Tides icon
Tides

Jatisari Inovasi Studio

App Store

Report updated May 22, 2026

Tides is an established weather app that is completely free.

What is Tides?

Tides is a weather utility app for ocean beach visitors, providing tidal forecasts and localized conditions on iOS.

Users hire Tides to quickly check beach conditions without the clutter of professional surf analytics, serving the need for low-friction environmental monitoring.

Current Momentum

v1.2 · 5mo ago

Maintenance
  • Maintains stable utility feature set.
  • Last major update December 2025.

Active Nemesis

Surfline: Wave & Surf Reports

Surfline: Wave & Surf Reports

By Surfline/Wavetrak

Other Rivals

My PurpleAir
Surf Report
Windy Anemometer
Wind & Sea Med
Previsão de Ondas

7-Day Rank Pulse 🇺🇸

Weather

No ranking data

WeatherGrossing

Rating Pulse 🇺🇸

Gathering signals...

What makes this app unique?

Loading...

What Are The Key Features?

Tidal ForecastsStandard

Hourly tidal conditions, extrema, swell height, direction, and period over a 7-day window

Location Search and FavoritesStandard

Map-based beach discovery and saved location list for quick reference

Weather IntegrationStandard

Local wind speed and direction data for specific beach locations

Watch ComplicationsDifferentiator

At-a-glance tidal information displayed on Apple Watch faces

How much does it cost?

Free
  • Free

The app is currently distributed as a free utility with no observable in-app purchase or subscription gates.

What do users think recently?

Analysis in progress, available soon

What is the competitive landscape for Tides?

Where is it available?

Localized markets (20)

United StatesAustraliaBrazilCanadaGermanySpainFranceUnited KingdomIndonesiaIndiaItalyJapanSouth KoreaMexicoNetherlandsPortugalSwedenSingaporeTurkeyVietnam

How's The Weather Market?

Market outlook for this category

Available very soon

The rivals identified

Nemeses(1)

Surfline is the dominant authority in ocean conditions, directly competing with Tides for users seeking high-fidelity, actionable marine and surf forecasting data.

Differentiators

  • Offers proprietary live surf camera feeds that provide real-time visual verification of ocean conditions.
  • Utilizes advanced, proprietary wave forecasting models that go beyond standard public tidal data sets.
  • Features a social 'Sessions' component that encourages user engagement and long-term community retention.

Head to head

Tides should focus on the 'casual beachgoer' segment, avoiding a direct feature war with Surfline's complex surf-specific analytics.

Same space(4)

This app targets the same beach-activity demographic by providing 7-day forecasts and map-based spot identification.

Differentiators

  • Provides specific surf forecast filtering tools that allow users to isolate preferred wave conditions.
  • Focuses on a global spot coverage model that mirrors Tides' geographic breadth but with surf-centric metrics.

While focused on air quality, it competes for the same 'outdoor condition monitoring' screen time as Tides.

Differentiators

  • Includes robust home screen and watch face widgets for instant, glanceable environmental data access.
  • Supports cross-device data synchronization, ensuring users maintain consistent monitoring across their personal hardware ecosystem.
Wind & Sea Med icon

Daniele Fruzzetti

5.0(1)

It serves the same regional maritime audience by offering specialized meteorological parameters and visual forecast mapping.

Differentiators

  • Provides highly granular meteorological parameters specifically tailored for Mediterranean maritime navigation and safety.
  • Offers customized monitoring alerts that allow users to track specific weather thresholds for their region.
Windy Anemometer icon

Atomski Software

4.5(64)

This app competes by offering hardware-integrated marine analytics for users who require precision beyond standard tidal forecasts.

Differentiators

  • Integrates directly with physical anemometer hardware to provide hyper-local, real-time wind speed data.
  • Includes advanced marine analytics and alerting systems designed for professional or serious recreational sailors.

New entrants(1)

A recent entrant that targets the same marine data monitoring space with a focus on location-based forecasting.

Differentiators

  • Prioritizes location-based marine metrics to provide localized condition monitoring for specific coastal regions.

Compare Tides 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.

Go deeper

The outtake for Tides

Strengths to defend, gaps to attack

Core Strengths

  • Native Apple Watch complications provide immediate utility for beachgoers
  • Clean, ad-free interface reduces cognitive load for casual users

Critical Frictions

  • Zero monetization strategy limits long-term development
  • Lack of proprietary data sets forces reliance on standard public tidal information

Growth Levers

  • Integration with broader Apple Health or outdoor activity datasets
  • B2B partnerships with local coastal tourism boards

Market Threats

  • Surfline's live camera network creates a sticky habit Tides cannot match
  • Rapid feature updates from surf-centric rivals erode the casual-user base

What are the next best moves?

highPivot

Pivot the product strategy to include a premium tier for advanced weather alerts because the current free-only model lacks a revenue path → secure long-term sustainability.

The current free-only model lacks a revenue path, preventing reinvestment in proprietary data.

Trade-off: Pause the development of new map-based discovery features — revenue sustainability is a higher priority than feature expansion.

mediumInvest

Invest in deeper Apple Health integration because it differentiates the app from generic weather utilities → increase daily active usage.

Differentiating from generic weather utilities is necessary to retain casual users.

Trade-off: Deprioritize the addition of new beach locations — existing coverage is sufficient for the current audience.

A counter-intuitive read

The lack of monetization is not a failure but a deliberate choice to maintain a clean utility, yet this strategy makes the app a prime acquisition target for a larger weather platform.

Feature Gaps vs Competitors

  • Live surf camera feeds (available in Surfline but missing here)
  • Proprietary wave forecasting models (available in Surfline but missing here)
  • Social engagement components (available in Surfline but missing here)

Key Takeaways

Tides provides a clean utility for casual beachgoers, but its lack of monetization and proprietary data leaves it exposed to specialized competitors, so the team must pivot toward a premium tier or niche integration to ensure long-term viability.

Where Is It Heading?

Stable

The marine forecasting market is consolidating around high-fidelity, community-driven platforms that offer more than just raw tidal data. Tides remains stable as a utility, but without a clear path to monetization or proprietary data, it faces a long-term risk of being squeezed out by competitors with deeper engagement loops.

The latest release focused on stability, indicating the app remains in a maintenance-mode utility state rather than aggressive growth.

The absence of a monetization model limits the ability to fund feature parity with Surfline, which will likely lead to user attrition.

Disclosure: Independent intel to help mobile builders succeed.

AI-powered analysis with editorial review, built from publicly available sources. Marlvel.ai is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Tides, its developer, the app publisher, Apple, or Google Play. All trademarks, logos, and screenshots referenced remain the property of their respective owners.

What's new

The competitive assessment has been recalibrated to address the threat of high-fidelity, surf-specific incumbents, shifting the strategic focus toward monetization and proprietary integration.

shifted

Competitive Nemesis Update

added

Proprietary Data Dependency

added

Live Camera Threat

shifted

PM Action Item Pivot

Cite this report

Marlvel.ai. “Tides Intelligence Report.” Updated May 22, 2026. https://marlvel.ai/apps/tides

Agent Markdown (.md)See methodologyContact support

Data licensed under CC-BY-NC 4.0