If you keep bees and want a digital journal, two names come up often: HiveBook and Apiary Book. Both promise to replace the soggy paper notebook in your bee jacket pocket, but they take very different paths to get there. Apiary Book has been around for years on Android with a polished free tier and a paid upgrade. HiveBook is newer, iOS-only, and built around a stubborn idea: a beekeeping app should be completely free, work without a signal at the apiary, and never ask for your email.
This post breaks down what each app does well, where they fall short, and which one fits your operation. No marketing fluff, no trashing the competition. Just the trade-offs you need to decide.
Quick Comparison
| Feature | HiveBook | Apiary Book |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (no upsell) | Free tier + $5 premium |
| Works Offline | Yes, 100% | Partial (sync-dependent features) |
| Account Required | No | Yes for sync/backup |
| Best For | Solo operators, small apiaries, iPhone users | Android beekeepers wanting community features |
| Platform | iOS only | Android only (web companion) |
| Key Features | Inspections, hive cards, harvest log, treatments, queen tracking | Inspections, treatments, harvest, weather, marketplace |
| Data Privacy | Stays on device | Stored in cloud |
Pricing
Apiary Book runs a freemium model. The free version covers the basics: a few hives, basic inspection logs, and limited reports. To unlock unlimited hives, advanced reports, and full export, you pay roughly $5 for premium (one-time on some platforms, recurring on others depending on the store). It's a fair price for what you get, and the free tier works fine for hobbyists with one or two colonies.
HiveBook is free. Not freemium. Not free-with-ads. Not free-for-30-days. There is no premium tier, no in-app purchase, no subscription. Every feature ships unlocked from install. The trade-off: HiveBook is built and maintained by a small operator, so the feature set is intentionally focused rather than sprawling.
| Cost | HiveBook | Apiary Book Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $0 | ~$5 (or one-time depending on tier) |
| 1 Year | $0 | ~$5–$60 |
| 3 Years | $0 | ~$15–$180 |
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Features
Apiary Book has the deeper feature catalog. Years of development show. You get inspection templates, treatment scheduling, queen lineage tracking, harvest records, weather integration, a community marketplace where users can post swarms or equipment, and reasonable PDF export. The web companion lets you review records on a laptop. For a beekeeper who wants every tool in one app, Apiary Book covers a lot of ground.
HiveBook focuses on the inspection-to-harvest loop and does that one job carefully. Hive cards show colony status at a glance. Inspection entries capture brood pattern, temperament, queen status, food stores, and treatments with minimal taps. Harvest logs track yield per hive over time so you can see which queens are pulling weight. Treatment history is logged with dates so you don't double-dose or forget rotation timing. Queen records track install date, source, and replacement. The list of things HiveBook does not do is honest: no marketplace, no community feed, no weather widget, no breeding pedigree visualizer.
If you keep bees alongside other operations, the same offline-first philosophy shows up across our sister apps. Barnsbook handles livestock and barn records for ranchers and small farms, and CropsBook covers vegetable gardening and market farming. Same pattern: free, no account, no upsell.
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Offline & Privacy
This is where the apps diverge most sharply. Apiary Book leans on cloud sync. Sign in, and your data backs up to their servers and syncs to the web companion. That's useful if you swap phones or want to share access. The cost: features that depend on the cloud (sync, marketplace, some reports) need a connection, and your inspection notes live on someone else's server.
HiveBook is offline by design. Open the app in a yard with zero bars, log a full inspection, walk to the next hive, log another, leave. Nothing waits to sync. There is no account because there is no server — data stays in the app on your phone. If you reinstall or switch devices, you use the built-in export to move records yourself. For beekeepers in rural areas, mountain yards, or anywhere cell service drops, offline-first is not a feature, it's the only thing that works.
The privacy angle matters too. Inspection records contain location data, treatment history, and yield numbers — information some commercial keepers consider proprietary. HiveBook keeps that on your device. Apiary Book's terms cover what they collect, but the data does leave your phone.
Who Should Use Apiary Book
Apiary Book is the right call if you fit any of these:
- You're on Android and need a real beekeeping app, not a web form on your phone.
- You want a community feature — the marketplace and shared swarm reports have value if you're plugged into a local club using the same app.
- You manage a larger operation that justifies the premium upgrade for unlimited hives and advanced reports.
- You like reviewing records on a laptop via the web companion.
- You have reliable connectivity at your apiaries and prefer cloud backup over manual export.
Apiary Book is a mature, well-built app. Beekeepers who use it generally like it. The Android-only restriction is the biggest filter — if you have an iPhone, the app doesn't exist for you.
Who Should Use HiveBook
HiveBook fits a specific profile:
- You're on iPhone or iPad.
- You run somewhere between 1 and 50 hives — the sweet spot for a focused inspection app.
- You want zero recurring cost and no subscription to forget about.
- Your apiaries don't have reliable cell service, so offline isn't optional.
- You'd rather have a tight feature set you'll actually use than a kitchen-sink app where half the menu is wasted.
- You don't want your inspection data living on a third-party server.
- You prefer to skip account creation and just start logging.
HiveBook is honest about what it is: a working beekeeper's notebook that happens to be digital. If you want a social platform, marketplace, or genetics database, this is not your app. If you want to stop fighting paper notes and start tracking colony health properly, it's a 30-second install away.
The Bottom Line
Apiary Book is the better pick for Android beekeepers who want a deeper feature catalog and don't mind paying $5 for premium and signing in for cloud sync. It's a solid app with a real user base, and on its native platform it's hard to beat for breadth.
HiveBook wins for iPhone users, anyone working in low-signal areas, and operators who want a focused tool with no account, no subscription, and no data leaving the device. The trade-off is a smaller feature set, but the features it has are the ones you actually use every inspection.
The honest answer is that platform decides this for most people: Android beekeepers should look at Apiary Book, iPhone beekeepers should try HiveBook. Both teams are doing solid work for their respective communities, and the beekeeping world is better with both apps in it.
Ready to switch? Download HiveBook Free — it takes 30 seconds and costs nothing.