Aula vs Beacon
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Aula
This platform connects students and educators for interactive learning. It facilitates discussions, collaboration, and engagement with class materials, transforming education into a two-way street.
- Digital campus platform
- Student-educator communication
- Classroom discussions
- Collaborative learning
- Engagement with class materials
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Teaching and learning shouldn’t be a one-way street, right? Aula is your digital campus. A communication platform for education that brings students and educators together around stimulating conversations, collaboration, and discussions about class materials.
Beacon
This app serves as a comprehensive digital guide for student life, offering features like timetable viewing, campus navigation, and access to university services. It helps students find contact information, check resource availability, and stay updated on news and events.
- View timetable
- Campus maps and points of interest
- Staff and service contact details
- PC availability checks
- News and events browsing
- Societies and clubs search
- Answers to common service questions
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Beacon is your intelligent digital guide to student life. Just like you, it will be learning more and more skills and knowledge over the years to come, some of the things it can do include: - View your timetable - View campus maps and find points of interests - View the contact details for your lecturers, personal tutor and course leader - Search the staff directory - Check PCs availability - Find contact details for the university services - Request important documents - Browse news and events - Order a new student card - Search the societies and clubs you can join - Get directions to rooms and places on the campus - Get answers to common questions across all our services: Careers, Counselling, Digital, International Student, Library, Student Enabling, Student Services and Students' Union
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Beacon at 4.5 against Aula's 2.7. Beacon also leads on update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 2 months) and review sentiment (21% vs 13%). Aula's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and monetization model (free vs ad-supported). On price, ratings volume, 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Beacon holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 2.7. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3 and 2 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 13% of Aula's written reviews are positive against 21% of Beacon's.
Aula ships an update every 2 months, Beacon every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 21, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Aula | Beacon |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.7 (3 ratings) | 4.5 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 13.2% of reviews | 21.4% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 3 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Ad-supported |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 15.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 47 MB | 40 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Ublend | University of Staffordshire |
Customer experience
Aula
Beacon
Bugs and requests
Aula
Reported bugs
12 issues- Logs out frequently
- Cannot access assignments on phone
- Pop-up prevents access to content
- Assignments feedback disappears
- Cannot log in
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- App doesn't work on Mac
- Update required loop
- App freezes
- Randomly writing replies in capital
- App crashes on launch
- Incompatible with older devices
- Notifications show unread when there are none
Requested features
13 requests- Option to keep session logged in
- Autofill for username and password
- FaceID or fingerprint support
- Dark mode option
- Advanced analytics dashboard
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- Mark all notifications as read
- Allow submission on phones
- Standalone app for educators
- Improve accessibility and learning features
- Support for older iOS versions
- Make assignments and student success app accessible on mobile
- Add a main page for required links/pages
- Display full lesson names, lecturer info, timetable
Beacon
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Aula
No in-app purchases
Beacon
No in-app purchases
