Report updated Jun 8, 2026
NOAA Tide Chart & Forecast
For maritime enthusiasts including sailors, fishermen, surfers, and beachgoers requiring localized tidal and solar data.
NOAA Tide Chart & Forecast is an established weather app that is free with in-app purchases. With a 3.7/5 rating from 149 reviews, it shows polarized user reception. Users particularly appreciate data accuracy, though navigation friction remains a common concern.
What is NOAA Tide Chart & Forecast?
NOAA Tide Chart & Forecast is a weather utility providing tidal and solunar data for maritime enthusiasts on iOS and Android.
Users hire the app to plan coastal activities like fishing and sailing, relying on NOAA-sourced data to mitigate the risks of changing water conditions.
Current Momentum
v2.6 · 5d ago
Intense- Redesigned Android navigation in latest release.
- Shipped performance improvements across both platforms.
Active Nemesis
Tides Near Me
By Shelter Island Mapping Company
Other Rivals
7-Day Rank Pulse 🇺🇸
WeatherNo ranking data
Rating Pulse 🇺🇸
Recent User Mood
What makes this app unique?
What Does It Look Like?
What Are The Key Features?
Interactive charts displaying tidal patterns, fluctuations, and extremes for specific locations
Real-time sunrise, sunset, and lunar phase tracking for maritime activity planning
Home screen widgets for Solunar or Tidal data with adjustable size and station preferences
Long-term planning data for tidal patterns and solunar activity
Search by name or station ID with user-submitted location requests
How much does it cost?
- Free tier with ad support
- Premium subscription tier for extended capabilities
Freemium model utilizes ad-supported free access to drive volume, with premium subscriptions gating long-term planning and advanced reports.
Who Built It?
Average Quality
Providing specialized aviation weather data and maritime utility tools for outdoor professionals and hobbyists. They bridge the gap between complex environmental data and actionable, device-specific insights.
Portfolio
9
Apps
What other apps does Average Quality make?
Explore the full Average Quality report
Portfolio breakdown, audience, momentum, and every app published by Average Quality.
What do users think recently?
Medium confidence · Latest 100 of 149 total reviews analyzed · Based on 149 reviews. Signal may be noisy.
How did the latest release land?
What is the recent mood?
Recent user voice shows a mixed sentiment. Users appreciate data accuracy, but report navigation friction.
What Users Love
What Frustrates Users
What Users Want
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 NOAA Tide Chart & Forecast?
How's The Weather Market?
How does it evolve in the Weather market?
The app holds a modest position in the weather category, with a #196 Grossing rank in the US and a #124 Free rank in Germany. The disparity between free-tier reach and grossing performance indicates a need to refine the premium conversion funnel.
Rank progression
56 active rankings tracked — 30-day window
Which niche is NOAA Tide Chart & Forecast in?
Explore the full Tides Trackers niche
Every app in this space — 5 tracked, the niche's live rankings, and Marlvel's editorial take on the job-to-be-done.
The rivals identified
Nemeses(1)
Dominates the specific tide-tracking niche with massive review volume and a high-frequency update cadence that keeps it at the top of search results.
Differentiators
- Maintains a hyper-focused utility interface that prioritizes immediate tide data over broader weather forecasting features.
- Leverages a long-standing market presence since 2012 to build a massive, defensible user review base.
- Ships frequent feature updates and bug fixes, averaging over two releases per month to maintain stability.
Head to head
The target app must focus on superior UX and integrated lunar-tide insights to differentiate from the nemesis's sheer data-depth and legacy market dominance.
Contenders(3)
Leverages a strong brand association with boating safety and community to capture the recreational marine audience.
Differentiators
- Bundles tide and weather data with essential boating safety resources and member-exclusive marine services.
- Positions itself as a comprehensive safety companion rather than just a standalone tide-tracking utility.
Directly targets the marine navigation segment with high-fidelity weather modeling and professional-grade forecasting tools.
Differentiators
- Provides proprietary weather routing and marine-specific forecasting models that go beyond standard NOAA API data.
- Focuses on the high-intent sailing market with tools designed for offshore navigation and safety planning.
A powerful multi-modal marine weather tool that directly competes for the same sailing and fishing audience.
Differentiators
- Integrates complex wind and wave modeling alongside standard tide data for a comprehensive marine forecast.
- Targets professional and prosumer users with advanced meteorological data layers that exceed basic tide tracking.
Same space(3)
A massive general-purpose weather app that includes tide and marine data as part of a broader feature set.
Differentiators
- Provides a high-performance, real-time radar visualization engine that is significantly more advanced than standard tide apps.
- Offers a massive ecosystem of weather-related data layers, making it a 'one-stop-shop' for all weather needs.
Competes directly on the lunar data component of the target app's value proposition.
Differentiators
- Offers a dedicated, highly polished interface specifically for tracking lunar cycles and moon phases.
- Includes specialized features like golden hour and blue hour calculators for photographers and outdoor enthusiasts.
A widely used weather utility that serves the same outdoor activity audience but with a focus on wind sports.
Differentiators
- Specializes in wind-specific forecasting maps that are essential for kitesurfing, windsurfing, and sailing enthusiasts.
- Maintains a global network of real-time weather stations that provides hyper-local wind data accuracy.
New entrants(1)
An emerging niche utility that uses weather and environmental data to serve the growing drone pilot market.
Differentiators
- Aggregates flight-critical weather data into a simple 'Go/No-Go' status for drone operators.
- Focuses on regulatory and safety compliance, creating a unique value proposition for a specific user segment.
Compare NOAA Tide Chart & Forecast 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 NOAA Tide Chart & Forecast
Strengths to defend, gaps to attack
Core Strengths
- Solunar data integration provides a unique retention hook for fishing niches
- Community-driven location search ensures coverage in underserved coastal regions
Critical Frictions
- 0.56-star rating gap between iOS and Android platforms
- Navigation interface lacks the speed-to-data required by power users
Growth Levers
- Untapped B2B partnerships with coastal tourism or fishing charter services
- Wearable integration for real-time tide alerts
Market Threats
- Multi-modal marine apps are bundling tide data into broader weather suites
- Maintenance-mode update cadence leaves the app exposed to agile competitors
What are the next best moves?
Ship a one-tap 'Nearest Tide' widget
It is the top-requested feature for power users who need immediate data access.
Trade-off: Push the wearable companion app sprint to Q3.
Pivot the Android navigation redesign to prioritize speed-to-data
The 0.56-star rating gap between platforms suggests UI friction is driving churn on Android.
Trade-off: Pause the price-test on the annual tier.
Audit the ad-frequency in the free tier
User complaints indicate current ad density disrupts the core utility.
Trade-off: Same-quarter capacity available — no major lever displaced.
A counter-intuitive read
The app's biggest risk is not its competitors, but its own maintenance-mode update cadence, which allows agile rivals to erode its lead before the next major feature drop.
Feature Gaps vs Competitors
- Real-time wind and wave modeling (available in Windy.app but absent here)
- Offshore navigation tools (available in PredictWind but absent here)
Key Takeaways
The app maintains a loyal base through accurate NOAA data, but the legacy UI and lack of weather integration limit its growth, so the PM should prioritize speed-to-data features to defend against multi-modal marine competitors.
Where Is It Heading?
Mixed Signals
The marine utility market is consolidating around multi-modal tools that bundle tide data with wind and wave modeling. NOAA Tide Chart & Forecast remains exposed due to its narrow focus and legacy interface, so the PM must accelerate feature parity with broader marine weather apps to prevent further churn.
The 0.56-star rating gap between Android and iOS indicates platform-specific UI friction that is currently eroding the user base on Android.
The recent Android navigation redesign shows the team is actively addressing usability, which could stabilize the rating trend if performance improves.