Konstella vs BuyNothing
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Konstella
This app facilitates communication and community building for parent organizations like PTAs and PTOs. It enables the creation of announcements, newsletters, volunteer sign-ups, and event postings, while also simplifying fee collection and donations. Parents can also form interest-based social groups to connect with each other.
- Create announcements and newsletters
- Manage volunteer sign-ups
- Organize events
- Collect fees and donations
- Form interest-based social groups
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Konstella streamlines communications and helps parent organizations (i.e. PTA & PTOs) build close-knit parent communities. - By allowing committee chairs and room parents to create short announcements, long newsletters, volunteer sign-up sheets, and events, Konstella streamlines communications and makes school and classroom needs transparent to parents. - By helping parent organizations and room parents collect fees and donations, Konstella makes fundraising easy for treasurers and fundraiser volunteers. - By letting parents create interest-based Social Groups, such as Playdates for parents of young children and Hiking Parents for active parents, Konstella connects parents. This app is only useful if your school is running Konstella.
BuyNothing
Connect with your local community to give, receive, share, lend, and borrow items. This app fosters a gift economy, building connections through sharing, inspired by the BuyNothing® Project.
- Give and receive items locally
- Lend and borrow goods
- Hyper-local community sharing
- Gift economy model
- Build community connections
- Express gratitude
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We offer people a way to give, receive, share, lend, borrow and express gratitude through a hyper-local gift economy model in which people can share wherever they are and true wealth is measured by the web of connections formed between people through sharing. From the founders of the BuyNothing® Project. Terms of Use: https://buynothingproject.org/terms
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Konstella at none against BuyNothing's 6. Konstella also leads on review sentiment (56% vs 27%) and rating (4.5 vs 4.3). BuyNothing's advantage is chart position (#200 vs unranked) and iOS requirement (16.0 vs 18.0). 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. BuyNothing sells 6 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Konstella asks for nothing beyond the download.
Konstella holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 780 and 2.1K respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 56% of Konstella's written reviews are positive against 27% of BuyNothing's.
Konstella ships an update every 4 days, BuyNothing every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and September 22, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Konstella | BuyNothing |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (780 ratings) — better | 4.3 (2.1K ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 56.3% of reviews — better | 26.8% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 780 | 2.1K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 4 days — better | Every 8 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Best chart rank | — | #200 — better |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 16.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 24 MB | 77 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Konstella Inc. | Buy Nothing Project, Inc. |
Customer experience
Konstella
BuyNothing
User reviews
Konstella
From 780 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Helps stay connected and scheduling
- 👍 Gets the Job Done
- 🚀 GAME CHANGER— school comms FINALLY all in ONE PLACE!
- 👍 Wonderful to be connected
- 👍 Awesome
Room to improve
- 🐛 Am I the only one whose kid moved schools?
- 🐛 Buggy
- 🐛 Not improving
- 🐛 Worse app ever
- 🐛 can't mark all notifications as read
BuyNothing
From 2.1K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🤝 Friendly community interactions
- ♻️ Promotes sustainability and reducing waste
- 🌍 Global reach beyond local groups
- 🏠 Hyper-local focus when set up properly
- 📦 Smooth gifting and receiving process
Room to improve
- 🐛 Buggy and unreliable app functionality
- 📍 Difficulty filtering for local posts
- 🔑 Login and account issues
- 💬 Inconsistent notifications and messaging
- 💰 Paywall for key features
Bugs and requests
Konstella
Reported bugs
6 issues- Can't delete an odd committee thread even after leaving the group
- No longer spell check and the bullets/numbers don't work
- Scrolling issues, can't select and copy text, can't bookmark or set aside important messages, can't open links from messages, impossible to organize messages and events
- Impossible to update my kids school, no way to contact Konstella, no way to remove the old profile and add a new one
- Group chat function issues - messages not loading, group disappearing and reappearing
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- App contains features not available via the website; the website contains features not available on the app
Requested features
4 requests- Dark mode option
- Messages need Like buttons
- Mute button to selectively mute members
- Ability to have dates hyperlinked to iPhone calendar
BuyNothing
Reported bugs
5 issues- Frequent app crashes and freezes
- Login issues and inability to reset passwords
- Inconsistent location settings and radius
- Unreliable notifications and messaging
- Inability to edit or update posts
Requested features
5 requests- Search function to find specific posts
- Ability to edit and update posts
- Improved organization and sorting of posts
- Syncing across multiple devices
- More robust moderation and community tools
In-app purchases
Konstella
No in-app purchases
BuyNothing
- Sustaining Member$3.991 Month
- Buy Nothing Pro$3.991 Month
- Sustaining Member$5.491 Month
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- Buy Nothing Pro$29.991 Year
- Sustaining Member$38.491 Year
- Sustaining Member$54.991 Year
