iNaturalist Reviews

by Denisovich87

I’m completely blind but I don’t let that stop me from doing the things I love such as gardening. iNaturalist was pretty darn useful and accessible using my iPhone screen reader, and although it rarely correctly identified the plant right off the bat, it would most times previous to about April 2021 give me the correct suggestion in a list of possibilities. I am really, really disliking the updated System as there are far, far fewer suggestions even when I go turn off the “nearby“ switch (which I seem to have to do with every single observation). Along with that, the things it does suggest are laughably far from correct; no, the iris I’m taking a picture of is not a toad of any species, nor is it a blue land crab,, nor also “magic mushroom“ (I kid you not, that was the title of a suggestion and yes, it was the psilocybin )trip( variety of mushrooms per the species name to that title). Basically, this used to be really good and I would happily pay for what it used to be, but certainly wouldn’t pay for what it is now.

by Only Angry Reviews

I loved iNaturalist for all the reasons noted in the other reviews. I used it for about a year and was enjoying contributing to the documentation of wildlife in my area. When I had an observation and couldn’t capture a picture it made sense to use the picture they provided in the identification process. Well I did that for 3 or 4 observations and they sat there for months. Then one day some lady starts leaving condescending comments on those posts that I can’t do that and that she was going to report me. Which she did. And they wrote me more elitist condescending comments. AND I am pretty sure they deleted one of my own photos…they don’t deserve it anyway. I’m sure they took my photos and observation data to use for their own benefits. So sign up but beware your working unpaid for ungrateful condescending elitist academics. This is why the massive social potential of iNaturalist goes right by them unnoticed. They have no social clues and they don’t care what the users want as long as they post content for them to steal.

by Yetanothermillenial

I love inat. I use it all the time. The taxonomy suggestions are almost always on point. I use it to explore areas I already am familiar with too to learn about the things living around me I’ve never heard of. Even the projects and guides are cool, because I can see which species in a group are most commonly encountered based on how many times they’ve been observed compared to others. The range maps you get for species etc are dynamic.

BUT, the social component to me is abysmal. “Leaderboard?” No one cares. It’s a meaningless statistic. I’d like to be able to see who is observing similar things to me in an area. Who is consistently identifying a specific phylum or genus? (Not me lol). They should be acknowledged as someone with some knowledge in that area. I know inat has powerful algorithms capable of identifying species based on photos - use some of those algorithms to connect peoples’ observational powers and curiosity. Sometimes I observe something that scientist haven’t completely determined what subspecies lives in my specific area- why can’t scientists send out questions for people to find out? Don’t know the southernmost extent of a plant? Ask people who have observed it before and live in the area to look for it.

This is a powerful app for taking citizen science to the next level. I’d love to see what they can do.

by D. Hill

this app is a great community sourced nature application that allows users to learn about a comprehensive amount of wildlife whether plant of animal and and observe and record their findings. The application makes it easy to learn about wildlife with all the captured data from scientists and other users like yourself including titles, descriptions and photos of subjects. The community can also aid you in your findings with suggestions on wildlife you have observed. Users can look up wildlife captured in their location or easily add it with the camera on the device they are using. iNaturalist allows users to create projects you can continually add to as well as follow projects from others you are interested in. this app also has a news section detailing the latest captures from the community as well as the latest developments concerning the application. For professionals as well as amateurs this app is a great tool to learn more about our everyday surroundings both near and far.

by Blassedberry

iNaturalist can be super useful to identify bugs, animals, plants, and more! I originally downloaded iNaturalist when I actually was bit by a strange bug that appeared in my home. iNaturalist was super helpful, and was able to identify the bug I was bit by. I have actually tested this apps animal detection system, and it works 90% of the time. I was able to gather pictures of animals online, end upon scanning them with iNaturalist , most came out to be what the animal really was. However, there are times where the system fails to get the right animal, usually these times are due to the image itself. The animal identification system works best with zoomed in and clear photos of the animal or plant, however will still work sometimes with blurry or zoomed out pictures. And towards the end of my test, I scanned a picture of a person I found online, which sadly said it was inconclusive on determining what the “animal” was. I rated this 4/5 stars because it sometimes fails, but for the most part works. Thanks for this amazing app!

by Miss Cryptonic

Everything about iNaturalist is extremely helpful and really user friendly once you make your first observation (taking a picture and identifying the species) I couldn’t ask for an easier identification system. Before discovering iNaturalist, I had to manually identify things myself, so I REALLY appreciate the hard work that’s been put into making iNaturalist. The only suggestions that I have are 1. Being able to tap and zoom in on the image being used while scrolling through the list of possible identifications and 2. Having an automatic tag system for species that are observed somewhere that they are not native to. I plan on studying invasive species in college and I believe that it’d be really cool if iNaturalist implemented a labeling system to notify users if they have identified a invasive species in the area.

I just think that more people should realize that not every animal/plant that they see is supposed to be there (there meaning wherever the user lives) I feel like I’m rambling but what I’m trying to say is that this app could be VERY useful in spreading awareness of invasive species!

by Amphibnerd

iNaturalist is a helpful tool for anyone and everyone. Helps you identify plants, animals, and fungi via high quality photos you take. Even if the algorithm can’t narrow down ID suggestions to a species, sharing real-time flora and fauna occurrence data means that other users on this app can also make suggestions and comments. Useful for educational purposes, general curiosity, and even scientific research. A modern way to collect data on wildlife distributions using citizen science. Note- you can save pictures for later if your current location doesn’t have cell service needed for ID suggestions. Just go back to your post and edit it with the suggestion tool and enter location of finding. Overall, I highly recommend iNaturalist to anyone, no scientific background required.

by Sky Greenwood

I’ve downloaded and tried handfuls of field-guide-type-apps (some for plants, some specifically for mushrooms, etc) and this app BY FAR takes the gold medal.

Reasons this app is #1: the user-friendly setup of iNaturalist ’s layout; the community/peer based suggestions with a social-media-meets-field-guide vibe; and just the fact that after downloading 5-6 free field guide apps and testing them all out- I DELETED THE OTHERS BECAUSE this app IS THE ONLY ONE THAT COULD COMPARE/REPLACE AN ACTUAL PRINTED FIELD GUIDE BOOK.

>> One suggestion though: although I do love the feature where other users can comment their ID for my observation- whether they believe it to be the same species, etc that I had thought and originally posted, or whether they have a different suggestion- I THINK IT WOULD BE SO COOL IF AFTER ONE PERSON/USER POSTS/COMMENTS A SPECIFIC ID FOR AN OBSERVATION, IF ANYONE AFTER THAT AGREES- IF THEY COULD JUST CAST THEIR VOTE WITH THE BEFORE OBSERVATION ID.
^^ Or it would be even better if when I post an observation that I am unsure of the ID and maybe 2 of the apps top suggestions both look equally right, it would be cool if there was an option to check mark both of them, and ask the this app community to help ID the observation by voting.

All around great app, SO GLAD I STUMBLED UPON IT.

by Jasperhounds

I have been using iNaturalist along with a couple of other similar apps for a couple of years. The this app app is by far the best of all of them. It is very accurate at identifying about anything living. If you run across something you aren’t sure of the community can help with suggestions. The members are very knowledgeable if not expert. You have an account so your observations are all logged for you and you can log in from any device to use it. I use it everywhere and if I am pressed for time I just snap some photos with my phone and upload them later. The location information for the photo pinpoints where it was taken. I really enjoy being able to identify so many plants. It is a great learning tool. If you want an app to identify plants and animals of all kinds look no further.

by Long-time Birder

When I heard that there was an app that would help me identify birds, mammals, fungi, insects, plants and other organisms from photos, I was very skeptical. After all, there are millions of living organisms, and they look different at different ages, in different seasons, and even in different environments. I have been very pleasantly surprised by how often iNaturalist correctly identifies the subject. It works even better if you are familiar enough with the organism to know what specific characters to include in your photograph (for example, iNaturalist is more likely to be able to identify a plant from a photo of the flower than one of a single leaf). I often get an ID correct to the genus level in plants and species level for many animals. Even if I only get as far as a family-level ID, I know where to turn for further info. I often get a second or third ID within a week or two. Great app!

by SmurfyGram

I travel a lot and iNat has been a wealth of knowledge for my explorations wherever I may be. I was very hesitant to post at first because I could feel all these very smart contributors and didn’t feel I matched up. But that’s the whole point! Everyone is welcome to post observations and iNaturalist is brilliant at suggesting possibilities for what you see so the learning is timely and accessible. I urge everyone to jump in and snap pictures of things you’re curious about and let the wonder unfold! Turn on the location feature so the suggestions are local. You’ll be amazed at the resourcefulness of iNaturalist and it’s community! Get outside and become a citizen scientist! And you might notice how much it calms the mind and soothes the soul. They say it boosts the immunity and Vit D levels too! Let’s go iNat!! Right now. Yes, right now!

by P-fletch

I have been a Docent (trained volunteer) at a California State Reserve and a California Naturalist for four years. this app is by far my #1 go-to place for any questions on species identification issues. It’s astonishing that (a) the automatically suggested IDs almost always contain the correct answer, usually as the first suggestion, and (b) that you can get confirmations of a proposed ID from multiple species experts around the world, and often within minutes of posting an observation. My favorite so far is a picture I posted of a single feather my granddaughter found (and held in her hand in the photo) that was quickly identified by an 18-year old expert on the opposite side of the world (and she also told me specifically that it was a “secondary flight feather” from a Red-shouldered Hawk). I can’t live without iNaturalist and neither should you.

by Hopeful For Happiness

I was recommended iNaturalist by an online friend, and am so glad I started using it! I’ve always loved nature (and taking photos of the things I see), so iNat is a perfect fit for me. It’s super easy to use, and the auto suggest feature is a blessing in situations where I have... just NO idea what I’m looking at haha! 🌼

iNat has also been a motivating factor for me this pandemic- even stuck at home, this is a good way to ground myself in the world around me. Backyard species that I had previously overlooked (like small bugs or just ‘weeds’) helped remind me that every type of life is interesting in its own way. From tiny mushrooms I would have never ID’d previously, to purposely taking up-close shots of skittish butterflys, iNat has been nothing but a delight to use!

I recommend it wholeheartedly to everyone, even if you don’t know too much about ‘nature’- iNaturalist can really help you learn! 🌱

by C Burch-Brown

This wonderful app extends your pleasure in exploring the world, sparks your curiosity and deepens your knowledge all at the same time. Your own photos are the starting point to dig in and find out more about plants, animals, and natural phenomena anywhere in the world. You get to be a part of a friendly community that collectively has a huge amount of knowledge and enjoys sharing it. You get to use, for free, the creative work of the coders and designers at iNat who are figuring out better algorithms and integrating new science data all the time.

Using iNat encourages you to take a generalist’s exploratory approach to the natural world - to look at everything. Not only is it a great app in its own right, it’s also a terrific field asset when used in conjunction with apps that concentrate on one element of the natural world, such as birds or trees. Along the way, your photography improves because you figure out how to take pictures that capture and reveal the most. You learn to see better and to see more.

by Kevychevy420

iNaturalist is one of my most trusted and used apps. I have on my phone! I use it almost everyday, two-three times a day at any given time… I’ve helped many of my friends and family identify all sorts of things- that may have been wondering what it is…if it is poisonous or dangerous for pets, etc. Not to mention the amount of knowledge i have gained from the nearly 100 observations I have made while using iNaturalist. I highly recommend for any nature-bug-bird person out there who is looking to find a solid identification of what they are looking at. Not to mention the community of experts who double check your observations and will suggest the correct identity of your observations - and trust me when i say more than half of my personal observations have been misidentified or a different subfamily all together, they will leave a comment at times.
Over all I would give iNaturalist 100 stars if they would let me….

by D584fjf689

If I could, I would marry iNaturalist. iNat is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I have learned so much and have met so many amazing people through iNaturalist. Before iNat, I was the weird person who liked bugs. With iNat, I have slowly blossomed into an amateur subject matter expert documenting previously unknown behaviors/species relationships/coloration variations and submitting specimens to university entomological collections. I went from not being able to tell the difference between rice stink bugs and brown stink bugs one year ago to knowing hemipteran scientific names better than the common ones.

Sure, iNat didn't do that in and of itself, but it facilitated my self-education and gave me the means to organize my data/photographs, and my competitive nature motivates me to go out and DOCUMENT ALL THE THINGS!

The iNat people are continually improving their platform, and this mobile version is the best yet. The photo suggestion tool is amazing and sorely needed. Not perfect, but it's THE BEST version of photo ID out there and I'm frankly amazed by how good it is.

by SofaKingWeeToddEd

I have been the person that has always loved seeing nature and wanted to know what exactly I am looking at when I encounter a new-to-me species of flora or fauna. iNaturalist makes the process as easy as taking a picture and searching the suggested options to determine what you see. I have only been using it for about half a year and I can’t tell you how much joy my family has gotten out of simple moments like seeing a unique plant off the trail while on a hike and being able to know what it is almost instantly. iNaturalist works incredibly well for all life I’ve encountered so far, be it small or large, rooted, legged, or fungal, it really does a magnificent job. iNaturalist is my guide to understanding the wildlife I cross paths with, and it’s extra lovely because I can look back on my catalog and see the many different life forms I’ve encountered in the world. Lately I’ve been cataloging the bugs and birds I find around the house. I highly recommend iNaturalist, because I see iNaturalist having something valuable to offer all nature lovers. Embrace the magic and get iNaturalist.

by Omg153857403

I would find a how to video most helpful. I started using this and didn’t understand about marking something as cultivated. I still don’t know for instance if I had a cultivated tree I purchased at a store and planted and now volunteers of that tree are coming up is it still cultivated? When my store bought flowers re seed are they still cultivated? Would love a place to mark the approximate size of the thing I took a picture of. In my photos a 2 inch tall flower looks the same size as a 24 inch tall flower because I take a close up of just the bud. Would the community like me to place a coin in the picture for size reference or keep it natural? I would also like a way to have a “private project”, or mark or flag items as personal. I don’t think all of my cultivated plants in my back yard and living room warrant making an official project but I’d like to pull up only things from my yard as I use iNaturalist to learn about them. I don’t think individual/ personal use is the intention of projects. iNaturalist is great fun, easy to use and feels accurate on identifications.

by Adam Nicke

I really love iNaturalist and use it pretty much daily since I’ve downloaded it. It’s great to have with you to quickly identify a species using the picture instead of having to go and google the characteristics of what you saw and hope it knows what you mean. I would like to see them update it with a section where you can go to a person’s profile and see all of their observations in one place like the way you view a project and all of its observations. Perhaps even add an option to follow a particular person and then see all the observations of people you follow in a feed. You can do kinda already do this but you have to search for the person and then be confined to whatever given map area you have on your screen. I think it would be better to have all of them on one page because sometimes I come across an observer whose observations I like (camera quality, focus on a specific species, or just like their observations) and I want to see all of them. Also, they should add a place where you can view all of the observations you’ve added to your favorites.

by SophiaWolf1

I love iNaturalist so much! For new people, this is a very good app with tons of stuff. Identifications, exploring, and commenting are just a few. I still have a few suggestions.

Maybe what you could do, there could be tournaments for who can find the best animals or plants under a theme. People of the community can vote it up or skip it. You get points for likes and liking others, or identifying a plant or animal correctly. (To when they change it.) You could get coins if you win 1st, second or third, and you get more coins the higher rank you get. The tournaments hold 10-15 people. They end in 4 days. You upgrade tournaments by getting trophies. Maybe using the coins to upgrade the rim of your avatar, or maybe special colors on your screen instead of white. I think this will make more people motivated to have iNaturalist.
Of course, iNaturalist is perfect, and maybe adding focusing the camera by tapping would be nice.

by N. Braier

I really wanted to like iNaturalist. Unfortunately the irritations started the moment I installed it. First, developers should disclose mandatory login requirements. Most app users are like me: I’m not keen on setting myself up for a spam storm until I’ve had a chance to determine if a new app is useful. iNaturalist appears to be virtually non-functional if you skip the login step.

Then the error message start. LOTS of them one after another, and they’re the classic head-scratcher sort that make the user feel stupid because you have no idea what they mean or what to do to stop them. Five minutes of this was my limit. iNaturalist sounds like a nice idea, and the well-done illustrations featured in iNaturalist Store and the splash screens fooled me into thinking iNaturalist was designed by an experienced developer. It’s not. The user experience is just no good. Please hire a good UX designer and try again. You’ll likely find that 10x more people who download iNaturalist will continue to actually use it if you improve the UX. The concept is good. However as it stands it goes straight to “Delete”.

by Benny Badman

Gave it another shot recently. Glad to see login requirements are relaxed. Identification suggestions are surprisingly good at narrowing down possibilities if you’re not sure what you’re looking at, though I’d be hesitant to rely on them as the final word of course.

One thing which would be useful in the Suggestions section is the ability to flip between your photo(s) and those of the suggestions for easier comparison. Access to dichotomous keys would be cool too, or at least inclusion of identifying features which would appear in the keys. It’d also be worth considering inclusion of brief warnings on important aspects such as toxicity. UI could do with streamlining as well, but I’ll hold off on going into that for now.

Original complaint over Location Services still relevant though—it doesn’t seem to have a way to enter your location manually as the dev said would be done in an update. It’s also baffling why iNaturalist wants to use LS while using the Suggestions tool when it already has locations set for each photo; there’s no reason to assume a user will be searching for suggestions anywhere near where the data was gathered, so it’s asinine to do this. Or shady.

Original review, April 2017:
As others point out, iNaturalist is set up to rely on location services being on. Nope! Not doing it, guys. This also makes it tedious to explore areas you're not currently in. Deleting this nagware.

by Jdrum00

I’m a big fan of the full-featured this app web site, and used to dismiss iNaturalist as a gimmick for more casual users. But I just did a couple of quick local trips to round out species for the City Nature Challenge, and found myself actually enjoying submitting pictures through iNaturalist . My major remaining complaint is that I have to do my cropping in my photo app before I go into this app, but I think that’s being worked on. Also, I don’t think iNaturalist interface gives enough guidance to new users on the fact that they should upload multiple distinct informative pictures of a subject to a single observation, as opposed either to making multiple observations of the same individual or putting multiple different species in the same observation. A slightly more wizard-like interface might help that.

by Oakashandthorn

This is one of my all time favorite apps and it has broadened my knowledge of my local flora and fauna so much, however I wanted to write this review because I think there’s one thing that could really be improved upon. I would love the ability to rate the quality of people’s photos and sort the lowest quality ones out of my explore page. It seems like about a quarter of the finds I see are completely unidentifiable or at least questionable just because of the quality of the photo and this may seem selfish but I think the ability to easily tell someone “hey no one is going to be able to figure this one out you should try to get a better photo” without having to comment on every one would really improve everyone’s experience on iNaturalist .

by Kimbr123

I love iNaturalist and use it every day. I even use it in my classroom to teach about technology, citizen science, and biodiversity. My students are involved in a school-wide project to post species seen around out campus. Before traveling, I explore my destination in this app to learn about the flora and fauna that I should look for. A lot of times, I choose my hiking and vacation spots based on the observations that have been posted in different areas. There are a couple of things that I would like to see improved, though. For starters, it would be nice to see more alignment between iNaturalist for phone vs for the computer. The phone doesn’t allow for interaction with the community like the computer app does and the maps in the computer app are not nearly as good as those on the mobile app.

by AmrasWolf

An awesome and brilliant way to engage with the natural world around us, this app is a wonderful application and community for anyone interested in the flora and fauna we share the planet with. Inspiring a budding community of naturalists, with the curiosity of John Muir and David Attenborough, the this app team has developed a truly amazing product. iNaturalist instantly and reliably identifies plants, animals, and insects from just a single photo which contributes to scientific research! Not only are you having fun, inspiring curiosity, and satisfying your own personal discovery, but you’re helping with actual scientific research, too! What more could a user want? I can’t recommend this application and community highly enough, I tell all my friends and colleagues about it and visitors to the wildlife conservation facility I volunteer at, too. It’s truly an amazing tool!

by RockNaround341

Opens up a whole new world of outdoor learning and fun. So many plants, moths, mushrooms, wildflowers would catch my attention but I never knew what they were. iNaturalist helps identify them quickly and also lets you find other instances of the same species. Want to know what other species have been seen in your area? Click the explore button and view sightings on a map or in a list. iNaturalist is really well thought out - obviously designed and continuously refined by people who actually use it and listen to feedback. For those of you who use eBird - one of my other favorite apps - this is kind of like eBird but for all species - with the added bonus of helping you identify the species you don’t know!

by Luke Van Der Colff

I’m just a 20 year old that wants to know what every creatures purpose is around me and this has been the most fun way to do it. There are no ads, you upload a picture of the animal of reasonable quality, it helps if there’s multiple pictures and you describe what you saw in the description area. You put your location, which can be moved around so that your location isn’t known. It’s important to note that the location is key in determining a species sometimes so be decently accurate on the location. Once you’ve done that, AI, that’s right, artificial intelligence studies the pictures and compares them to other picture alike and species in the area to often give you a suggestion that’s correct or another 10 suggestions below of which I usually find the species I’m looking for if it’s not too obscure. I’ve also contributed to the knowledge of where some species are which feels great. My only complaint is there’s no place to provide feedback but here and the upload speed is reasonably slow. But this is a wonderful app that I recommend for any biologist. Yes, you can submit species under the microscope, too!!!!
Thank you California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society for helping create iNaturalist!!!