Comparison

Meridian Nav vs Navigation Almanac

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

Head to head
About

Meridian Nav

This app provides comprehensive offline marine navigation tools for sailors. It offers GPS tracking, offline chart display, route management, and various celestial and navigational calculations. All features are accessible without an internet connection.

Highlights
  • Offline GPS position monitoring
  • Offline chart and waypoint display
  • .rtz route import and management
  • Navigation calculations
  • Celestial body data
  • Sun/moon event times
Features
Read full description

Meridian is a celestial navigation toolkit built at sea by a working deck officer — fully offline, because mid-ocean is exactly where you need it. SIGHT REDUCTION Compute Hc, Zn and intercept for the Sun, Moon, four planets and 63 navigational stars. Enter your DR position, date/time and sextant altitude — get your line of position. COMPASS ERROR Check gyro error by azimuth of any celestial body — the daily routine, without the almanac and tables. Magnetic variation (WMM2025) is built in for magnetic compass work. STAR FINDER A polar sky-dome view shows exactly which bodies are observable right now from your position — plan your twilight sights before stepping out on the bridge wing. Includes an azimuth-scatter view for picking the best LOP geometry. SUN / MOON Rise, set, meridian passage and twilight times for any position and date. MARINE CHART — FULLY OFFLINE A custom offline vector chart with world time-zone (ZD) boundaries, DST awareness, ports and waypoint routes. Import route files (.rtz / .rou) straight from your ECDIS. CLOCK PLAN Generate the entire voyage's retard/advance schedule from your route — including DST transitions and solar-zone departures. Reorder or edit the changes, then export a clean calendar-style PDF or Excel notice, ready to post on board. UNIT CONVERTER The conversions a navigator actually uses, in two taps. ACCURACY & VALIDATION Every body — Sun, Moon, planets and 63 navigational stars — is cross-checked against JPL ephemeris data (the same source behind the official Nautical Almanac) to arc-minute agreement. Star positions are computed for the current date from the ESA Hipparcos catalogue. Sun azimuth verified at sea against a ship's bridge calculator, and against NOAA's solar calculator (0.000° difference). MADE FOR Deck officers who want a fast backup and sanity check, cadets and officers studying celestial navigation, and anyone who believes a navigator should still be able to find a ship without a satellite. No account. No ads. No subscription. No internet required. One-time purchase. IMPORTANT Meridian is a reference and training aid for celestial navigation. It is not a certified navigation system and does not replace official nautical publications, charts, or type-approved equipment.

About

Navigation Almanac

This app provides a comprehensive offline celestial navigation toolkit. It calculates celestial body positions, sunrise/set times, and sky charts. It also offers tools for compass error correction and position fixing, all without requiring an internet connection.

Highlights
  • Offline celestial almanac data
  • Sight reduction calculations
  • Rise, set, and twilight times
  • Sky view chart and dome
  • Live GPS position and course
  • Compass error correction
  • Fix calculator
Features
Read full description

Navigation Almanac is a complete celestial-navigation toolkit for iPhone and iPad. It reduces a sight, tabulates the almanac data you would otherwise look up on paper, and works entirely offline - no signal, no subscription, no account. SIGHT REDUCTION Enter your position and the date and time in UTC or local time, then pick a body. You get azimuth and computed altitude, GHA, LHA, SHA and declination, semi-diameter and horizontal parallax, along with the magnetic variation from the WMM-2025 model and the current value of ΔT. ALMANAC The Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn together with the 57 navigational stars, each with azimuth, altitude, hour angles and declination for the moment you have chosen. RISE, SET AND TWILIGHT Rise, meridian transit and set for any body, with civil and nautical twilight at the Sun's standard altitudes (-0°50′ / -6° / -12°), shown in UTC or local time. SKY VIEW The sky drawn as a chart of azimuth against altitude, or as a full-sky dome with the zenith at the centre. Background stars, constellation lines, and a predicted GNSS satellite layer computed from a bundled orbital catalogue. GPS Live position, course and speed over ground, altitude and horizontal accuracy, the magnetic variation at your position, and the ephemeris of the selected body. One tap fills the observer position for a reduction. COMPASS ERROR Solve gyro and magnetic compass error from an observed bearing, with variation and deviation kept separate, the way the correction is actually applied on the bridge. FIX CALCULATOR Cross two lines of position from your reductions, advance the first line for the vessel's run between sights, and read off the observed position. WORKS OFFLINE The ephemerides are computed on the device from the VSOP87 and ELP2000 series with IAU 1980 nutation - they are not downloaded. Everything above works with the phone in airplane mode, weeks from shore. SIXTEEN LANGUAGES English, Russian, Ukrainian, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Polish, Swedish, Danish, Greek, Turkish, Latvian and Simplified Chinese. The navigation terminology in each was taken from that country's own nautical almanac and navigation textbooks rather than translated word for word. NAVIGATIONAL WARNINGS Warnings in force from the national coordinators of the worldwide navigational warning service, grouped by country and by NAVAREA, with the full text of every message and the positions read out of it. The feed is rebuilt every hour and the last copy stays on the device, so it is there when the signal is not. This is an experimental feature and the screen says so: the data is gathered automatically, it can lag behind the broadcast, and it can be incomplete. It does not relieve you of the requirement to receive Maritime Safety Information over NAVTEX and SafetyNET as provided for by SOLAS. Navigation Almanac is a computational aid. Carry the official almanac and tables required for your voyage.

Screenshots

Meridian Nav4 screens
Navigation Almanac4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Navigation Almanac at Free against Meridian Nav's $0.99. Meridian Nav's advantage is iOS requirement (13.0 vs 17.0). On review sentiment, update cadence, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Navigation Almanac is free to download; Meridian Nav costs $0.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Meridian Nav ships an update every 6 days, Navigation Almanac weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 28, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Meridian Nav versus Navigation Almanac: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMeridian NavNavigation Almanac
Price$0.99Free — better
Rating—5.0 (3 ratings) — better
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—3 — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 days — betterWeekly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS13.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size36 MB4 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSEUNGHYEOK CHOIVladyslav Zenchenko

Customer experience

Meridian Nav

Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Navigation Almanac

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Meridian Nav

No in-app purchases

None

Navigation Almanac

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Meridian Nav free?
Meridian Nav costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Navigation Almanac free?
Navigation Almanac is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Meridian Nav or Navigation Almanac have ads?
Neither Meridian Nav nor Navigation Almanac shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Meridian Nav or Navigation Almanac?
Meridian Nav ships an update every 6 days, and Navigation Almanac weekly. Most recently, Meridian Nav was updated on October 28, 2026 and Navigation Almanac on October 24, 2026.

Other comparisons