BlitzortungLive vs Lightning Radar
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
BlitzortungLive
Monitor lightning strikes in near real-time on a map. Receive push alerts for detected strikes in a customizable area. Supports multiple languages and displays historical strike data.
- Live lightning strike display
- Historical strike visualization
- Customizable push alerts
- Multi-language support
- Real-time map view
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See thunderstorms the moment they happen. BlitzortungLive shows lightning strikes from the worldwide Blitzortung.org community network on the map in near real time – now together with precipitation radar, thunderstorm forecasts and wind, so you can see at a glance where a storm is, how strong it is and where it is heading. LIVE LIGHTNING • New strikes appear within seconds and fade from yellow to red as they age • Lightning map with the strikes of the last hours (lightningmaps.org) • Strike counter for the visible area • Optional sound for new strikes WEATHER RADAR & FORECAST • Precipitation radar for Germany and neighbouring regions, updated every 5 minutes • Animated timeline: the last two hours plus a 2-hour nowcast • Forecast images are clearly marked – you always know whether you see measured or predicted data • Satellite cloud images and animated wind THUNDERSTORMS • Current and forecast thunderstorm areas across Europe • Thunderstorm tracks in Germany with direction, speed and warning level • Lightning density map • Instability (Lifted Index) shows where thunderstorms can develop LOOK BACK • Scroll back through the last two hours of radar – each image shows the lightning the app received at that time while it was open THUNDERSTORM ALERT • Push notification when lightning is detected near you • Choose the alert area on the map or use your location, radius from 1 to 300 km (0.6 to 186 mi) MADE FOR TODAY'S IPHONE AND IPAD • Completely redesigned for iOS 17 and later • Smooth map with GPU rendering – zoom and pan without waiting • Dark Mode, Dynamic Type, VoiceOver and Reduce Motion support • 12 languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil) and Russian FREE – NO ADS, NO TRACKING BlitzortungLive is free and contains no advertising and no tracking. ABOUT BLITZORTUNG.ORG BlitzortungLive is an additional service of the Blitzortung.org project, a community network of volunteers operating lightning detection stations all over the world. Coverage and accuracy depend on the stations in each region. For general questions about Blitzortung.org or to join the network with your own station, please visit www.blitzortung.org and read the documentation and FAQ first. DATA SOURCES Weather data: Deutscher Wetterdienst (CC BY 4.0), satellite data EUMETSAT. Instability: NOAA GFS (model data). Lightning: Blitzortung.org. BlitzortungLive is not an official warning service. In case of danger, follow the warnings of your national weather service.
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 ads: Lightning Radar at none against BlitzortungLive's shown. Lightning Radar also leads on rating (4.9 vs 4.5) and update cadence (monthly vs every 6 months). BlitzortungLive's advantage is ratings volume (674 vs 19) and iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.1). On price, 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.
Lightning Radar holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: BlitzortungLive has 674 ratings behind it against 19, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 75% of BlitzortungLive's written reviews are positive against 100% of Lightning Radar's.
BlitzortungLive ships an update every 6 months, Lightning Radar monthly. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | BlitzortungLive | Lightning Radar |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (674 ratings) | 4.9 (19 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 75.3% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 674 — better | 19 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 months | Monthly — better |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Ad-supported | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 26.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 3 MB | 7 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Marco Bauer | Koode |
Customer experience
BlitzortungLive
Lightning Radar
Bugs and requests
BlitzortungLive
Reported bugs
4 issues- Crashes on startup
- Delayed or missing strike notifications
- Inaccurate location of strikes
- Issues with map updates
Requested features
5 requests- Customizable alert radius
- Historical lightning data
- Weather radar integration
- Ability to report missing strikes
- Option to remove ads
Lightning Radar
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
BlitzortungLive
No in-app purchases
Lightning Radar
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is BlitzortungLive free?
Is Lightning Radar free?
Which has better reviews, BlitzortungLive or Lightning Radar?
Do BlitzortungLive or Lightning Radar have ads?
Which is updated more often, BlitzortungLive or Lightning Radar?
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