Diving Buddy vs Dive Wise App
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Diving Buddy
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Diving Buddy is a dive log, trip planner, and calculator suite for recreational and technical divers. Plan every dive. Dive the plan. Log the story. DIVE TRIPS & SITES • Build a trip, drop in dive sites by name or coords, capture the briefing, plan each dive, log it later. • Photo-backed site library — your home quarry through your bucket list. • Emergency contacts and trip notes travel with you offline. PLAN A DIVE THE WAY YOU'D BRIEF IT • Target depth, gas mix, planned bottom time, buddy, role. • Live MOD and NDL calculations as you tune the plan. • Suggestions drawn from your historical logs at the same site. LOG WITH THE FIELDS THAT MATTER • Max depth, bottom time, water temp, visibility, deco stops. • Computed SAC from your cylinder pressures — feeds back into future plans. • Gas mix (air, nitrox, or trimix), weight, buoyancy, equipment notes. • Free-form comments for the moments worth remembering. THE CALCULATOR SUITE Built around the math you actually use at the boat: • Max Operating Depth (MOD) — every mix, every PPO2 ceiling. • No-Decompression Limit (NDL) — Bühlmann ZH-L16C, including repetitive dives. • Surface Air Consumption (SAC) — derive it from any logged dive. • Run Time / Air Balance — does your gas last the planned profile? • Nitrox blending — continuous-blend planner. • Ascent gas required, oxygen toxicity, weight + cylinder weight change. • Coordinate converter. ALWAYS FREE • Reference material: Beaufort scale, deco tables, hand signals — bundled, offline, never gated. • Data export: every trip, dive, site, and photo as a JSON archive plus a PDF logbook. Export at any time. • Read-only access to everything you've already logged — forever, with or without a subscription. OPTIONAL SUBSCRIPTION Diving Buddy offers an optional auto-renewing annual subscription at $24.99/year with a 7-day free trial, or a one-time lifetime purchase at $59.99. Subscription auto-renews unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the period. Manage your subscription in your App Store account settings. Your dive logs and data remain accessible on your device whether you subscribe or not. Terms of Use (EULA): https://divingbuddyapp.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://divingbuddyapp.com/privacy
Dive Wise App
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Dive Wise is a scuba dive planner, dive logbook, underwater camera, and site mapper built for divers who want one private toolkit on their phone. Plan dives, log dives fast, color-correct underwater photos and videos, map dive sites, and review your dive history without creating an account. Dive Wise is offline-first: your dive data stays on your device unless you choose to export, back up, or share it. PLAN SAFER DIVES - Build recreational or technical dive plans with NDL, gas, turn pressure, MOD, ppO2, CNS, OTU, and decompression information. - Use Buhlmann ZHL-16C with Gradient Factors or VPM-B with conservatism levels. - Plan multi-gas, multi-level, nitrox, trimix, and CCR dives. - Check range plans, gas blending, altitude settings, repetitive dives, air breaks, tides, and weather. LOG DIVES FASTER - Add a dive in seconds with a customizable quick-entry wizard. - Check in by GPS and prefill site, gear, gas, conditions, buddy, and operator details. - Detect dives automatically with compatible depth sensors. - Sync supported Shearwater computers over Bluetooth and avoid duplicate logs. - Import and export UDDF, JSON, and CSV, with full local backup and restore. CAPTURE BETTER UNDERWATER MEDIA - Use an underwater camera designed for diving, not land. - Auto-detect water type and apply real-time color correction. - Adjust correction by depth, red/magenta filters, strobes, and custom presets. - Use Pro controls such as ISO, shutter, white balance, focus, zoom, histogram, zebras, focus peaking, level, grid, compass, and safe-area overlays where supported. - Keep photos and videos grouped by dive session and linked to the matching dive log. EXPLORE YOUR DIVE HISTORY - View dives on a world map with grouped site markers. - Track stats, personal records, SAC trends, countries, buddies, and milestones. - Search your logbook with 14 filters and save presets. - Auto-group trips by country and date. - Map dive sites with waypoints, routes, depth profiles, hazards, marine life, and offline bathymetry tiles. MANAGE GEAR AND DIVE DATA - Save cylinders, gas mixes, gear templates, exposure suits, weights, and accessories. - Track equipment, certifications, buddies, operators, and maintenance reminders. - Identify and reference marine life with an offline species database. - Choose your units: meters or feet, Celsius or Fahrenheit, bar or psi, kilograms or pounds. Built by divers for divers, Dive Wise is a practical mobile toolkit for planning, logging, filming, mapping, and learning from every dive. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://divewisely.com/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Diving Buddy at daily against Dive Wise App's every 4 days. Dive Wise App's advantage is device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.0). On price, ads and in-app purchases 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
Both are free to download. Diving Buddy sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $24.99 per year and Dive Wise App sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $2.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Diving Buddy ships an update daily, Dive Wise App every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on September 29, 2026 and October 1, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Diving Buddy | Dive Wise App |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Daily — better | Every 4 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 12 MB | 51 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Harry Richardson | Don Wise |
In-app purchases
Diving Buddy
- Diving Buddy$24.991 Year
- Diving Buddy$59.99
Dive Wise App
- Dive Wise Pro$2.991 Month









