The Warbler Guide vs eBird Alert!
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
The Warbler Guide
Identify birds by sight or song with this comprehensive guide. Features 3D models, detailed ID points, and a vast library of songs and calls to help you quickly and confidently identify warblers in the field.
- Bird identification by sight and song
- Interactive 3D bird models
- Extensive warbler song library
- Visual and audio comparison tools
- Detailed ID points and master pages
- Age and sex determination guide
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Warbler Guide App Tom Stephenson & Scott Whittle Winner of the 2016 PROSE Award for Best App/eProduct The Warbler Guide App is the perfect companion to Princeton’s revolutionary and widely acclaimed book The Warbler Guide, by Tom Stephenson and Scott Whittle. Whether for study or field use, this innovative app delivers the full power of The Warbler Guide in your pocket—plus unique new app-only features. The app allows you to identify birds by view or song, quickly and intuitively. Exciting new 3D graphics enable you to view a bird from the exact angle you see it in the field. And the whole range of warbler songs is easily played, compared, and filtered. Breakthrough features from The Warbler Guide book that are included in the app: • Rapid and confident two-step ID process using visual finders and comparison species • The first complete treatment of warbler songs, using a new objective vocabulary • An intuitive visual finder that includes side, 45-degree, and undertail views • Master Pages with detailed ID points • Complete guide to determining the age and sex of warblers with photos of all ages and sexes • Annotated sonograms showing song structure and key ID points • Complete songs, chip calls, and flight calls for all species • Comparison species for making confident visual and audio IDs • Many additional photos to show behavior and reinforce key ID points • Highlighted diagnostic ID points • Color Impression Icons for narrowing down ID of warblers from the briefest glimpses • Behavior and habitat icons Unique new app-only features: • 3D models of birds in all plumages, rotatable and pinch-zoomable to match field experience of a bird • Intuitive, visual, and interactive finders with filters for possible species based on audio and visual criteria chosen by the user • Playback of all songs and vocalizations with sonograms makes study of vocalizations easy • Selectable finder sortings grouped by color, alphabetical order, song type, and taxonomic order • Interactive song finder using objective vocabulary for fast ID of unknown songs • Simultaneous visual and song finders make identifying an unknown warbler even easier • Half-speed song playback allows for easier study of song structure • Comparison species with selectable side, 45 degree, and undertail views • Features 75 3D images • Covers 48 species and 75 plumages • Includes 277 vocalizations, 156 songs, 73 contact calls, and 48 flight calls • Detailed "how to use" tutorial screens Requires iOS 7.0 or later Tom Stephenson’s articles and photos have appeared in Birding and Bird Watcher’s Digest, at Surf-birds.com, and in the Handbook of the Birds of the World. He has guided groups across the United States and Asia. A musician, he has had several Grammy and Academy Award winners as clients, and was director of technology at Roland Corporation. Scott Whittle lives in Cape May, New Jersey, and has twenty years of experience as a professional photographer and educator. He holds an MFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York, is a fellow of the MacDowell Colony, and is a onetime New York State Big Year record holder.
eBird Alert!
Discover rare bird sightings in your vicinity using data from a global bird record database. Customize your search by distance, recency, and location, and access identification details and photos to aid in spotting. Easily open sighting locations in your preferred map application.
- View rare and local bird sightings
- Customize sighting proximity and recency
- Select specific nearby counties
- Open sighting locations in maps
- Access identification details and photos
- Add sightings to eBird checklists
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eBird Alert! shows rare bird sightings in your area, found from the checklists your fellow birders have submitted to eBird -- a global online database of bird records used by hundreds of thousands of birders around the world. Features - Select how nearby and how recent the sightings can be. - Select which nearby county in which to find birds. - See rarities or all local birds. - Open a sighting location in Apple or Google Maps. - See all sighting comments for a particular location. - Get identification details and photos to help you spot the bird,. - If you spot it, add it to your checklist in the eBird app. Privacy - eBird Alert! requires your location to find nearby birds. It will never upload your location, or any other data, to any server.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: eBird Alert! at Free against The Warbler Guide's $12.99. eBird Alert! also leads on update cadence (monthly vs every 13 months) and rating (4.8 vs 4.5). The Warbler Guide's advantage is chart position (#143 vs unranked) and ratings volume (46 vs 8). On 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
eBird Alert! is free to download; The Warbler Guide costs $12.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
eBird Alert! holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: The Warbler Guide has 46 ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 80% of The Warbler Guide's written reviews are positive against 100% of eBird Alert!'s.
The Warbler Guide ships an update every 13 months, eBird Alert! monthly. The most recent releases landed on October 18, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | The Warbler Guide | eBird Alert! |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $12.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.5 (46 ratings) | 4.8 (8 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 79.5% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 46 — better | 8 |
| Update frequency | Every 13 months | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #143 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 8.0 — better | 18.2 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 647 MB | 12 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Princeton University Press | Colin Rafferty |
Customer experience
The Warbler Guide
eBird Alert!
In-app purchases
The Warbler Guide
No in-app purchases
eBird Alert!
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is The Warbler Guide free?
Is eBird Alert! free?
Which has better reviews, The Warbler Guide or eBird Alert!?
Do The Warbler Guide or eBird Alert! have ads?
Which is updated more often, The Warbler Guide or eBird Alert!?
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