iOS In-App Feedback SDK Comparison (2026): Which One Should You Use?

You're building an iOS app and you want to collect feedback from users without sending them to the App Store review page or a Google Form. You need something inside the app — a button, a shake gesture, a prompt after a key action.

There are a lot of options. This post compares the most popular ones based on real usage, not marketing pages. I'll cover what each tool does well, where it falls short, and which type of app it fits best.

What to look for in an iOS feedback SDK

Before comparing tools, here's what actually matters:

• Setup time — How fast can you go from zero to collecting feedback?
• SDK size — Does it bloat your app binary?
• Customization — Can you match your app's look and feel?
• Context collection — Does it capture device info, OS version, screen, etc.?
• Privacy — Does it collect data you didn't ask for?
• Pricing — What does it cost at scale?
• Dashboard quality — Is the feedback actually useful once collected?

1. Instabug

Instabug is the most well-known option. It started as a bug reporting tool and expanded into feedback, crash reporting, and performance monitoring.

Pros:

• Shake-to-report gesture with screenshot annotation
• Detailed device info and session replay
• Good crash reporting built-in
• Supports both iOS and Android

Cons:

• SDK is heavy (~3-5 MB added to your binary)
• Free tier is very limited
• Pricing jumps quickly — starts around $240/month for small teams
• Overkill if you just want simple feedback collection
• Can be slow to initialize on app launch

Best for: Larger teams that want bug reporting + feedback + crash analytics in one SDK and don't mind the cost.

2. Shake

Shake is a lighter alternative to Instabug, focused on bug reporting with feedback capabilities.

Pros:

• Clean UI that users actually understand
• Lighter SDK than Instabug
• Good screenshot and screen recording
• Activity history (shows what user did before reporting)

Cons:

• More bug-reporting focused than general feedback
• No sentiment analysis or feedback categorization
• Pricing starts at $55/month for the Growth plan
• Limited integrations compared to Instabug

Best for: Teams that want a cleaner, lighter Instabug alternative primarily for bug reports.

3. Doorbell

Doorbell has been around for a while. Simple feedback widget that works on web and mobile.

Pros:

• Very simple to integrate
• Supports iOS, Android, and web
• Email notifications for new feedback
• Affordable pricing (starts at $29/month)

Cons:

• The iOS SDK hasn't been significantly updated recently
• Limited context collection — no device info beyond basics
• No AI analysis or smart categorization
• Dashboard feels dated
• No sentiment analysis

Best for: Teams that want something simple and cheap, and don't need advanced analytics.

4. UserVoice

UserVoice is more of a product management tool than a feedback SDK. It focuses on feature requests and voting.

Pros:

• Great for feature request tracking and prioritization
• Users can vote on ideas
• Good for public-facing product roadmaps

Cons:

• Expensive — starts at $699/month for the basic plan
• iOS SDK is a wrapper around a web view, feels non-native
• Not great for quick sentiment feedback or bug reports
• Designed for enterprise, not indie devs or small teams

Best for: Enterprise product teams with budget who want feature voting and roadmap tools.

5. Appzi

Appzi is a web-focused feedback tool that has been expanding to mobile.

Pros:

• Clean survey-style feedback forms
• Good targeting rules (show on specific pages)
• NPS and rating widgets built-in

Cons:

• Primarily web-focused — mobile support is through web views
• No native iOS SDK
• Not ideal for native app feedback

Best for: Web apps and mobile web — not native iOS apps.

6. Feedback Pulse

Full disclosure: this is our tool. I'm including it because it fills a gap in the market — lightweight, API-first feedback collection designed for developers building mobile and web apps.

Pros:

• No SDK to install — uses a simple REST API. Call one endpoint from your Swift code
• Zero impact on app binary size
• Full context collection: device, OS, app version, screen, environment
• AI-powered analysis — get action suggestions and categorization automatically
• Separate dev/production environments
• Slack, ClickUp, and webhook integrations
• Free tier: 1,000 feedbacks/month, no credit card

Cons:

• No pre-built UI widget for iOS — you build the UI, we handle the backend
• Newer product, smaller community
• No screenshot annotation or screen recording

iOS integration example

Since there's no SDK, integration is just an HTTP request. Here's how it looks in Swift:

import Foundation

struct FeedbackService {
    static let apiKey = "YOUR_API_KEY"
    static let baseURL = "https://fpulse.app/api/v1"

    static func submit(
        sentiment: String,
        comment: String? = nil,
        screen: String? = nil
    ) async throws {
        guard let url = URL(string: "\(baseURL)/feedback") else { return }

        var request = URLRequest(url: url)
        request.httpMethod = "POST"
        request.setValue(apiKey, forHTTPHeaderField: "X-API-Key")
        request.setValue("application/json", forHTTPHeaderField: "Content-Type")

        var body: [String: Any] = [
            "sentiment": sentiment,
            "app_type": "ios",
            "app_version": Bundle.main.infoDictionary?["CFBundleShortVersionString"] as? String ?? "unknown"
        ]

        if let comment = comment { body["comment"] = comment }
        if let screen = screen { body["screen_id"] = screen }

        request.httpBody = try JSONSerialization.data(withJSONObject: body)

        let (_, response) = try await URLSession.shared.data(for: request)
        guard let httpResponse = response as? HTTPURLResponse,
              httpResponse.statusCode == 201 else {
            throw URLError(.badServerResponse)
        }
    }
}

Then call it from anywhere in your app:

// After user taps a feedback button
try await FeedbackService.submit(
    sentiment: "negative",
    comment: "The search results are slow to load",
    screen: "search_results"
)

Best for: Developers who want a lightweight, API-first approach with AI analysis and don't need a pre-built mobile UI.

Comparison table

So which one should you pick?

For most iOS developers, the choice comes down to what you actually need. If you look at the comparison above, a few things stand out:

• Most SDKs are expensive. Instabug starts at $240/month, UserVoice at $699/month. That's a lot before you've even validated your feedback loop.
• Heavy SDKs add bloat. Adding 3-5 MB to your binary for a feedback tool is hard to justify, especially when App Store reviewers care about download size.
• You probably don't need crash reporting bundled with feedback. You likely already use Crashlytics or Sentry for that.

Feedback Pulse takes a different approach: zero SDK, zero binary impact, and a generous free tier (1,000 feedbacks/month). You write a simple Swift function, call one REST endpoint, and you're collecting feedback with full context — device, OS version, app version, and screen.

Plus, you get AI-powered analysis that none of the native SDKs offer. Instead of manually reading through hundreds of comments, you get automatic categorization and action suggestions.

The best time to start collecting feedback is before you have thousands of users. Start free, build the habit of listening, and scale up when you need to.

Start collecting feedback free — no credit card, no SDK to install, just one API call from your Swift code.