We respect what RipCharts does well. Here is exactly where we're different and where we're not.
RipCharts is for the expert who wants the raw ocean data and the tools to read it by hand — and who will pay US$169/yr per region for the Premium tier that carries it. Since September 2026 Fishare shows the same satellite passes — every overpass as observed, composites, chlorophyll by satellite day, a coloured SSH field, a modelled surface salinity field, a classic palette and °F if that is what you are used to — and adds the interpretation on the map: isotherms, the breaks drawn as labelled lines, the warm and cold pockets named on their real outline, a real temperature readout, playback and a 5-day forecast, inside a full free forecast app, for US$79/yr across every covered region. If reading raw imagery by hand is your edge, keep RipCharts. If you want the same water for one price everywhere, with the reading already started, that is us.
RipCharts ships the deepest raw satellite-imagery stack in offshore fishing, sold per region at US$99/yr Standard or US$169/yr Premium, single-user, and expects you to read it. Since September 2026 Fishare draws the same satellite passes — every overpass as observed, with composites and chlorophyll by satellite day — and its own daily SST field with the isotherms and the thermal breaks already drawn and labelled in °C, plus a 7-day playback of past fields their product does not list — inside a full free forecast app, for US$79/yr across every covered region.
RipCharts is a pro instrument: raw and composite SST, cloud-free mashups, sub-surface SST (Premium), altimetry, salinity and up to 20 SST updates a day — each update a raw polar-orbiter pass, partial and cloud-holed, which is why the composites exist — with fine-grained temperature-range tuning so an experienced canyon angler can tease out a half-degree break. That depth is real and we do not pretend to match it — and it is sold one region at a time, single-user — US$169/yr each on Premium, or US$99/yr on a Standard tier that drops the mobile apps and the sub-surface layer. What changed is that Fishare no longer just uses SST as a hidden model input: it renders its own daily SST field, with isotherms, the thermal breaks drawn as lines carrying their own °C delta, a real temperature readout at the tap point, EAC warm and cold pockets named on the temperature edge you would actually fish, and 7-day playback plus a 5-day forecast on the same field. RipCharts gives you the raw data and a very good knife. Fishare draws the field with the reading already started — and adds a per-species HSI score on top — inside a forecast app you were probably already using.
A factual head-to-head across the features that matter for the fishing-decision use case.
| Feature | RipCharts | Fishare |
|---|---|---|
| Raw / composite SST imagery | Yes — raw scans, composites, cloud-free; 8–20 SST updates a day on Premium (4–8 on Standard) | Yes, since September 2026 — every VIIRS and AVHRR overpass drawn as observed (clouds as holes) at 0.02°, 24 h and 72 h composites — the 72 h composite is the cloud-free SST — and the daily gap-filled field. The polar-orbiting satellites in NOAA’s own ACSPO L3U stream (VIIRS and AVHRR) across all 15 regions; plus hourly geostationary frames from Himawari-9 AHI, GOES-19 ABI, GOES-18 ABI and Meteosat-10 SEVIRI in every one of the 15 regions |
| Sub-surface temp (0/-25/-50/-100 m) | Yes — Premium tier only; model-derived (HYCOM-class). Depth ladder not published on their registration page (unverified — retained from 2026-07-16) | Yes — SFC/25/50/75/100/150/200 m ladder on the map, every depth checked against Argo float profiles before it went on; same model class (nobody senses subsurface from a satellite) |
| SST update frequency | 8–20 ×/day on Premium, 4–8 on Standard — but each update is a polar-orbiter pass: a partial swath with cloud holes. Their own cloud-free composites exist because raw passes are incomplete. | Every satellite overpass of the last 72 hours — VIIRS and AVHRR passes from NOAA’s own ACSPO L3U stream across all 15 regions — drawn as the satellite saw it, clouds left as holes, checked for new passes every hour, with hourly geostationary frames from Himawari-9 AHI, GOES-19 ABI, GOES-18 ABI and Meteosat-10 SEVIRI in every one of the 15 regions. One complete, gap-filled field a day, written 21:00 UTC (07:00 AEST / 08:00 AEDT) — plus a 5-day forecast and 7-day playback of the same field |
| Playback of past fields | Not listed — their registration page sells a 5-day SST forecast, but no replay of past fields | Yes — 7-day playback, plus a 5-day forecast, on the same field |
| SST forecast | Yes — 5 days, Premium tier only | Yes — 5 days (D+1 to D+5) from the Copernicus Marine GLO12 model, on the same field as the playback; a day the bake misses shows the most recent complete field with its date on it |
| Isotherms / contour lines | Yes — you tune the ranges | Yes — automatic, 1°C steps (0.5°C on tight-range days) |
| Break / edge highlighting | You read the colour field yourself | Automatic — the break drawn as a labelled line: its °C delta and the two temperatures it separates. An even view says so in words instead |
| Temperature readout at a point | You estimate from the colour scale | Tap/hover reads the actual grid value in °C — not a hue-guess |
| Currents + EAC eddy structure | Yes | Yes — current vectors and labelled SSH contours on their own layers across AU East Coast, AU West Coast, New Zealand, US East + Gulf, US West Coast, Hawaii, Baja & Sea of Cortez, South Australia & West Vic, Top End & Gulf of Carpentaria, Caribbean & southern Gulf, Eastern Tropical Pacific, South-west Pacific and Canadian Maritimes; the eddy itself read as a labelled thermal break on the SST map, and weighted in the habitat score across AU East Coast, AU West Coast, New Zealand, US East + Gulf, US West Coast, Hawaii and South Australia & West Vic |
| Chlorophyll-a | Yes | Yes — by satellite day, with a 3-day composite, plus the daily field: SNPP VIIRS and NOAA-20 VIIRS over AU East Coast, AU West Coast, New Zealand, South Australia & West Vic and Top End & Gulf of Carpentaria (IMOS ocean colour); SNPP VIIRS, NOAA-20 VIIRS and NOAA-21 VIIRS over the other 10 regions (NASA OB.DAAC) |
| Altimetry (SSH) layer | Yes | Yes — the height field coloured over the range in view, with labelled contours in cm, across AU East Coast, AU West Coast, New Zealand, US East + Gulf, US West Coast, Hawaii, Baja & Sea of Cortez, South Australia & West Vic, Top End & Gulf of Carpentaria, Caribbean & southern Gulf, Eastern Tropical Pacific, South-west Pacific and Canadian Maritimes |
| True-colour satellite imagery | Yes, 1-2 updates daily | Yes — NASA VIIRS 250 m, daily, free |
| Salinity layer | Yes | Yes — modelled surface salinity, daily, every region |
| Per-species habitat model | No — you read the raw data | Yes — HSI scores SST + front + shelf-break per species everywhere it runs; the eddy term adds where eddies are baked (AU East Coast, AU West Coast, New Zealand, US East + Gulf, US West Coast, Hawaii and South Australia & West Vic) |
| Per-species bite score | No | Yes — multi-input model, 200+ species profiled |
| Full forecast app (wind/swell/tide/AIS) | No — imagery focus | Yes — one canvas, 14-day slider |
| Coverage | Sold per region — 16 regions: US Gulf/East/West, Hawaii, MX Baja, 9 × AU, 2 × NZ | One price for every covered region: the daily SST field, the 5-day SST forecast, daily chlorophyll, temperature at depth, surface salinity, satellite passes and composites and chlorophyll by satellite day across AU East Coast, AU West Coast, New Zealand, US East + Gulf, US West Coast, Hawaii, Baja & Sea of Cortez, South Australia & West Vic, Top End & Gulf of Carpentaria, Caribbean & southern Gulf, Eastern Tropical Pacific, South-west Pacific, Canadian Maritimes, UK & Ireland and Japan & Kuroshio; SSH and surface currents across AU East Coast, AU West Coast, New Zealand, US East + Gulf, US West Coast, Hawaii, Baja & Sea of Cortez, South Australia & West Vic, Top End & Gulf of Carpentaria, Caribbean & southern Gulf, Eastern Tropical Pacific, South-west Pacific and Canadian Maritimes; the per-species habitat score across AU East Coast, AU West Coast, New Zealand, US East + Gulf, US West Coast, Hawaii, South Australia & West Vic, UK & Ireland and Japan & Kuroshio; eddies in the habitat score across AU East Coast, AU West Coast, New Zealand, US East + Gulf, US West Coast, Hawaii and South Australia & West Vic. New Zealand is one region on Fishare, 33°S to 48°S — North Cape to past Stewart Island, both islands — where RipCharts sells NZ North and NZ South as two subscriptions |
| Free tier | None — annual sub to see data | Forever-free forecast; SST + HSI is the paid layer |
| Price | US$99/yr (Standard) or US$169/yr (Premium) per region, single-user, annual only | US$8.99/mo · US$79/yr — all layers, all covered waters |
RipCharts's pricing structure against Fishare's. The forecast app is free; the ocean-intelligence layers (SST, HSI and friends) are the single paid tier.
Pricing verified 2026-10-19 against RipCharts’ own registration page (ripcharts.com/RegisterForPremium.aspx): two tiers, both sold per region and annual-only — Standard at US$99/yr and Premium at US$169/yr, each priced identically across all 16 regions they list. The licence is single-user and the term is 12 months, with payment taken up front and no free look at the data. An angler who fishes more than one stretch of coast buys a separate subscription for each region on either tier. Premium is the like-for-like tier against Fishare’s SST + HSI layer, because Standard has no mobile app and no sub-surface SST.
Live since July 2026. Users who signed up before the paid flip keep the layers free for life (founding members).
RipCharts is sold one region at a time — tick the stretches of coast you actually fish. Fishare is one price across every covered region, so its side of the sum never changes.
The four AU east-coast regions from RipCharts’ own registration page (verified 2026-10-19). They list 16 regions in total — the US coasts, Hawaii, Baja, the rest of Australia and both New Zealand islands — all on the same per-region terms. The sum below uses their Premium price.
RipCharts’ licence is single-user — each crew member who wants the charts on their own phone needs their own subscription. A Fishare account works the same way, so both sides scale with crew.
RipCharts Premium pricing from their registration page, 2026-10-19 — their cheaper Standard tier is US$99/yr per region and drops the mobile apps and sub-surface SST. Verify current pricing before subscribing. Fishare price per docs: US$8.99/mo or US$79/yr.
Limitations of RipCharts that come up in our own use and in public reviews. We don't list these to attack the product — they're context for the routing below.
RipCharts shows a 24.1°C break tightening against the 100-fathom line. Whether that is a yellowfin edge today — and how the shelf-break slope and the nearest warm-core eddy change that — is on you. The synthesis, the actual fishing decision, is manual. Fishare draws that same break as a line with its °C delta written along it and scores the species suitability underneath — the synthesis is the product, not your homework.
It is satellite imagery, full stop. There is no per-species suitability and no catch-trained scoring. Two anglers reading the same RipCharts map can reach opposite conclusions; the model is in their heads.
US$169/yr buys one Premium region for one user — no monthly option and no free look at the data. Fish the QLD and NSW coast and you are buying several regional subscriptions (roughly US$676/yr for the four east-coast regions), and the licence is single-user, so a second crew member needs their own.
Use-case routing — diplomatic, not flippant. Each row names a specific angler profile and the better tool for that profile.
Sub-surface SST, altimetry and up to 20 SST passes a day are the entire edge for that workflow.
That is a model output, not a raw-imagery read — the HSI does the synthesis RipCharts leaves to you.
RipCharts is imagery only; Fishare is one canvas for the whole trip.
One US$79/yr sub covers every layer across all covered waters, against US$169/yr per Premium region single-user on RipCharts — several subscriptions to cover the same coast.
RipCharts and Fishare sit at opposite ends of the same shelf: RipCharts maximises raw-data depth and hands interpretation to the expert; Fishare maximises synthesis and hands the angler an answer. A serious canyon crew could legitimately run both — RipCharts for the raw subsurface read, Fishare for the modelled per-species score and the rest of the forecast.
Since September 2026 there is a clean path: the same satellite passes, your waypoints pasted or imported as GPX, the classic palette and °F if that is what you read, and the daily field with the break already drawn on top. The four steps are on the switching guide. What does not come across yet is an Android app in public release — if that is your edge, keep RipCharts for now. Imagery history does come across (30 days of passes and daily composites per region), the SST forecast is five days on both sides since 30 September 2026, and surface salinity is matched by a modelled Copernicus field since the same day. Read the switching guide →
Pricing and tier features re-verified 2026-10-19 against RipCharts’ own registration page, ripcharts.com/RegisterForPremium.aspx (Standard US$99/yr and Premium US$169/yr, both per region across the 16 regions they list, single-user, 12-month term, no free look). Comparison otherwise verified 2026-07-16 against the RipCharts App Store listing and ripcharts.com. The Fishare side was re-verified 2026-09-24 against the shipped pass timeline (chlorophyll by satellite day, the coloured SSH field — docs/product/ripcharts-parity-plan.md), and its satellite sources on 2026-10-07: per-pass SST from NOAA’s own ACSPO L3U stream across all 15 regions, chlorophyll by satellite day from IMOS ocean colour and NASA OB.DAAC. Feature depth on the RipCharts side is assessed from their published dataset list; we credit their 16-region coverage and their Android app explicitly rather than claim parity there; salinity is matched since 2026-09-30 by a modelled Copernicus Marine surface field, and the page says it is a model; the 5-day SST forecast has been parity since 30 September 2026, when Fishare’s Copernicus forecast went from two days to five; on imagery history Fishare keeps 30 days of passes and daily composites per region (live from October 2026) against their deeper per-region archive.
The forecast side is free forever — live map, bite score, 7-day forecast and spot pages, no account needed to browse. The ocean-intelligence layers (SST with isotherms and labelled break lines, HSI habitat heatmap, chlorophyll, subsurface temperatures, altimetry) are the single paid tier: US$8.99/mo or US$79/yr across every covered region, with a free look over a window of your own local water.
RipCharts is for the expert who wants the raw ocean data and the tools to read it by hand — and who will pay US$169/yr per region for the Premium tier that carries it. Since September 2026 Fishare shows the same satellite passes — every overpass as observed, composites, chlorophyll by satellite day, a coloured SSH field, a modelled surface salinity field, a classic palette and °F if that is what you are used to — and adds the interpretation on the map: isotherms, the breaks drawn as labelled lines, the warm and cold pockets named on their real outline, a real temperature readout, playback and a 5-day forecast, inside a full free forecast app, for US$79/yr across every covered region. If reading raw imagery by hand is your edge, keep RipCharts. If you want the same water for one price everywhere, with the reading already started, that is us.
A multi-input neural network scored per species, per hour — not a Solunar lookup. Inputs include wind, swell, tide stage, barometric pressure and trend, where the warm-cold water edges are, what the current is doing, moon phase, and a couple of dozen other features per hour. It is decision support built from live conditions, not a guarantee — we publish no accuracy figure, and some days the score is high and the water is dead.
Yes — the native iOS app has been live on the App Store since July 2026 (search "Fishare", or use the direct link apps.apple.com/app/fishare/id6783726939), and it is free for everyone: there is no paid-tier gate on the app itself. A native Android app is on its way to Google Play. Until it lands, Fishare runs on Android as a Progressive Web App: open fishare.app in Chrome, then 'Add to Home Screen' — offline support and push notifications included.
October 2026. We re-verify pricing, feature parity and known limitations each time a major version of RipCharts ships or pricing tiers change. The reviewed date at the top of the page is the source of truth.
They reflect the version of RipCharts we checked at the last review date. Software changes; if you spot something that no longer matches the live product, let us know via the feedback link in the app and we'll update.
Two tiers, both per region and annual-only: Standard at US$99 per year and Premium at US$169 per year, on a single-user licence — verified against RipCharts’ own registration page (ripcharts.com/RegisterForPremium.aspx) on 19 October 2026. Standard is web-only — their comparison table marks both Android and iOS with a red X on that tier — and leaves out sub-surface SST, the 5-day SST forecast and salinity, so Premium is the tier that compares to Fishare. Each stretch of coast (for example Queensland/Cairns, Queensland/Mackay, Brisbane and Sydney) is a separate subscription, with no free look at the data: covering the Queensland–NSW east coast means four Premium subscriptions, roughly US$676/yr. Fishare’s SST + HSI layer is US$8.99/mo or US$79/yr across every covered region.
Yes, since 24 September 2026. The PASSES strip on the SST layer lists every satellite overpass of the last three days — the polar-orbiting satellites in NOAA’s own ACSPO L3U stream (VIIRS and AVHRR) across all 15 regions — each drawn as the satellite saw it at 0.02°, clouds left as holes, with 24-hour and 72-hour composites, and hourly geostationary frames from Himawari-9 AHI, GOES-19 ABI, GOES-18 ABI and Meteosat-10 SEVIRI in every one of the 15 regions; chlorophyll comes the same way, one image per satellite per day: SNPP VIIRS and NOAA-20 VIIRS over AU East Coast, AU West Coast, New Zealand, South Australia & West Vic and Top End & Gulf of Carpentaria (IMOS ocean colour); SNPP VIIRS, NOAA-20 VIIRS and NOAA-21 VIIRS over the other 10 regions (NASA OB.DAAC). On top of that Fishare renders its own daily gap-filled field with isotherm contour lines, the thermal breaks drawn as labelled lines carrying their own °C delta, and a real tap-to-read temperature, and plays back 7 days and forward through a 5-day forecast. RipCharts publishes its imagery updated 4–8 times a day on Standard and 8–20 on Premium, and still has the deeper toolbox — subsurface temperature at four depths and a deeper per-region imagery archive than Fishare's 30 days of passes and daily composites.
Fishare’s rendered grid is roughly 4 km (0.04°) for AU coverage, built from NASA’s 1 km MUR satellite product with gap-filling for cloud cover — we don’t claim 1 km resolution ourselves, and we don’t match RipCharts’ raw-imagery resolution or update cadence. The trade-off is interpretation: Fishare’s field arrives with the isotherms, the labelled break lines and a real temperature readout already applied, updated daily, with playback and a 5-day forecast.
The hourly bite forecast, the catch log and saved spots are free, forever — no subscription needed. The only paid upgrade is the offshore ocean-intelligence set (SST fronts, currents, chlorophyll, the HSI heatmap): Fishare Pro at US$79/yr (A$119/yr in Australia, NZ$129/yr in New Zealand, billed in your own currency at checkout), with a 7-day free trial and no card required to start.
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