Comparisons
Geode or Geology Toolkit?
Both apps name a stone from a photo and say how sure they are. One is written for the person who picked the stone up; the other for someone studying the outcrop it came from.
Updated October 23, 2026
This page compares what each app says about itself: Geode on this site, and Geology Toolkit — Geology Toolkit: Field Guide, by Laurence Wayne — on its website and its App Store listing, as read on 23 October 2026. If a line below has gone out of date, their pages are what count.
Side by side
| Geode | Geology Toolkit | |
|---|---|---|
| Before paying | A handful of complete identifications every week, with no account | A limited number of free identifications — "per day" on its website, "5 identifications per week" in its latest App Store release notes |
| Price | €5.99 a month or €34.99 a year (France, tax included), printed on this site | $2.99 a week or $24.99 a year (US App Store); its website gives no figure |
| Free trial | 7 days, on the yearly plan | "Seven days free", per its release notes |
| Devices | iPhone and Android | iPhone, iPad and Android |
| How sure it is | Very likely, possible or uncertain, with the other matches | "Confidence scores and alternative identifications", per its listing |
| What a result explains | The stone's story: how it formed, where it is found, what crystal lore makes of it | The geology: why the rock is classified as it is, its formation history, its companion minerals |
Where Geology Toolkit may suit you better
If you study geology or map outcrops, it does things Geode does not: it analyses formations — faults, folds, bedding planes — draws pencil sketches for your notes, and exports a field record. Its yearly plan also costs less on paper: $24.99 against €34.99.
Where Geode is different
It is written for the person holding the stone. The sheet opens on the common name, and tells how the stone formed, where it is found and what it has long stood for, as cultural heritage — a story rather than a classification report.
Its prices are on its site. €5.99 a month or €34.99 a year, the trial and how to cancel, before you download anything.
Whichever you use, check it yourself
Both apps say how sure they are, and neither can see hardness or density in a photograph — the properties that settle most identifications. Checking an answer takes a few minutes and things you already own:
- Look at the lustre, in daylight: glassy, metallic, waxy or dull. It is the first real fork in the road.
- Scratch it against a copper coin, a steel nail and a shard of glass: the Mohs scale turns the result into a range.
- Drag it across unglazed porcelain: the streak test shows the colour of its powder, far steadier than the colour of the stone.
- Weigh it in your hand against a pebble of the same size. A stone that feels too heavy for its size is already a clue.
The whole method, in the order that rules out the most, is in how to identify a rock.