HookEcho vs RadarScope
The chaser standard, and the app HookEcho is measured against most often.
Where RadarScope wins
- The phone app is more polished than ours, and has been for a decade.
- There is an iPhone and iPad build. We have Android and desktop.
- Its data plumbing — SPC outlooks, extra products, the pro tiers — is deeper in places.
RadarScope is a good app that costs money, and the things you buy on top of it — lightning, the mosaic, archive playback — are things HookEcho gives away because they come from public NOAA feeds. If the polish of the phone app is what you care about, buy RadarScope. If you want every Level 2 product, the archive back to 1991 and no bill, take ours for a drive in the browser first.
Feature by feature
| Feature | HookEcho | RadarScope |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Yes Free, MIT licensed | Partly Paid app, subscription tiers |
| Ads | Yes None | Yes None |
| Account required | Yes Never | Partly For the paid tiers |
| Open source | Yes Every line | No |
| Level 2, every tilt | Yes All elevations, full resolution | Yes All elevations |
| Dual-pol products | Yes ZDR, CC, KDP, ΦDP | Yes Full set |
| Velocity and dealiasing | Yes With storm-relative | Yes With storm-relative |
| National MRMS mosaic | Yes Full resolution | Partly Paid tier |
| Lightning | Yes GOES GLM | Partly Paid tier |
| Forecast models | Partly HRRR, NAM, soundings | No |
| Tropical tracks | Yes NHC cones and advisories | No |
| Archive playback | Yes Back to 1991 | Partly Paid tier, recent only |
| Works offline | Yes Chase packs, prefetched | No |
| Coverage outside the US | Partly US plus German DWD radar | Partly Several countries |
| Runs in a browser | Yes The whole app, no install | No |
| iPhone and iPad | No Not yet | Yes |
| Desktop app | Yes Windows, macOS, Linux | Partly Windows, macOS |
| Mobile polish | Partly Android only, and younger | Yes The bar everyone measures against |
| Telemetry | Yes None, at all | No Analytics |
Verified August 2026, from each product's own pricing and feature pages. Tiers and prices move; if a row here is wrong, tell us and it gets fixed.