Merlin Bird ID vs Seek: which nature ID app to install

In the Merlin Bird ID vs Seek app matchup, the short answer is that they solve different problems. Merlin is the better app for birds, especially when you can hear one but not see it. Seek is the better app for plants, insects, fungi and the rest of what you meet outdoors, and since both are free, most people should install both.

Quick verdict

• Pick Merlin Bird ID for birds. It identifies birds from a recorded song, a photo or a few quick questions, and its Sound ID is the feature Seek simply does not have.
• Pick Seek for everything else. Point the live camera at a flower, beetle or mushroom and it narrows things down to a likely species, with no account required.
• Pay for PictureThis only if you look after houseplants or a garden. It adds disease checks, toxicity warnings and care reminders, but it is a subscription.

Both free apps sit in our Reference and Education categories, and both are made by non-profit science organisations rather than ad-funded companies.

Merlin Bird ID vs Seek app at a glance

	Merlin Bird ID	Seek	PictureThis
What it identifies	Birds only	Plants, insects, fungi, birds, mammals and more	Plants
Sound ID	Yes, more than 2,000 species	No	No
How you identify	Upload a photo, record audio, answer questions, browse local birds	Live camera viewfinder	Photo
Species coverage	Sound ID: 2,000+ species	About 80,000 species	Developer claims 400,000+
Offline	Download bird packs or whole regions	Model stored on the device, mixed user reports	Not confirmed
Account needed	No, but uses your location	No, collects no data by default	Not confirmed
Price (as of October 2026)	Free, no ads	Free, no ads	Free tier, Pro subscription
Platforms	iOS, Android, Apple silicon Mac, Vision Pro	iOS, iPadOS, Android	iOS, iPadOS, Vision Pro, Android
Minimum iOS	iOS 18.0	iOS 15.1	iOS 15.0

On the App Store, Merlin shows a 4.9 rating from about 114,000 reviews and Seek a 4.8 from about 31,000 (as of October 2026). High ratings for both tell you people like them, not that one beats the other.

What each app identifies

Merlin is a bird app and nothing else. Cornell Lab of Ornithology builds it on top of eBird, its huge database of bird sightings. That data is why Merlin can tell you which birds are likely where you are standing, at this time of year.

Merlin offers four routes to an ID:

• Sound ID: record a singing bird and watch suggestions appear live.
• Photo ID: upload or take a picture of a bird.
• Step-by-step ID: answer questions about size, colour and behaviour.
• Explore: browse the birds recorded in your area.

Seek, made by the iNaturalist team, takes the opposite approach. It tries to name almost any living thing you point the camera at, including birds. It cannot identify a plant by smell or an insect by its buzz, but it covers far more of the tree of life than Merlin ever will.

So if you are asking whether Merlin can identify plants or insects, it cannot. And Seek can recognise a bird in a clear photo, but it is not built for birding.

Sound ID: the deciding feature

Most birds are heard long before they are seen, which is why Merlin's Sound ID decides this comparison for birders. You hold your phone up, tap record, and Merlin lists the species it hears, highlighting each name when that bird calls again. According to the Merlin App Store listing, Sound ID now covers more than 2,000 species, a jump from the much smaller figures you still see in older articles.

The September and October 2026 updates added sound captions for some species, plus photos and sounds that change with the season. That helps when a bird's song or plumage in spring differs from what you hear in autumn.

Seek has no sound identification at all. If you want a free second opinion on a bird call, BirdNET is the usual alternative, but Merlin's tie-in with local eBird data gives it useful context.

How you identify: photo, recording or live camera

The two apps also feel very different in use. Merlin works from a recording or a still photo, including pictures already in your camera roll. Since version 4.2, Photo ID no longer makes you crop tightly around the bird, which saves a step with distant birds in busy scenes.

Seek uses a live viewfinder instead. As you hold the camera steady, it climbs down the taxonomic ranks, from kingdom to family to genus, until it is confident enough to name a species. This is satisfying with kids, because you can see it thinking.

The downside is that Seek is not designed for importing photos after the fact. If you snapped a mushroom on a hike and want to identify it at home, Seek is awkward. iNaturalist or Google Lens, built into the Google app, handle that better.

Accuracy, with caveats

Neither app is a final authority, and both are most useful when you treat the answer as a strong suggestion.

Merlin

Merlin is excellent on distinctive songs. It is weaker on look-alike voices: a Sussex Wildlife Trust expert noted it can confuse Blackcap and Garden Warbler, two warblers that even experienced birders mix up. It also sometimes suggests birds that are not there, often triggered by a similar call or background noise.

A few habits help:

• Check rare matches. If Merlin names a bird that would be unusual for your area or season, look and listen again before believing it.
• Find quiet spots. Fast Company's tester found Merlin reliable but harder to use in noisy city parks.
• Know your region's coverage. Sound ID coverage varies by country, and some users in Central America report fewer species than in North America or Europe.

Seek

Seek does best on wild and outdoor plants, insects and fungi, which is what its training data is full of. It struggles more with houseplant cultivars. In an April 2026 test of 30 houseplant photos by The Plant Index, Seek got 5 of 8 tricky look-alikes right but only 2 of 6 cultivars.

When Seek is unsure, it stops at genus or family rather than guessing a species. That is honest behaviour, and it is better than a confident wrong answer.

What affects both

Light, distance and your phone's camera quality all change the results, a point the Fast Company review makes about Seek. A shaded leaf at arm's length will beat a backlit tree canopy every time. For sound, wind and traffic do the same damage.

Offline use in the field

This matters on trails with no signal, and the picture is clearer for Merlin than for Seek.

Merlin lets you download bird packs, and since version 3.6 in April 2025 you can download a whole region. Once that is done, Sound ID and Photo ID work without a connection. Download before you leave home, because packs are large and the app itself is about 335 MB on iPhone.

Seek's identification model lives on the phone, and a forum reply describes the full model, about 86,000 taxa, as stored on the device. Even so, some users and a newspaper reviewer have complained that Seek struggles without signal. We would treat Seek as mostly offline-capable, but open it once at home and test it in airplane mode before a remote trip.

Privacy, accounts and kids

Seek is the stronger choice for privacy and for children. It needs no registration and, per its App Store listing, collects no user data by default. It also obscures your location, and only shares precise location if you sign in to iNaturalist and submit observations. Badges and challenges make it a good fit for school trips, and Cornell's teacher guide labels it a beginner app.

Merlin also works without an account, but it uses your location to build its list of likely birds. That is central to how it works, and you can enter a location manually if you prefer. Neither app shows ads.

Price, platforms and devices

Both Merlin and Seek are free with no ads and no in-app purchases (as of October 2026). Cornell says Merlin is funded by Cornell Lab members, supporters and citizen-science contributors. Seek is backed by iNaturalist, a non-profit, with support from the California Academy of Sciences and National Geographic Society.

Both run on iPhone and Android. The device details differ:

• Merlin needs iOS 18 or later, which rules out some older iPhones. It also runs on Macs with M1 or later chips and on Vision Pro, and it supports English plus 30 other languages.
• Merlin on iPad is listed as designed for iPhone, so it runs in a phone-shaped window rather than as a native iPad app.
• Seek needs only iOS 15.1 and supports iPad natively, which is handy for classrooms with older tablets.

Is Seek still being developed?

This is the question few reviews raise. Seek got a major upgrade in February 2025, when version 2.17.0 brought its first new vision model since launch and raised coverage from about 20,000 to about 80,000 species. Since August 2025, though, every update note simply reads minor updates and bug fixes, with version 2.18.2 arriving on 30 September 2026.

Meanwhile, iNaturalist has released a separate, new iNaturalist app. Seek still works well and is still updated, but the team's main energy appears to be going there. Merlin, by contrast, keeps adding features several times a year.

Where each app leads next

Both apps are on-ramps to bigger citizen-science projects.

• Merlin leads to eBird. Cornell's eBird app lets you keep checklists of what you saw and heard, and your records feed into bird research and conservation.
• Seek leads to iNaturalist. iNaturalist needs an account, but other users review your photos and confirm or correct the ID. That community check is what makes its records research-grade.

If Seek gives you a genus but not a species, posting the same find to iNaturalist is the natural next step.

The paid plant pick: PictureThis

Seek is built for curiosity on a walk. PictureThis is built for people who own plants and want to keep them alive. Beyond identification, it offers disease diagnosis, toxic plant warnings for pets and children, weed identification, watering reminders and a light meter.

The developer claims more than 400,000 species and over 98% accuracy, but that is its own figure. In the April 2026 houseplant test, PictureThis got 4 of 6 cultivars right, better than Seek, but was confidently wrong on 2. A wrong answer delivered with certainty is worth watching for when you are diagnosing a sick plant.

On the US App Store, PictureThis Pro is listed at $39.99, $7.99 and $3.99, with a Family Plan at $49.99 (as of October 2026). The listing does not say which price matches which billing period, so check the terms on the purchase screen before you subscribe. The free version limits how much you can do.

If you want a free alternative, Pl@ntNet often scores close to PictureThis in independent tests, without the subscription.

Which should you choose?

For most people, the Merlin Bird ID vs Seek app question ends with installing both, since they cost nothing and barely overlap. Here is how to decide by type of user:

• Backyard birders and anyone curious about birdsong: Merlin. Sound ID alone justifies it, and Explore shows what to look for nearby.
• Hikers and general nature fans: Seek for plants, bugs and fungi, with Merlin alongside for birds. Download Merlin's region pack before you go.
• Parents and teachers: Seek first, thanks to no account, no data collection and kid-friendly challenges. Add Merlin for older kids who enjoy bird calls.
• Serious birders: Merlin plus eBird for lists, with BirdNET or your own ears as a second check on tricky songs.
• Houseplant and garden owners: PictureThis if you want care reminders and disease checks, or Pl@ntNet if you would rather not pay.
• Casual one-off lookups: Google Lens in the Google app is quick and free, though it was less accurate in the 2026 houseplant test.

If you are setting up a new phone, our list of free apps every new phone needs covers more essentials worth adding next to these two.