Comparison

OBD2 Scanner | OBD Auto Doctor vs lodestar

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

Head to head
About

OBD2 Scanner | OBD Auto Doctor

Diagnose your car's engine light issues and monitor real-time performance data. This app allows you to read and clear diagnostic trouble codes, track fuel consumption, and view sensor data. It's a comprehensive tool for understanding your vehicle's health.

Highlights
  • Read and clear OBD2 diagnostic trouble codes (DTC)
  • Reset Check Engine Light
  • Monitor real-time vehicle data and sensor readings
  • Track fuel consumption
  • Read readiness monitor status for emissions testing
  • Initiate service routines
  • Send diagnostic data via email
Read full description

Turn your iPhone into a powerful OBD2 car scanner and diagnose your vehicle yourself. Check why your Check Engine Light is on, read and clear diagnostic trouble codes, monitor live engine data, and check emissions readiness — all from your iPhone or iPad with a compatible OBD2 dongle. CHECK YOUR CHECK ENGINE LIGHT Don't guess what's wrong with your car. OBD Auto Doctor reads diagnostic trouble codes from your vehicle and provides detailed information to help you understand what they mean. • Read diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs) • Clear Check Engine Light codes • View detailed code descriptions • Read freeze-frame data MONITOR YOUR CAR IN REAL TIME See what's happening while your engine is running with live OBD2 data. • Engine RPM and vehicle speed • Coolant temperature • Fuel system and fuel trim data • Throttle position • Intake air and engine load • Oxygen sensor data • And many other vehicle parameters Create your own dashboard and choose exactly which sensors you want to monitor. CHECK EMISSIONS READINESS Preparing for an emissions or vehicle inspection? Check your vehicle's readiness monitors and see whether your car's emissions systems have completed their tests. WORKS WITH OBD2 DONGLES Connect OBD Auto Doctor to your vehicle using a compatible Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) OBD2 dongle. Compatible dongles include many ELM327-based adapters, OBDLink, Vgate, Linker, Veepeak and other compatible OBD2 interfaces. Please note: An OBD2 dongle is required to connect the app to your vehicle. Dongle compatibility and available features depend on your vehicle. MORE THAN JUST A CODE READER OBD Auto Doctor gives you access to the information your car's onboard diagnostic system makes available. • Read vehicle information • Monitor fuel consumption • View and record live sensor data • Read diagnostic trouble codes • Clear diagnostic trouble codes • Check emissions readiness • View freeze-frame data • Monitor vehicle performance Whether you're trying to understand a Check Engine Light, preparing your car for inspection, monitoring your engine, or simply want to know more about your vehicle, OBD Auto Doctor puts professional-style OBD2 diagnostics in your pocket. Download OBD Auto Doctor and start diagnosing your car today. SUBSCRIPTION OBD Auto Doctor offers optional subscriptions that unlock additional features. Terms of Use: https://www.obdautodoctor.com/terms

About

lodestar

Features
Read full description

lodestar is the remote for the media stack you already run, connected straight from your iPhone to your own servers. Radarr and Sonarr. Prowlarr and Bazarr. Overseerr and Jellyseerr. Plex, Jellyfin, Emby, and Tautulli. NZBGet, SABnzbd, qBittorrent, Transmission, and Deluge. LazyLibrarian and Audiobookshelf for books. One native app for all of it. Deep, not shallow. Each service gets its own screens for browsing and control, not a status widget. Browse and edit your Radarr and Sonarr libraries, add movies and series with root folder, quality profile, and tags, run interactive release searches and push the exact release you want to your download client, manage queues with blocklisting, and check history, missing, and upcoming. Download clients get real control too: reorder and prioritize queues, pause and resume globally or per item, set speed limits, and dig into per-torrent trackers, peers, and file priorities. Torrents included. qBittorrent, Transmission, and Deluge are first-class modules alongside usenet, not afterthoughts. Requests, subtitles, and indexers. Approve what your household asks for through Overseerr or Jellyseerr. Chase down missing subtitles in Bazarr. See which indexer is failing in Prowlarr, which is usually the real answer to "why did nothing download". Your media server too. See who is watching what right now on Plex, Jellyfin, or Emby, stop a stream, and read the viewing history and stats Tautulli keeps. It tells you what is stuck. One screen collects every failed grab, blocked import, stalled download, and health warning across the whole stack, with the fix one tap away. One calendar for everything. Upcoming movies and episodes from every Radarr and Sonarr instance, merged into month and agenda views. Built for real setups. Unlimited profiles for multi-instance stacks (4K and 1080p Radarr side by side), instant profile switching, LAN and WAN addresses with automatic fallback, custom headers, and self-signed certificate support. The connection wizard validates live and tells you exactly why a connection failed. Native and fast. Built in SwiftUI for iPhone and iPad, iOS 17 and up, so it runs on the devices newer apps have already dropped. Full dark mode, haptics, designed empty states, and home screen widgets. No web views pretending to be an app. Your servers stay yours. On your own network, lodestar talks directly from your iPhone to your servers: no account, and nothing sent to us. Optional remote access adds a lodestar account and a relay we run, so the app can reach your servers from anywhere through an agent you install at home. The relay carries traffic it cannot read. API keys live in the iOS Keychain and go only to your servers, or sealed to your own agent when remote access is on. Three ways to use it. The agent and its web app on your own network are free. The iOS app's free tier is one profile with up to two services, direct connections, full functionality. lodestar lifetime, one payment, unlocks the app for good, unlimited profiles and services, and includes thirty days of remote access. lodestar monthly is remote access: reach your servers from anywhere through our relay and the web app, cancel any time in Settings. lodestar is a remote control for servers you already operate. It downloads nothing itself, requires media server software running on your own hardware, and is for content you have the right to. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://lodestar.i8l.tech/privacy Support: https://lodestar.i8l.tech/support

Screenshots

OBD2 Scanner | OBD Auto Doctor4 screens
lodestar4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: lodestar at every 5 days against OBD2 Scanner | OBD Auto Doctor's every 3 weeks. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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

Both are free to download. OBD2 Scanner | OBD Auto Doctor sells 9 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and lodestar sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

OBD2 Scanner | OBD Auto Doctor ships an update every 3 weeks, lodestar every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 18, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
OBD2 Scanner | OBD Auto Doctor versus lodestar: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterOBD2 Scanner | OBD Auto Doctorlodestar
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.4 (6.2K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews30.3% of reviews—
Number of ratings6.2K — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeksEvery 5 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details — not scored
Size19 MB15 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperCreosysJonathan Poeder

Bugs and requests

OBD2 Scanner | OBD Auto Doctor

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • App crashes on launch
  • Fails to detect existing fault codes
  • Subscription issues and inability to cancel
  • Incompatible with certain OBD2 adapters

Requested features

6 requests
  • Add support for more vehicle makes and models
  • Improve Bluetooth/WiFi connectivity
  • Provide more detailed diagnostic information
  • Allow clearing of error codes without subscription
  • Add live data dashboards and graphs
Show 1 more
  • Integrate with vehicle maintenance scheduling

lodestar

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

9 purchases

OBD2 Scanner | OBD Auto Doctor

Subscriptions8
  • Monthly (legacy)$4.991 Month
  • Personal, monthly$4.991 Month
  • Premium, monthly$5.991 Month
Show 5 more
  • Professional, monthly$6.991 Month
  • Yearly (legacy)$23.991 Year
  • Personal, yearly$23.991 Year
  • Professional, yearly$29.991 Year
  • Premium, annual3 Days trial$29.991 Year
One-time1
  • OBD Auto Doctor Pro (legacy)$29.99
2 purchases

lodestar

Subscriptions1
  • lodestar monthly7 Days trial$2.991 Month
One-time1
  • lodestar lifetime$19.99

Questions

Is OBD2 Scanner | OBD Auto Doctor free?
OBD2 Scanner | OBD Auto Doctor is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is lodestar free?
lodestar is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do OBD2 Scanner | OBD Auto Doctor or lodestar have ads?
Neither OBD2 Scanner | OBD Auto Doctor nor lodestar shows ads.
Which is updated more often, OBD2 Scanner | OBD Auto Doctor or lodestar?
OBD2 Scanner | OBD Auto Doctor ships an update every 3 weeks, and lodestar every 5 days. Most recently, OBD2 Scanner | OBD Auto Doctor was updated on October 29, 2026 and lodestar on October 18, 2026.

Other comparisons