Report updated Jun 15, 2026
Make: Magazine
For dIY enthusiasts, hackers, and tinkerers interested in electronics, robotics, and fabrication projects.
Make: Magazine is a challenged lifestyle app that is available. With a 2.0/5 rating from 25 reviews, it faces significant user friction.
What is Make: Magazine?
Make: Magazine is a digital publication for DIY enthusiasts, hackers, and tinkerers, providing project tutorials and maker profiles on iOS.
Users hire Make: for expert-led technical know-how in electronics and robotics, but the app's poor stability forces them to seek more reliable instructional sources.
Current Momentum
v7.2 · 1w ago
Maintenance- No notable feature updates recently.
What makes this app unique?
What Does It Look Like?
Loading...
What Are The Key Features?
Full digital replica of the print magazine with project tutorials, maker profiles, and diagrams
Step-by-step guides for electronics, robotics, 3D fabrication, and woodworking
Recurring billing cycle for annual access to four digital issues
How much does it cost?
- Single issue for $8.75
- One-year subscription (four issues) for $25.00
Subscription model anchored at $25.00 annually, utilizing a single-issue purchase option to lower the barrier for new users.
Who Built It?
Make Community
View Publisher Intel →Enrichment in progress
Publisher profile available very soon
What other apps does Make Community make?
What do users think recently?
Medium confidence · 25 reviews analyzed
How did the latest release land?
What is the recent mood?
Recent user voice shows a frustrated sentiment.
Limited review volume (25 reviews). Sentiment analysis will deepen as more data lands.
View the full user-sentiment analysis
Mood gauge, ratings & review-volume history, every praise / complaint / request, and sentiment over time.
What is the competitive landscape for Make: Magazine?
Where is it available?
Localized markets (1)
How's The Lifestyle Market?
Market outlook for this category
Available very soon
Which niche is Make: Magazine in?
to learn diy projects and maker skills
Explore the full Diy Crafts Readers niche
Every app in this space — 6 tracked, the niche's live rankings, and Marlvel's editorial take on the job-to-be-done.
The rivals identified
Nemeses(1)
Wood Magazine competes directly for the attention of DIY enthusiasts and makers by offering high-quality, project-based instructional content that mirrors the Make: magazine editorial focus.
Differentiators
- Offers robust offline reading capabilities, ensuring users can access project plans in remote workshop environments.
- Maintains a significantly higher user rating, suggesting superior content delivery and app stability compared to Make:.
- Provides structured project plans that cater to specific skill levels, reducing the barrier to entry for beginners.
Head to head
Make: must prioritize technical stability and offline accessibility to close the satisfaction gap and retain its tech-savvy user base.
Contenders(4)
This app targets the same hobbyist demographic as Make: by providing specialized instructional content for model building and technical assembly.
Differentiators
- Includes text-to-speech functionality, allowing users to consume instructional content while their hands are busy working.
- Features a cross-platform account sync system that ensures seamless transition between mobile and desktop devices.
Woodsmith competes for the DIY maker audience by focusing on detailed, step-by-step project instructions and high-quality illustrations.
Differentiators
- Provides granular subscription management and single-issue purchase options, offering more flexible monetization than a rigid model.
- Utilizes detailed step-by-step illustrations that simplify complex assembly processes better than text-heavy digital magazine formats.
This app serves the technical maker community with a focus on engineering and workshop projects, directly overlapping with Make:'s DIY electronics and robotics audience.
Differentiators
- Curates a deep technical content library that provides long-term reference value beyond standard magazine issues.
- Integrates community insights, fostering a collaborative environment that encourages user engagement and knowledge sharing.
While the craft differs, this app competes for the same 'maker' wallet share by providing pattern-based instructional content for creative hobbyists.
Differentiators
- Features a dedicated pattern library that allows users to search and filter projects by specific technical requirements.
- Offers integrated technical support, providing a safety net for users attempting complex projects for the first time.
Same space(3)
This app serves the creative maker community by providing digital tools for pattern design and project management.
Differentiators
- Includes a customizable pattern canvas that allows users to create and modify designs directly within the app.
- Supports group editing functions, enabling collaborative project development which is currently absent in the Make: app.
Stash Hub targets the organizational needs of makers, helping them track materials and projects similar to how a maker tracks their build progress.
Differentiators
- Utilizes 'Magic Input' and 'Magic Mockup' features to automate inventory tracking and project visualization for users.
- Provides robust cross-platform sync, ensuring that material inventories are always accessible regardless of the device used.
This app competes for the time and attention of hobbyists who value structured, skill-based project tutorials.
Differentiators
- Implements a skill-level filtering system that helps users find projects appropriate for their current experience level.
- Operates on a free access model that lowers the barrier to entry for new, casual hobbyists.
Compare Make: Magazine against every rival
All rivals in one side-by-side table — identity, store metrics, ratings & sentiment, and strategic intel — plus a head-to-head page for each.
The outtake for Make: Magazine
Strengths to defend, gaps to attack
Core Strengths
- Strong brand identity within the hacker and DIY-tech community
- Deep technical content library for electronics and robotics
Critical Frictions
- 2.04 rating on iOS indicates severe stability issues
- Lack of offline reading mode limits utility in workshop environments
Growth Levers
- Implement offline reading to match nemesis capabilities
- Add skill-level filtering to broaden the appeal to beginner makers
Market Threats
- Wood Magazine's higher user satisfaction erodes brand loyalty
- Niche competitors with better technical support capture the DIY-tech wallet share
What are the next best moves?
Rebuild core navigation and stability because the 2.04 rating indicates high churn risk → improve retention
The 2.04 rating is the primary indicator of user dissatisfaction and churn.
Trade-off: Pause all new content feature development for one cycle.
Ship offline reading mode because it is a standard requirement for workshop-based DIY apps → increase utility
Competitors like Wood Magazine offer offline capabilities, creating a parity gap.
Trade-off: Deprioritize the planned UI refresh for the magazine reader.
A counter-intuitive read
The brand's strength is its greatest liability, as it masks the technical rot of the app, causing long-term users to ignore the platform's decline until they finally churn.
Feature Gaps vs Competitors
- Offline reading mode (available in Wood Magazine)
- Skill-level filtering (available in Inside Crochet)
- Integrated technical support (available in Inside Crochet)
Key Takeaways
- Prioritize technical stability to close the satisfaction gap with woodworking and modeling competitors.
- Introduce offline access to ensure content availability in workshop environments, a critical requirement for the maker demographic.
Make: Magazine holds its category lead through strong brand authority but bleeds users to more stable niche publications, so revenue growth hinges on fixing the app's technical foundation.
Where Is It Heading?
Declining
The DIY-tech market is consolidating around apps that offer reliable, workshop-ready instructional content. Make: Magazine remains exposed to churn until it addresses the stability gap, so the PM must prioritize technical hygiene over new content features to stop the outflow of loyal users.
The 2.04 rating indicates a failure to meet basic stability expectations, which accelerates churn toward more reliable hobbyist apps.
Recent updates have not introduced new features, suggesting the team is currently focused on maintenance rather than growth.