ReleaseCat vs Beamer: Which Changelog Tool Is Right for You?

We make ReleaseCat, so start with the part that is easiest to check: these two products do not compete.

Beamer puts a changelog inside a web app. ReleaseCat manages the release notes and listings that go into the App Store and Google Play. If you only ship a web product, this comparison ends here and the answer is Beamer, Headway or AnnounceKit.

The reason the two get searched together is that both are answers to "how do I tell users what shipped", and a lot of teams have to answer that on more than one surface.

The one-line version

What Beamer does well

Beamer is a mature product in a category it helped define, and the things it is good at are things ReleaseCat does not attempt.

Reaching someone mid-session. A badge in your app's header is the only way to tell a user something changed while they are actually using the thing that changed.

Segmentation. Announcing a feature only to the people who can use it is the difference between a panel people open and one they mute. Beamer supports it from the Pro tier, with more on Scale.

Reactions and comments. You find out whether an announcement landed. Store release notes give you nothing comparable.

One vendor for adjacent jobs. Changelog, in-app notifications, NPS and push in one place has real operational value, even though feedback and NPS are priced as add-ons.

Pricing, checked on 21 August 2026 against Beamer's pricing page: Free at 1,000 MAU, Starter $59/month at 5,000, Pro $119/month at 10,000, Scale $299/month at 50,000, with annual billing lower. MAU counts unique users loading any page that carries the script.

What ReleaseCat does

ReleaseCat connects to App Store Connect and the Google Play Developer API and manages the store side of shipping.

The What's New field, for every language. The App Store allows 4,000 characters per language, Google Play allows 500. ReleaseCat holds both, translates from one source into the languages you sell in, and checks each translation against the store's limit before you save rather than after the store refuses it.

Both stores from one screen. iOS and Android listings side by side, with what is currently live shown against what you are about to change.

The rest of the listing. Titles, subtitles, descriptions, keywords, screenshots and pricing across territories, because in practice nobody edits release notes in isolation.

Submission and rollout. Submit for review, then choose whether an approved iOS version releases manually, on a date, or automatically, with Apple's seven-day phased release pausable from the same screen. Play releases promote from internal through alpha and beta to production at a staged rollout percentage. An iOS app and its Android sibling can also be paired and driven from one page: one set of release notes for both stores, one submission with the iOS version held for a manual release, and one click that releases both together.

Reviews from both stores. One feed, tagged by topic, which is the closest thing the app stores offer to the reaction data a widget gives you. Replies go out from the same feed, and the inbox counts the reviews still waiting for one.

Free for two apps, without the AI review tagging above: capture still runs, the topics do not. Paid plans are $19 and $49 a month; every feature is on both, and what changes is the monthly AI allowance and how many people can be in the organization. Pricing.

Which one you need

You ship a web app only

Beamer, or one of the alternatives. ReleaseCat has nothing to offer you. There is no store listing to manage.

You ship an iOS or Android app only

ReleaseCat, or App Store Connect and Google Play Console directly. A web changelog widget cannot reach into a native app, and the update your users see is the store listing whether or not you manage it deliberately.

Whether a tool is worth it depends on your numbers. One app, one language, monthly releases: the consoles are fine, and you should use them. Three apps across two platforms in twelve languages: you are doing seventy-two edits per release by hand, and that is the point where this stops being a preference.

You ship both

You need both, and that is a normal outcome rather than a failure to choose.

The two surfaces have different audiences. Your web changelog reaches people while they are using the product, and anyone who lands on its hosted page. Your store listing reaches everyone deciding whether to install, plus every existing user who looks at their Updates tab.

The thing to avoid is writing the same release twice from scratch. Write the store version first, because 500 characters is the tighter constraint, then expand it for the web panel where you have room for an image and a link. The reverse never fits.

You have multiple products

Worth checking how each tool prices this, because the two models pull in opposite directions. Beamer's MAU model spans your products but grows with traffic on any of them. ReleaseCat charges flat and holds as many apps as you import above the free tier.

You run several environments

Neither tool is an answer to "we ship to staging, beta and production and want a changelog per environment". Beamer's Scale tier includes a staging account. ReleaseCat models each store's own idea of an environment: on Android a release moves through internal, alpha, beta and production, and on iOS it manages TestFlight, so you can create a tester group, hand a build to it, invite testers, and write what those testers are told to test, in any of the 50 App Store languages, from the dashboard. Apple keeps a few switches for itself: the build goes up from Xcode or Transporter, the export compliance answer is cleared in App Store Connect, and an external group's builds still go through Apple's beta review. If your environments are your own rather than the stores', both tools will need help from your own process.

What ReleaseCat does not do

Stated plainly, because a comparison page that only lists strengths is an advertisement.

• No in-app widget. Nothing to embed, no badge, no popover.
• No hosted changelog page. If you want a public /changelog URL, ReleaseCat does not produce one.
• No segmentation. Store release notes go to everyone on that version; there is no audience to slice.
• No reactions or comments. Store reviews are the only feedback you read and answer here, and they are a different thing.
• No push or NPS. Out of scope.
• Nothing for web products. If you do not ship to a store, there is nothing here.

What Beamer does not do

• Nothing reaches the App Store or Google Play. The script runs in a browser.
• No store listing management. Titles, screenshots, keywords, pricing and submission are not what it is for.
• No store review handling. Its feedback module collects feedback from your own app, not from the stores.

How to decide in two minutes

1. Open your analytics and find the share of active users who are in a native app rather than a browser.
2. If it is near zero, buy a widget and stop reading.
3. If it is near 100, the widget will not reach your users. Manage the store side properly.
4. If it is somewhere in between, budget for both and write the store version first.

If you are still comparing options, best changelog tools covers the field including the free approaches, and release notes best practices covers the writing, which matters more than either tool.

Pricing and plan contents in this article were checked on 21 August 2026 against each vendor's published pricing page and change without notice.