AppGlance vs TelemetryDeck
If you are evaluating us, TelemetryDeck is probably the other tab. It is a good product with a longer track record, built by people who care about the same things we do, and it makes one design choice that we deliberately made differently.
These two tools agree on almost everything. The one real disagreement is whether you should ever be able to see who a user is. TelemetryDeck says never, by design. AppGlance says anonymous by default, with a switch you can flip if your app has accounts.
Pick TelemetryDeck for the stronger guarantee and the more flexible query builder. Pick AppGlance if you want to watch your app live, get a push the moment someone buys, and open one person's story when they email you.
Who wrote this: we make AppGlance. TelemetryDeck is an independent product and we do not speak for it. The details below were checked in August 2026 and products move, so verify anything decision-critical at telemetrydeck.com. If we have got something wrong, tell us and we will fix it.
What both of us already agree on
This is most of the list, and it is why either one is a better answer than the default:
The real difference: what counts as a "user"
Both tools start from an anonymous identifier. What they let you do with it afterwards is the whole disagreement, and it is worth understanding before you pick.
TelemetryDeck pseudonymous by design
You cannot get from a row in the dashboard back to a person, because the product will not let you.
AppGlance anonymous unless you choose
Anonymous out of the box. If your app has accounts, you can put a name on an install on purpose.
Pick by which failure you fear more. If your worry is "someone on my team will eventually do something creepy with this", the strict hash is the better architecture. If your worry is "a paying customer wrote in and I cannot help them", the optional label is worth more.
Which one to pick
Pick TelemetryDeck if…
- You want to promise your users, or your legal team, that you literally cannot identify anyone.
- You want to ask your own questions of the data, with a proper query builder.
- You value maturity in a tool you plan to keep for a decade.
- You are already beyond Apple and want one established tool across everything.
Pick AppGlance if…
- You want to open a page and see who is in your app right now.
- You want a push on your phone the moment someone buys.
- Your app has accounts and support emails you cannot answer without context.
- You want your App Store answers generated rather than explained.
Side by side
| AppGlance | TelemetryDeck | |
|---|---|---|
| Identity | Random install id. Optionally identify attaches an email, a name, or your own user id. |
Hashed on the device, so it is pseudonymous by construction and cannot be reversed. |
| Live presence | "Active right now" per app, refreshed every few seconds, built on a quiet presence ping whose cadence follows your plan (every four minutes on Free, every minute on the larger ones). | Not the focus. Reporting is built around signals over time rather than who is in the app this second. |
| The feed | One row per visit, read as a story: install → paywall.viewed → purchase, expandable. |
Built around insights and charts rather than a timeline of visits. |
| Asking your own questions | Fixed panels: funnels, retention, sessions, versions, countries, per-user pages, CSV export. | More flexible. A mature insight builder for slicing signals your own way. |
| Alerts | A push on any signal. Install, purchase, anything, to your phone through ntfy or Discord, or a signed webhook to your server. Or native push to the AppGlance iPhone app, free on every plan. | Digest-style summaries rather than a push per event. |
| Privacy labels | Generated. The exact App Store Connect ticks from your own toggles, plus a free public tool. | Documented guidance that you map to the questionnaire yourself. |
| Setup | Two lines of Swift, plus a paste-in prompt that makes an AI agent do the integration and the tracking plan. | Comparable. A small SDK and an app id, well documented. |
| SDK size | About 300 KB compiled on iOS with no dependencies (re-measured 2026-08-31 at 1.2.4 on the current stable compiler; the same source measured ~200 KB on the 2026-08-16 toolchain, so the TelemetryDeck figure beside this one, still from that older toolchain, likely understates today's build too); a 114 KB AAR on Android with one AndroidX dependency. | About 230 KB compiled on iOS with no dependencies; a 253 KB AAR on Android that brings Ktor, OkHttp, kotlinx-serialization and AppCompat with it (72 artifacts on the runtime classpath). Measured 2026-08-16 with the Swift SDK's main branch and kotlin-sdk 7.1.0. |
| Platforms | Apple first, a Kotlin SDK for Android, and an HTTP API for anything else. | Broader. Established clients across Apple platforms and beyond. |
| Track record | New. Built for the author's own nine apps, then opened up. | Years of it, with a real community and a lot of shipped apps. |
| Pricing | Free to 100k events a month, then $4.99/mo for 1M, $14.99/mo for 2.5M, $39/mo for 7M and $99/mo for 18M. Presence pings never count. Prices in USD, excluding VAT or sales tax. | A free tier and then volume-based plans. Check their site for current numbers. |
Where TelemetryDeck is the better pick
- You want the strict guarantee. If "we cannot identify a user even if we wanted to" is a promise you want to make, that is their architecture and not ours.
- You want to ask your own questions. Their insight builder is more flexible than our fixed panels.
- You value maturity. They have been doing this for years and we have not. That matters for a tool you plan to keep for a decade.
- You are beyond Apple already and want one established tool across everything you ship.
Where we think we are better
- The live glance. Opening a page and seeing eight people in your app right now is a different feeling from a chart of yesterday, and it is the thing this product is named after.
- Alerts that reach your phone the moment someone buys.
- Visits as stories, and a page per user when you want to understand one journey.
- The App Store questionnaire, answered. Generated ticks rather than guidance.
- The agent prompt. Paste one block into Claude Code or Cursor and the integration and a sensible tracking plan get written for you.
Questions people ask
Is TelemetryDeck more private than AppGlance?
On identity, yes, and this page says so throughout. TelemetryDeck is built so that nothing it holds could ever become a person. AppGlance keeps a random install id generated on the device, which is what makes retention and live presence possible, and it stays random unless your app calls identify. Neither uses the advertising identifier, neither needs an ATT prompt, and neither requires a consent banner in a standard setup.
Can TelemetryDeck show me who is in my app right now?
No. A live presence count needs something that persists between two moments, and TelemetryDeck deliberately holds nothing that does. It reports signals over time. AppGlance keeps a live count with a pulse dot on each session in flight, which is the single capability its identity model buys.
Can I attach a name or an email to a user?
In TelemetryDeck, no, by design and permanently. In AppGlance, only if you choose to: identify is off until your app calls it, the install id stays the analytics identity either way, and turning it on adds a Contact Info row to your App Store privacy label, which our label tool shows you before you ship.
The fastest way to compare is to look
The demo is the real dashboard on sample data from four apps. No account, nothing to uninstall.
Also worth reading: all the comparisons, how this compares with Firebase Analytics, how this compares with Aptabase, what privacy-first analytics actually means, and the free App Store privacy label tool.