Still Dark vs PhotoPills: An Honest Comparison

The short answer

Pick PhotoPills if you need Android today, want AR depth-of-field and field-of-view overlays for framing in the field, or want a one-time price of $10.99.
Pick Still Dark if you want a Mac or Apple Watch app, a full planetarium, weather and cloud forecasts, ISS and Starlink passes and a world dark-sky map in one app, with most of it free.
Both find the dates when the Sun or Moon lines up with a landmark. That part works well in either.

Side by side

	Still Dark	PhotoPills
Devices	iPhone, iPad, Mac (native Mac app) and Apple Watch, plus widgets. An Android version is in the works and coming soon.	iPhone, iPad and Android. A desktop web app (Chrome only) comes with the Premium beta.
iPhone Duo (foldable)	Yes. Unfolded, it uses the full iPad layout, with the controls in the side strip.	Not mentioned in the PhotoPills App Store listing or website
Apple Watch app	Yes	No. The App Store lists iPhone and iPad only.
Price (US)	Most of the app is free: everything for today, at any place. Pro: $7.99 a month or $34.99 a year (7-day free trial), or Lifetime $99.99 once.	$10.99 once, no in-app purchases. Optional Premium beta: $99.99 a year.
Sun and Moon rise, set and direction on a map	Yes	Yes
Sun and Moon basics without paying	Yes, free: sunrise, sunset, golden and blue hour, every twilight, and detailed Sun and Moon information for today at any place	No. PhotoPills is a paid app ($10.99).
Objects on the planner map	The Sun, Moon, planets, the ISS and other satellites, comets, meteor shower radiants and aurora	The Sun, Moon, the Milky Way's galactic center, meteor showers and eclipses
Shadows	The Sun and Moon shadow of an object of any height, on the compass and the map	Shadow-length calculator in the planner
Moon phases	Phase, illumination, age, the next four phases, and a Moon Atlas	Phase, a Moon calendar and supermoon dates
Find dates for a Sun or Moon alignment	Yes (Find)	Yes (Find)
Milky Way core position	Yes, plus a score for each of the next 45 nights	Yes. Milky Way calendar in the Premium beta.
Measure on the map	Distance and area	Distance, bearing and elevation between two pins
3D terrain	Coming soon	Premium beta only
Light pollution	A dark-sky map of the whole world, colored by Bortle class, plus a light-pollution estimate for the place you pick. Free.	Light-pollution map in the Premium beta only
AR	AR sky on iPhone with every object the 360° sky has: the Sun, Moon, planets and their moons, stars, constellations, the Milky Way, deep-sky objects and satellites. Search for anything and an arrow points you to it. Red night mode.	Sun, Moon and Milky Way AR, Night AR, and depth-of-field and field-of-view AR
Planetarium	360° sky with up to 8 million stars and 13,000+ deep-sky objects	No planetarium. Night AR shows the Milky Way, Polaris and star-trail patterns.
Camera calculators	Star exposure (NPF and 500 rule), star trails, focus and depth of field, hyperfocal distance, field of view, equivalent exposure, ND filter and time-lapse. Plus settings for the Milky Way, Moon, Sun, meteors and eclipses: how many frames to stack, panoramas, Moon and Sun size in the frame, and eclipse exposures (Pro).	Exposure (ND and night), depth-of-field tables, hyperfocal, field of view, Spot Stars, star-trail simulator, time-lapse, 2,000+ cameras
Sky events	Meteor showers, eclipses, conjunctions, ISS, Tiangong, Hubble and Starlink passes	Meteor showers, eclipses, supermoons. We found no satellite passes.
Weather forecasts	A regular forecast plus cloud by layer (low, mid, high), smoke, transparency and dew point, from two providers, Apple Weather and Open-Meteo. More providers are coming soon. Tonight's dark window, from the forecast, with a score (Pro).	We found none in the current app
Offline	Positions and star catalogues are on the device. Map imagery needs a connection.	Works offline. Map tiles have to be viewed once first so they're cached.
Saved plans	Plans synced with iCloud, reminders, calendar entries	Plans and points of interest, iCloud sync on iOS, calendar alerts, KMZ backup
Learning	Free guides on this website	In-app Academy, video masterclasses, workshops, photo awards

Also in Still Dark

Moon Atlas. A Moon globe with 2,023 named seas, craters, mountains and landing sites.
Solar System. The planets on their orbits in 3D, with a time machine to move through the years.
Day and night map. Where it's day, night and twilight on Earth, on a flat map or a globe, with a time-lapse of Earth's rotation.
The ISS live. The space station's position, live, around a 3D globe.
Sun and Moon compass in 2D and 3D, with shadows.
Aurora forecast from NOAA, with the chance of seeing it from your latitude.
Tonight's dark window. When it will be properly dark with the Moon down, checked against the forecast and given a score.
Hide what you don't use. Cards, map layers and panels can be turned off, so the app shows only what you want.

We didn't find a Moon atlas, a 3D Solar System, a day and night map, a live ISS globe, satellite passes, comets or aurora in PhotoPills' feature list.

Where PhotoPills is better

Android, today. PhotoPills runs on Android now, though a licence doesn't move between iOS and Android. Still Dark for Android is in the works and coming soon.
Price for the core app. $10.99 once gets you the whole current app. Still Dark is free for today, but planning other dates needs Pro.
Photo AR tools. Depth-of-field and field-of-view AR, a star-trail simulator in AR, and a camera list of more than 2,000 models.
Track record and teaching. It has been around since 2013, with a large library of tutorials, workshops and a yearly photo contest.

Where Still Dark is better

iPhone Duo support. Unfold it and you get the full iPad layout.
Mac and Apple Watch apps. Plan on a big screen with the same plans as your iPhone and iPad, and check times on your wrist.
Most of it is free. Sunrise, sunset, golden hour, twilight and detailed Sun and Moon information for today, at any place, cost nothing.
More on the map. Planets, the ISS and other satellites, comets, meteor radiants and aurora, as well as the Sun and Moon.
A full planetarium, in AR too. Zoom into the sky down to faint stars and deep-sky objects and see where everything is at any time. Hold up your iPhone and every one of those objects is labelled over the real sky.
Weather forecasts. A regular forecast plus low, mid and high cloud, smoke, transparency and dew point, from Apple Weather and Open-Meteo, next to the plan.
Camera settings tied to tonight's sky. Settings for the Milky Way, Moon, Sun, meteors and eclipses, how many frames to stack, and panorama planning.
Satellite passes. ISS, Tiangong, Hubble and Starlink passes with brightness and direction.
A dark-sky map of the whole world is free in the app, not part of a $99.99-a-year beta.
Best Milky Way nights. The next 45 nights scored on darkness, Moon, core height and cloud.

Which should you get?

If you need Android right now, or you mainly want AR framing overlays in the field, PhotoPills is the safer choice. If you're on Apple devices and want planning, the sky, satellite passes and the forecast in one place, try Still Dark. It's free for today's sky at any place, so you can compare them yourself before paying for either.

Sources

We checked these on October 8, 2026: the PhotoPills App Store listing, the Google Play listing, the PhotoPills user guide, PhotoPills FAQs and the PhotoPills Premium page. Prices and features change. If something here is out of date, please tell us at hello@stilldark.app and we'll fix it.

PhotoPills is a product of PhotoPills SL. Still Dark isn't affiliated with or endorsed by PhotoPills. Product names belong to their owners.