Vélib', app officielle Reviews

by Tibodelge

How can this be approved for the entire bike network of Paris bikes? Vélibappofficielle is so full of bugs. Not tested properly

by KenSmithPA

Do yourself a favor and skip velib, it’s a ripoff! Most of the bikes are whacked and and when you find a good looking one (if you find any! most of the docks are empty) they don’t wanna unlock! Save yourself frustration and time wasting and look for something else that actually works.

by Sabrina Michele

I want to write a good review, but your app and system make it hard for me to do that. Seems amazing, started out great yesterday. Til my bike wouldn’t dock correctly due to a mechanical issue and my account is locked. It seems to have been fixed now, but now Vélibappofficielle won’t let me use it. Says I need to download the latest version, which doesn’t exist. I have Vélibappofficielle . I even deleted and re-downloaded it. Same problem. Great concept, awful issues. Can’t dependably rely on Vélibappofficielle , at least not today. No good way to report the issue so this is as good as it gets.

by Waterloo Made

I really wanted to use these bikes, but Vélibappofficielle has problems accepting me as a subscriber or renter. Really disappointing.

by Kev_paris_88

Can you please hire some actual designers to work on your user interface. I feel like you purposefully want to complicate the experience of Velib

by Julianmuller

I can no longer use Vélibappofficielle - it just crashes as soon as I open it.

by Newyorkerinparis

Vélibappofficielle keeps crashing after I entered my email info and password. This is frustrating! Can you please fix it??

by Willow Fitz

I’m being generous with one star. The electric bikes were charged most of the time, but they were broken 99% of the time. The sign up for the bikes is even confusing. Not worth the money. Go with a different company.

by Papini_L

I keep running into errors when I try to subscribe and there are no explanations what so ever. Eventually the submit button worked but I received an error.

by Kbbiatchhhhh

I would give it zero stars if I could. I left not knowing if I rented one bike or 6 bikes. We tried for 30 or so minutes trying to get a bike but the bike would not unlock from its docking station. It’s very frustrating and Vélibappofficielle/process needs serious improvement.

by Hguillaume

Velib devrait avoir honte du service qu’il propose. En une semaine d’utilisation, je n’ai jamais roulé sur un vélo en bon état de marche. Quand il n’est pas totalement hors d’usage, les vitesses ne fonctionnent pas, les freins ne freinent pas, les phares n’éclairent pas... Honte à Velib, allez voir à New York comment fonctionne CitiBike.

by KaSlo2014

In theory it’s a tool and idea, but in practice Vélibappofficielle doesn’t work. It always shows a certain amount of bikes at stations but when you get there, there are non or don’t work. So you go from station to station until you give up. When asking for refund no one replied. Save your money and go with a different company.

by Douglas Cox

The user experience with the map is terrible. The map won’t load half the time and you’re stuck with looking at bike counts for stations of unknown location. The way the stations collapse into groups when you zoom out is also all wrong. It makes it hard to browse around in a given area- if you zoom out, the stations unnecessarily disappear.

by Szamrdygryd

We made a mistake of trying to use it in Paris. It was a waste of money. 80% if bikes were out of order. It was impossible to find more than 2 working bikes at once even at full station. Horrible support when tried to call. App itself crashing, displaying black screen, or simply showing you out of service. Please avoid this service all together - save yourself some money.

by Pierrot5678

If there ever was a case study to make on how to create a bad app and bike ecosystem, then it would be velib. It’s sad that it has gotten to this point, where half of the bikes aren’t working, and Vélibappofficielle itself is a disaster - the English translation alone shows that nothing was done to make this happen usable for people. That will be on the current mayor, and their rush to implement a system that does’f work for thousands of people.

by Islandgrrrl*

After trying 7 different credit card payment options and each being “denied by creditor” I sent three notices to customer service with no response, called twice and was on terminal hold for 10 minutes each and then hung up on each time! What a waste! No wonder there’s 100’s of bikes sitting in queue to get used. You can’t get on one!

by Aarmb

I had my worst experience ever. First of all, most bikes are broken. Second, the stations can't collect the bike, and they will keep charging you unless you go back and try another station. Moreover, there was no notification on Vélibappofficielle that the system was charging time by just staying in the station. Luckily, I received a msg that the bike was still setting time, and I ended up coming to the station middle of the night to fix the problem.

by Flash404

Sometimes could not find my account. Another time when renewing my daily subscription it wanted me to pay €90. Now it lost my password, does not accept my password, and the password reset link does not work. A couple of calls to customer service did not respond to English prompts.

When it works it’s fine, even though there are problems with some of the bikes, but make sure you have another plan to get where you’re going.

Time to take a lesson from London’s fantastic system, Vélib.

by Paging

Pick any other bike rental or scooter service as Vélibappofficielle and offering was a nightmare to use.

by B.cough

Started using Velib a week ago. Unfortunately Vélibappofficielle rarely displays accurate information regarding the bikes at the stations. There are often many bikes listed at a station, only to find there is only one, and it’s broken or mechanically malfunctioning and can’t be removed from the dock. Sometimes there are 0 bikes listed and yet there are a few. It’s a complete roll of the dice. Today one station supposedly had 12 bikes according to Vélibappofficielle . It had one broken one. Has me walking in circles around the city just trying to find a bike, making me later than if I’d just taken the metro.

by Lisalisalisalisa999999

Docking station didn’t record two of our bikes as having been returned, so we were charged €56 for what they called a 14-hour ride. Meantime, we couldn’t rent bikes and walked 6km back to our AirBnB.

Customer service lists hours but no time zone, so you have to guess when they are open (hint: the hours aren’t Paris time zone). When I finally reached customer service, they restored account services and said we wouldn’t be charged for the supposed 14-h ride, but we were.

Next day, tried to renew the rental so we could ride again. I paid for a 24-h rental but Vélibappofficielle said I bought 14 days. There wasn’t even a 14-day option. Nevertheless, we were unable to unlock any bikes and customer service never answered, even though we should have been at least one hour before the end of their stated hours, based on the time that they answered my call the previous day.

I highly recommend you find another option for bicycle rentals.

by ImaStrong1

I love velib! It's my favorite way to get around Paris and I wish I'd signed up for it when I first moved to Paris! But Vélibappofficielle, though it is great for finding stations nearby, really needs to show the list of trips (how long each trip took). I know it's possible to look on the website, but it would be easier (and I don't always have the time) if I had more of my account information available to me via Vélibappofficielle Thank you velib for being awesome, but add this functionality to your app and I will love you forever!

by 48hoursinparis

The Velib bikes around Paris were perfect for exploring Paris and Vélibappofficielle made all the difference. I paid for my ticket online the first time but used Vélibappofficielle to find all the bike location around the city. It was handy to know which stations had bikes available to take out as well as which had space where I could drop off the bike, all with real time updates. It was a huge resource making the Bike rental a breeze. Highly recommend Vélibappofficielle. Only one suggestion, a routing/navigating option would be helpful. I had to jump back over to google maps to find where I wanted to go to, then back to Vélibappofficielle to find an available location. It would be a nice feature to add to be able to click on a drop off station and Vélibappofficielle navigate you there instead off bouncing back an forth between apps. But this may only be important to me since I was a tourist. Also, Vélibappofficielle is so intuitive that even thou if is all in French, It didn't matter that I don't speak the language! Good job!

by Soccer Coach

I used Vélibappofficielle mainly to find rental locations. It is a real time App that tells you how many bikes are available or how many return slots are available. It is usable in both French and English (Anglais). It defaults to French and you need to go to Parametres and change Francais to Anglais.

When riding to the Louvre, I could see many locations had zero return slots. So we dropped the bikes off a couple of blocks early.

I also put the rental location by our hotel into my favorites to orient myself quickly as to my relative location. You can also purchase tickets through Vélibappofficielle . I did keep switching between my mapping application and Velib since this does not give directions.

by DJoseph23

Me and my wife went on our honeymoon to paris and quickly learned that bikes were one of the best forms of transportation for a tourist. Got told the stations had an app and once i downloaded it. I was marveled at the fact that they tell you which stations have bikes available and which have available parking spaces for your bike. Took away the stress of riding around from station to station looking for available parking spaces. Took away the fear of traveling in a city that was not known to me as a tourist. Definitely a must download if you plan on going to Paris and want an easy way to get around town.