ReviewHeron vs. AppFollow
AppFollow is the bigger product by a wide margin: a venture-backed platform running since 2015, built for ASO, product and support teams. It also does far more than ReviewHeron. The question is not which tool does more. It is whether you need the more.
AppFollow has a free plan, and you should know what is in it
This is worth being straight about, because it is the plan most indie developers would land on. AppFollow’s free tier covers 2 apps, 100 manual replies a month, unlimited automated replies, 500 keywords and 10 competitors — and it does not expire. If you have one or two apps and a modest review volume, it may genuinely be enough.
What the free tier does not change: you need an account, and your reviews and store credentials live on AppFollow’s servers.
That is the real choice on this page. Not the price.
Source: the plan comparison on appfollow.io/pricing, checked 2 August 2026.
AppFollow plans as shown on appfollow.io/pricing (EUR view, annual billing), checked 2 August 2026: ASO €19/mo, Essential €119/mo, Team €389/mo. Month-to-month is higher (€29 / €169 / €549) and VAT is extra. Free-plan and per-plan limits come from the same page’s feature comparison. AppFollow also lists special offers for students and non-profits. Check appfollow.io/pricing for current terms.
Where AppFollow is the better tool
I am not going to pretend ReviewHeron wins on everything. AppFollow does several things I deliberately do not build:
- ASO is their core business, not a side feature. Keyword research, rank tracking, competitor intelligence. ReviewHeron does none of this.
- Certifications. ISO 27001, and a Trust Center to point procurement at. If your customer runs a security review, that is a real argument and I have nothing to put beside it.
- Team workflows. Unlimited team members on every plan, shared assignment, and review routing into helpdesks.
- A real free tier. Not a trial — an actual plan you can stay on, with a hundred replies a month.
- Scale. Built for portfolios of dozens of apps, with a support team behind it. I am one person in Bremen.
Choose AppFollow if ASO is part of your job, a support team reads along, or compliance requirements are in play.
Choose ReviewHeron if you have a handful of your own apps, you want reviews answered rather than rankings optimised, and you would rather pay once.
The one thing that does not change with the plan
Whichever AppFollow tier you pick, including the free one, the shape is the same: an account, a cloud dashboard, and your review data and store credentials on someone else’s infrastructure. That is a completely ordinary trade, and most teams make it happily and without incident.
ReviewHeron makes the opposite trade on purpose. There is no backend to breach, because there is no backend. Reviews go store → your Mac, over Apple’s and Google’s official APIs. Your App Store Connect and Play credentials sit in the macOS Keychain. Drafting runs on-device with Apple Intelligence, or with your own Claude or OpenAI key if you prefer. The only thing that can ever leave the machine is a scrubbed crash report, and that is off by default.
If that trade does not matter to you, AppFollow’s free tier is a better deal than 129 €. I would rather say that here than have you find out after buying.
Questions people actually ask
Is AppFollow’s free plan enough for an indie developer?
Possibly. Two apps and a hundred replies a month covers a lot of small portfolios. The reason to look elsewhere is usually the account and the data location, not the limits.
Does ReviewHeron do ASO or keyword tracking?
No. It only looks at reviews for apps you own. If keyword rankings are part of your job, you need something like AppFollow.
Can I see competitors’ reviews in ReviewHeron?
No, and not by choice. Apple’s App Store Connect API only exposes reviews for your own apps. Cloud platforms source competitor data by other means.
How does ReviewHeron handle GDPR?
There is nothing to process. No account, no backend, no review data leaving your Mac. The only optional outbound data is a scrubbed crash report with no personal data, no identifier and no stored IP — off by default.
Can I use both?
Sure. Some people keep AppFollow’s free tier for competitor and keyword visibility, and use ReviewHeron for the actual replying.
What happens after the 12 months of updates?
Your version keeps working forever. Another year of updates and API maintenance is 39 €, and optional.