Animal Tracker vs Whale and Dolphin Tracker
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Animal Tracker
Follow the real-time movements of wild animals globally, tracked via GPS tags. Contribute to scientific research by uploading your own observations and photos of tagged animals, helping scientists interpret movement data.
- Real-time animal movement tracking
- Global migration route visualization
- Upload personal observations and photos
- Participate in scientific research projects
- Data management via Movebank
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With Animal Tracker, you can follow the movements of wild animals all over the world that are being tracked in near-real time! These movements are collected by tiny GPS tags carried by the animals and are stored at Movebank, a free online infrastructure used by hundreds of researchers to manage, share, analyze, and archive animal movement data. You can easily participate in our scientific research projects: Upload your real-life observations and photos of our tagged animals to Animal Tracker. Your observations are crucial for our scientists! We can determine the positions of the tagged animals but we are lacking behavioral observations - we can interpret our data much better with your additional observations. Therefore: become a scientist, become an Animal Tracker!
Whale and Dolphin Tracker
Record sightings of whales and dolphins worldwide. Contribute to global research by logging your observations with GPS data and photos. Help scientists understand marine wildlife distribution and environmental interactions.
- Log sightings in real-time
- Built-in GPS logger
- Upload photos with sightings
- Access submitted data
- View global sightings map
- Contribute to citizen science
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Log sightings and identify species of commonly sighted whales and dolphins from any location around the world. Whale and Dolphin Tracker provides a platform where both professional scientists and members of the public can participate in research and conservation by contributing their marine wildlife sightings. By submitting your sightings you will add to a global database that will help researchers determine patterns of species distribution and how these species interact with their environment. Features: -Log sightings in real-time during your trip. -Use the built-in GPS logger to create a full GPS track of your trip. -Upload photos from your mobile device to submit with your sighting. -Maintain full access to your submitted data through your Whale and Dolphin Tracker account. -View global sightings submitted by all users on a live sightings map updated in real time. Contribute to research: -Crowdsourcing allows for a larger scope of data collection than what is possible for dedicated researchers to achieve. -Greater coverage in both time and space increases the likelihood of documenting rare and/or understudied marine wildlife. -Citizen science creates ocean stewards and leads to a greater awareness of marine wildlife. How to submit a sighting: - Use the app to record GPS location of any sightings of whales, dolphins, and other marine wildlife. - Help researchers account for survey effort by associating a track with each sighting. Simply start the GPS track when you depart land and stop the track upon your return. Complete GPS tracks enable calculations of sightings per distance and are valuable for research on distribution of marine animals. - Upload photos associated with your sightings directly from your mobile device. Photos will be used by researchers to confirm species identification and will be added to photo-identification databases, where applicable.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Animal Tracker at 3.4 against Whale and Dolphin Tracker's 2.5. Animal Tracker also leads on review sentiment (54% vs 17%). Whale and Dolphin Tracker's advantage is iOS requirement (14.0 vs 16.0). On price, ratings volume, update cadence and ads 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Animal Tracker holds the better App Store score, 3.4 against 2.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 28 and 22 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 54% of Animal Tracker's written reviews are positive against 17% of Whale and Dolphin Tracker's.
Animal Tracker ships an update every 5 weeks, Whale and Dolphin Tracker monthly. The most recent releases landed on September 17, 2026 and September 9, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Animal Tracker | Whale and Dolphin Tracker |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.4 (28 ratings) — better | 2.5 (22 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 53.7% of reviews — better | 16.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 28 — better | 22 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 54 MB | 22 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Max-Planck-Gesellschaft | Pacific Whale Foundation |
Customer experience
Animal Tracker
Whale and Dolphin Tracker
In-app purchases
Animal Tracker
No in-app purchases
Whale and Dolphin Tracker
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Animal Tracker free?
Is Whale and Dolphin Tracker free?
Which has better reviews, Animal Tracker or Whale and Dolphin Tracker?
Do Animal Tracker or Whale and Dolphin Tracker have ads?
Which is updated more often, Animal Tracker or Whale and Dolphin Tracker?
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