Comparison

Dossier vs Face Mosaic

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

Head to head
About

Dossier

Features
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Dossier is a privacy-first iPhone camera for the three jobs where pointing an unredacted lens at a person is a real problem: real estate, legal, and journalism. Faces blur in real time. Voices pitch-shift before the audio is even written to the file. Nothing ever leaves your phone. FOR REAL ESTATE AGENTS Walk a listing without filming the seller, their kids, or the family photos on the wall. Every face in frame is mosaiced as you record โ€” including the buyer who just walked into your shot. Drop a manual blur box over a license plate or personal mail. Name each clip in your library ("412 Maple โ€” kitchen") and sort by listing, client, or date. FOR PARALEGALS AND INVESTIGATORS Capture a witness statement with the speaker's voice pitch-shifted from the moment of capture, so no unredacted audio is ever stored. Every export carries a SHA-256 fingerprint you can prove later in court โ€” show months from now that a copy is bit-for-bit identical to the original, or prove it isn't. Live captions burn into the recording for transcription. Lock the library behind Face ID. FOR JOURNALISTS Bystanders auto-blur so a source isn't compromised by being in your B-roll. Mark Region covers anything the auto-pass missed โ€” a badge, a door number. The Safety Pass re-scans your finished clip for faces detected at frame edges. Everything happens locally โ€” no servers, no telemetry, no third-party SDKs. WHAT DOSSIER DOES โ€ข Real-time face blur โ€” baked into the file, no unredacted version is ever stored. โ€ข Voice change โ€” pitch-shifted before audio is written. โ€ข Live captions โ€” on-device speech recognition, burned into video. โ€ข Tamper-evident receipts โ€” SHA-256 fingerprint + audit PDF for every export. โ€ข Dual-aspect & dual-camera โ€” portrait + landscape in one take, or front + back simultaneously. โ€ข Mark Region โ€” manual blur box over anything missed. โ€ข Safety Pass โ€” second-look scan for missed faces. โ€ข Photos too โ€” stills get the same face-blur pipeline. โ€ข Import & redact existing footage from your Photos library. โ€ข Titles & tags โ€” built for libraries past a hundred clips. PRIVACY โ€ข No accounts. No sign-up. No analytics. No ads. โ€ข No network access of any kind. Dossier has no servers. โ€ข Face detection, voice change, captions, hashing โ€” all run on-device. โ€ข Face ID / passcode lock optional on the library. REQUIREMENTS โ€ข iPhone running iOS 17 or later. โ€ข Multi-camera and dual-aspect need iPhone 11 or later. A NOTE ON LAWFUL USE Recording laws vary by jurisdiction. Many places require all-party consent for private conversations. Dossier shows a one-time disclaimer on first launch โ€” lawful use is your responsibility. The redaction features are a defense-in-depth tool, not a substitute for consent.

About

Face Mosaic

Features
Read full description

Mosaic the face. Or everything but it. Live, on camera. 50 effects running in real time. No editing. What you see is what you get. FACE MASK : : : Flip to the front camera and the app finds your face with Apple's TrueDepth tracking โ€” the full 3D mesh, not a rectangle. Three modes: mosaic just the face, mosaic everything except the face, or mosaic the whole frame. Two dials: SIZE opens the mask wider than the mesh, SOFT feathers the edge. The mask holds through turns, tilts and fast movement, because it's tracked at 60 Hz, not detected every few frames. Everything happens on the device. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored. MOSAIC : : : Mosaic Glass. Mosaic Round. Mosaic Glass Fine. Mosaic Blend. Circle Drop. Circle Packing. Quad Blocks. Shatter. LED Screen. Pixelate. Triangles. Diamond. Hex Dots. Honeycomb. Brick. Radial Mosaic. Depth Ramp. Cells break, pack, tile and stack. Radial Mosaic winds its rings out from your face. Depth Ramp keeps cells tight on the face and lets them grow toward the edges of the frame. DOTS : : : Halftone. Halftone Color. Halftone Pop. Stipple. Cross Hatch. Cross Dots. Bayer Dither. Newsprint. Photocopy. Comic. Print rasters, ordered dithering and a real CMYK newsprint screen with all three plates at their proper angles. LINES : : : Ink Lines. Chalk Lines. Pencil. Blueprint. Contour. Radial Lines. Spirals in yellow, magenta and vermilion. Moving waves in acid green, cyan and violet. The spirals turn, and they turn around your face. Vermilion opens two of them โ€” one per eye. Radial Lines throws rays out from the head. Contour reads the frame as a topographic map. FX : : : Digital Rain. ASCII. Cartoon. Thermal. Night Vision. Edge Glow. CRT. Slice Glitch. Ripple. Droste Soft. SHOOT : : : Photos while recording โ€” the still matches the frame exactly. 1080 x 1920, 30 or 60 fps, with sound. No length limit. Front and back camera. Straight to your photo library. No watermark, ever. Point. Pick. Record. MOSAIC PRO : : : Payment is charged to your Apple ID at confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions renew automatically unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel anytime in your Apple ID settings. Weekly - 4.99 USD per week. Annual - 39.99 USD per year, with a 7-day free trial. https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ https://sites.google.com/view/awesome-world-app/face-mosaic-camera-fx-pp

Screenshots

Dossier4 screens
Face Mosaic4 screens

Verdict

The call

Dossier and Face Mosaic are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters โ€” price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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. Dossier sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Face Mosaic sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per 7 days. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Dossier versus Face Mosaic: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDossierFace Mosaic
PriceFreeFree
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS17.016.6 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size6 MB3 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperWeihan DingSerhii Rymar

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Dossier

One-time1
  • Dossier Pro$9.99
2 purchases

Face Mosaic

Subscriptions2
  • Mosaic PRO Weekly$4.997 Days
  • Mosaic PRO Annual7 Days trial$39.991 Year

Questions

Is Dossier free?
Dossier is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Face Mosaic free?
Face Mosaic is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Dossier or Face Mosaic have ads?
Neither Dossier nor Face Mosaic shows ads.

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