perimeters. It is the companion app for CicadaTAK mesh nodes: 900 MHz radios you build yourself from a fully documented hardware recipe (parts list and instructions at cicadatak.com). Nodes form a self-healing mesh that reaches over a mile per hop and relays through every teammate, so coverage grows as the team spreads out. Your phone joins a node's WiFi and the radios do the rest. WORKS WITH ATAK AND iTAK • Nodes speak Cursor-on-Target in both directions — positions, chat and markers pass between this app and ATAK or iTAK devices on the same node • No TAK server, no data plan, no setup beyond joining the node's WiFi • Run this app, run ATAK, or run both side by side on one team LIVE TEAM MAP • Teammates update live with callsigns, colors and breadcrumb trails • A position that stops being current turns grey and shows its age instead of vanishing, so you always know how old the picture is • Offline maps — download aerial, topo and street layers onto the node and use them with zero internet • Drop markers, draw geofence zones, measure distance and bearing, save routes ENCRYPTED TEAM CHAT • End-to-end encrypted with your team passphrase — the key never leaves your team • Share photos from camera or gallery, carried over the radio, never through a server • Delivery receipts, canned quick replies, and roll call for fast accountability PUSH-TO-TALK VOICE • Live streaming PTT to the whole team — real voice traffic, not recorded clips • Tuned to stay intelligible on marginal links LONG-RANGE LoRa BRIDGE • Nodes fitted with LoRa hardware bridge to Meshtastic radios, carrying positions and text far beyond the main mesh • Three privacy modes, from open interoperability to fully dark RUN THE NETWORK FROM YOUR POCKET • Set up a new node from the app — no laptop, no terminal • Live topology graph of every radio link, colored by measured throughput • Node list with signal, battery and hardware status; one-tap ping for round-trip time • Trade speed for range across the whole team at once, with automatic revert if a node doesn't come back • Update node firmware over the air YOUR DATA STAYS YOURS • No accounts, no sign-up, no cloud, no analytics • Everything travels phone to your own radio to your teammates' phones • There is no server in the path, so there is nothing for us to see IMPORTANT • Full functionality requires CicadaTAK node hardware. Without a node the app runs in Standalone Mode: your own GPS on the map, offline map browsing, and every screen navigable — mesh chat, PTT and team positions activate when you connect to a node. • Nodes operate in the 902–928 MHz license-free ISM band on the United States channel plan, which is also licence-exempt in Canada,Mexico, and Australia. No radio license required. • Build your nodes at cicadatak.com — an open, fully documented hardware build on an open-source radio and mesh foundation.

About

Gear Locker

Features
Read full description

Making lists sucks. Building a loadout is awesome. Gear Locker keeps every piece of gear you own in one place, then packs it into loadouts you can print and go. Cameras, drones, laptops, radios, camping gear: if you spent money on it, it belongs in your locker. YOUR LOCKER Every item gets its own dataplate: make, model, counts, accessories, and any detail you care about. You decide how deep your records go. A name is enough; the details can come later. BUILD LOADOUTS LIKE A GAME Equip gear for a trip the way you kit a character. Range day, three night hike, family camp: tap plates to equip them, hit COMMIT, and the loadout is saved forever. Reuse it next trip or build a new one. PRINT THE MANIFEST Every loadout prints a pack sheet with OUT and IN checkboxes and a signature line. Pack against it, hand it to whoever checks the truck, or file it for your records. CHECK GEAR OUT AND IN Red means out in the field. Green means home in the locker. Check out a whole loadout at once and see at a glance what came home. YOUR SERIALS STAY YOURS Fields you mark sensitive, like serial numbers, are encrypted on your device before they sync. We cannot read them. Ever. ADD GEAR BY VOICE (PRO) Describe the gear in plain words and the fields fill themselves. You review everything before it saves. CHOOSE YOUR LOOK Three themes: Safe, Neutral, and Techy. Your locker should feel like your world. FREE TO USE, FOREVER The free tier covers 3 categories and 6 items with every feature included, and it never expires. Gear Locker Pro unlocks unlimited categories, unlimited gear, and voice entry: $5.99 a month, $39.99 a year, or $99.99 once for lifetime access. Nothing is ever deleted if you step back down. Built for people who take their gear seriously.

Screenshots

CicadaTAK4 screens
Gear Locker3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Gear Locker at Free against CicadaTAK's $2.99. CicadaTAK's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and device support (3 vs 1). On ads and iOS requirement 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

Gear Locker is free to download; CicadaTAK costs $2.99 up front. Gear Locker sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. CicadaTAK asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard3 real differences · 6 level
CicadaTAK versus Gear Locker: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCicadaTAKGear Locker
Price$2.99Free — better
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 4 days—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.1 — better16.0
Further details — not scored
Size30 MB1 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMerbella Studios IncJacob Knight

In-app purchases

None

CicadaTAK

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Gear Locker

One-time1
  • Gear Locker Lifetime$99.99

Questions

Is CicadaTAK free?
CicadaTAK costs $2.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Gear Locker free?
Gear Locker is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do CicadaTAK or Gear Locker have ads?
Neither CicadaTAK nor Gear Locker shows ads.

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