Hiking Project vs Hiking Buddies
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Hiking Project
Discover and navigate over 74,000 miles of trails with detailed GPS route information, elevation profiles, and high-resolution maps. Find featured hikes near you or in a searched area, with insights from local experts. Download trails for offline use, ensuring you can explore even without cell reception.
- GPS route information
- Elevation profiles
- Interactive trail maps
- Offline trail downloads
- High-resolution photos
- Local expert insights
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Hiking Project is your comprehensive guide to the best hikes near you, wherever you are. With the thoroughness of a printed map, we offer full GPS route info, elevation profiles, interactive features, photos, and more. Like a guidebook, we suggest the best featured hikes to explore—either near your current location or in an area you search for. Local experts show you the highlights, challenging features, and insights you need to plan a great day on the trails. • Find over 74,000 miles of trail to hike with your crew. • New trails are constantly added to our incredibly detailed hiking database. • Your exact location is shown on the trail. • Downloaded trails work offline for when you’re off the grid. (No cell reception required!) • Enjoy high-resolution photos and detailed topographical trail maps. • We’ll sync with your to-do list and check ins on HikingProject.com. By using GPS, we can show your location on trails and vertical profiles. Continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life.
Hiking Buddies
Organize and discover hiking activities with this app. Create routes with estimated difficulty levels and track your fitness progress. Anyone can join or create events, fostering a community for outdoor exploration.
- Organize hiking activities
- Create and estimate route difficulties
- Join or create events
- Track fitness
- Community for hikers
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Hiking Buddies provides a platform to organize hiking activities. You can create a route and the platform estimates a difficulties based on various criteria. Anyone is free to organize/join the events. You can track your fitness in the app.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Hiking Project at 4.4 against Hiking Buddies's 3.0. Hiking Project also leads on ratings volume (2K vs 2) and review sentiment (53% vs 33%). Hiking Buddies's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs every 5 weeks). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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.
Hiking Project holds the better App Store score, 4.4 against 3.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Hiking Project has 2K ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 53% of Hiking Project's written reviews are positive against 33% of Hiking Buddies's.
Hiking Project ships an update every 5 weeks, Hiking Buddies every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on November 11, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Hiking Project | Hiking Buddies |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.4 (2K ratings) — better | 3.0 (2 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 52.9% of reviews — better | 33.3% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2K — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks | Every 3 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 85 MB | 30 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Adventure Projects Inc. | Amit Verma |
Customer experience
Hiking Project
Hiking Buddies
Bugs and requests
Hiking Project
Reported bugs
4 issues- App crashes when trying to record hikes
- Offline maps frequently fail to load
- Elevation data sometimes inaccurate
- Syncing issues between app and website
Requested features
5 requests- Add ability to record and track hikes
- Improve search and filtering options
- Expand trail coverage to more regions
- Add weather forecasts and other useful info
- Improve offline map reliability and functionality
Hiking Buddies
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Hiking Project
No in-app purchases
Hiking Buddies
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Hiking Project free?
Is Hiking Buddies free?
Which has better reviews, Hiking Project or Hiking Buddies?
Do Hiking Project or Hiking Buddies have ads?
Which is updated more often, Hiking Project or Hiking Buddies?
Other comparisons
