Bolted vs Lightning Radar
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Bolted
Receive real-time lightning alerts and safety guidance. Create custom zones to monitor, get shelter countdowns, and receive notifications when it's safe to go outside. Features include live activity updates and Apple Watch integration.
- Real-time lightning monitoring
- Custom Watch Zones
- Shelter countdowns
- Live Activity updates
- Apple Watch integration
- Customizable notification frequency
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Bolted helps you know when lightning is nearby and when it is reasonable to return outside. Great for parents, coaches, and anyone else spending time outside. Create lightning Watch Zones for the places you care about, get lightning alerts when strikes are detected nearby, and follow a clear shelter countdown until conditions improve. Bolted can notify you when the shelter period has ended, show Live Activity updates on your Lock Screen, and keep key status visible from Apple Watch. Features: - Real-time lightning monitoring at current location - See thunder shockwaves in real-time for each strike - GPU-optimized lightning animations and haptics for each strike (you see it and feel it) - Lightning notifications for saved Watch Zones - Countdown to all clear after nearby strikes - All-clear notifications after 30 minutes with no detected lightning - Lock Screen and Dynamic Island Live Activity - Apple Watch Live Activity view - Custom Watch Zone radius - Lightning status: Shelter, Caution, Clear - Recent strike distance and timing - Notification frequency controls - Mute notifications temporarily - Share live storm view with others - Distance metrics in miles or kilometers Terms of Service: https://www.boltedapp.com/terms.html Privacy Policy: https://www.boltedapp.com/privacy.html
Lightning Radar
Track lightning strikes globally in real time with live alerts and detailed storm information. View strike locations, distances, and directions on an interactive map, and receive notifications as storms approach.
- Real-time lightning strike map
- Customizable lightning alerts
- Lock screen and Dynamic Island storm updates
- Nearby radar and strike distance
- Live chart of nearby storm activity
- Search and save locations
- Private by design, no tracking or ads
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Lightning Radar shows you where lightning is striking, around you and around the world, in real time. LIGHTNING ALERTS Now you can be warned before a storm reaches you. Turn on Lightning Alerts and get a notification when strikes land within your chosen radius, around where you are and around any saved places you choose to watch. The alerts step up as a storm closes in, and they are tuned not to over-notify: once it is right on top of you, they stop repeating. Tap an alert to jump straight to that strike on the map. Alerts stay off until you switch them on, and you can turn them off any time. Turn on Background location and they can follow you as you move, still sending only the same coarse grid cell, so you stay covered on the road as well as at home. ON YOUR LOCK SCREEN While a storm is nearby, a Storm Live Activity keeps the nearest-strike distance on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island. Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets show the live count of strikes near you at a glance. NEARBY RADAR See the closest strike to you at a glance: how far away it is, which direction it's in, and how long ago it hit. An animated radar dial sweeps through the strikes within your chosen range and turns to your compass heading, so "up" is the way you're facing. Set the range anywhere from 5 km out to 5,000 km. NEARBY ACTIVITY A live chart shows strikes per minute near you over the last several minutes, so you can tell whether a storm is building or moving off. Tap any strike to jump straight to it on the map. LIVE WORLD MAP Every strike detected by the Blitzortung.org volunteer network appears within seconds. From each one a ring spreads outward at the speed of sound, the way thunder travels, so you can watch a storm move and sense how far off it is. MADE TO EXPLORE • Search any place and jump to it • Save the spots you care about for one-tap access • Switch between a light or dark map • Distances in kilometres or miles • A live readout shows how far behind real time the feed is running IN YOUR LANGUAGE Lightning Radar is translated into 35 languages, from the map and the radar to alerts, widgets and the Storm Live Activity. It follows the language your phone is set to, or you can give the app a language of its own in Settings. Distances, dates and times follow whichever you pick. PRIVATE BY DESIGN No account, no sign-up, no tracking, no ads, no third-party analytics. The map and radar run entirely on your device: your precise location is used only to place the radar around you and never leaves your phone. Lightning Alerts are the one exception, and only if you turn them on. To work out which strikes are near you, the app sends an anonymous notification token, your alert radius, and a coarse location: a grid cell roughly a fifth of your radius across, never your exact position. That goes to our own server (on our own hardware in the EU), is used only to find nearby lightning and deliver the alert through Apple, and is tied to no identity. Turn alerts off and it is deleted. ABOUT THE DATA Strike data comes from Blitzortung.org, a community network of volunteer-run detectors, and is free for personal, non-commercial use. Coverage isn't perfect and strikes can be missed or delayed, so please don't rely on Lightning Radar for anything safety-critical.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Lightning Radar at none against Bolted's 2. Bolted's advantage is update cadence (fortnightly vs monthly) and iOS requirement (18.5 vs 26.1). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume 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. Bolted sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Lightning Radar asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Bolted against 4.9 for Lightning Radar. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 9 and 19 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
Bolted ships an update fortnightly, Lightning Radar monthly. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Bolted | Lightning Radar |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (9 ratings) — better | 4.9 (19 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 9 | 19 — better |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly — better | Monthly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.5 — better | 26.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 8 MB | 7 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Hitt Foundry LLC | Koode |
Customer experience
Bolted
Lightning Radar
In-app purchases
Bolted
- Bolted Pro Monthly$3.991 Month
- Bolted Pro Annual$24.991 Year
Lightning Radar
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Bolted free?
Is Lightning Radar free?
Which has better reviews, Bolted or Lightning Radar?
Do Bolted or Lightning Radar have ads?
Which is updated more often, Bolted or Lightning Radar?
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