BirdGuide Comparison

Sibley

• easy to use
• uses eBird data to determine what's likely in your area
• cheap
• sounds and pics

• Find birds with eBird (similar functionality to the BirdsEye app)
• Good selection of very nice photographs
• Great selection of sounds (essentially the same sounds as Sibley)

• Includes more information – similar species, winter ranges, natural history, etc – than the field guide
• Extras such as quizzes and videos

• Great list feature that allows you to import/export lists
• Incorporates information from seven other books in the Peterson Field Guide series (including, for example, the entire text from Molt in North American Birds)
• Works and looks great on an iPad

• Powerful search engine / filtering capabilities

• The interface is very slow compared to the other apps here
  Can’t browse species taxonomically
  Journal and list functions are confusing and not very useful

• The images are relatively small on the screen. You can zoom in, but since the size of the area dedicated to the image doesn’t change, it doesn’t help much. And the image quality doesn’t quite hold up when zoomed in.
  List functionality has potential, but not really useful yet

• Sounds – the worst selection (only one per species) and interface for playing them
  Interface doesn’t work as well on an iPhone

• Number of illustrations is very limited, with many only having one (females and immatures are often neglected). The photos, however, help make up for this
  Price
  Lack of sighting system/lists
  Quality of some illustrations is poor

• Price
  Filtering capabilities are relatively limited
  Lack of extras like natural history information, social media sharing, etc
  I love always having my Sibley guide with me via this app. The print edition is still my favorite field guide, and this app is likewise the one I turn to first, even though it doesn’t have some of the information and features found in other apps. Basically, what you get is the contents of the print guide plus sounds, filtering, and list features. But the main content – the illustrations and sounds – are the best.