Mobile Development · head to head
Adapty vs Capacitor
Adapty
Mobile Development
In-app subscription and paywall platform, free below 5,000 USD of monthly revenue then 1 percent, with add-ons charged separately
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
Capacitor
Mobile Development
MIT-licensed native runtime bridging web apps to iOS, Android and native APIs
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Adapty the 1 percent headline is only the base rate; Refund Saver at 0.2 percent of revenue, Ads Manager at 3.5 percent of ad spend, Attribution at 0.03 USD per install and Adapty Mail at a 20 percent revenue share stack on top and are individually easy to switch on.; Capacitor uI still renders in a system WebView, so complex animation and heavy graphics work require more manual tuning than a natively-rendered framework provides by default.
- They diverge on capability: Adapty covers Visual paywall builder, Capacitor covers Native project generation.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Adapty and Capacitor actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Mobile Development).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Adapty
- Visual paywall builder
- A/B testing on paywalls
- Cross-platform entitlements
- Subscription analytics
- Refund Saver add-on
- Attribution and Ads Manager add-ons
Only in Capacitor
- Native project generation
- Plugin bridge
- Custom native plugins
- Live Reload
- Framework agnostic
- Capacitor Assets and Configure CLIs
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Adapty
- A growth marketer who needs to test paywall pricing weekly without an engineering ticket or an app releasenot Capacitor
- A small subscription app that wants to stay free longer than the 2,500 USD threshold offered by the main competitornot Capacitor
- Consolidating subscription analytics and paywall experimentation in one place rather than wiring an analytics tool to a billing SDKnot Capacitor
- Automating Apple refund responses where a measurable share of revenue is lost to refund requestsnot Capacitor
Capacitor
- A team wrapping an existing responsive web app to publish it to the App Store and Play Storenot Adapty
- A product using React or Vue that wants native device APIs without adopting a full mobile frameworknot Adapty
- A developer who wants to drop into native Swift or Kotlin code for the parts a plugin does not covernot Adapty
- A company migrating off Apache Cordova, since Capacitor was designed as a modern, actively maintained successornot Adapty
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Adapty
- The 1 percent headline is only the base rate; Refund Saver at 0.2 percent of revenue, Ads Manager at 3.5 percent of ad spend, Attribution at 0.03 USD per install and Adapty Mail at a 20 percent revenue share stack on top and are individually easy to switch on.
- Revenue is calculated before platform fees, so the fee applies to money Apple and Google have already taken a 15 to 30 percent cut of, making the effective rate on received cash noticeably higher than the quoted figure.
- Adapty Mail at a 20 percent revenue share is a large ongoing cost for a channel most teams would otherwise run through an email platform they already pay a flat fee for.
- The integration ecosystem, third-party tutorials and hiring pool are smaller than the category leader, so engineers are less likely to have used it before and edge cases have fewer public answers.
- Paywall configuration and entitlement state live with the vendor, so a migration later means rebuilding both the billing integration and every paywall the marketing team has created.
Capacitor
- UI still renders in a system WebView, so complex animation and heavy graphics work require more manual tuning than a natively-rendered framework provides by default.
- Every native capability not covered by an official or community plugin means writing and maintaining native Swift and Kotlin code, which erodes the single-codebase promise for device-heavy apps.
- It is maintained by the same team as Ionic, and while it does not require the Ionic UI library, its release cadence and roadmap priorities are set by a company now owned by OutSystems.
- Cordova plugins are not automatically compatible and often need adaptation, so migrating a legacy Cordova app is a real porting project, not a drop-in swap.
- App store review teams scrutinise WebView-wrapped apps more closely for "just a website" rejections, so thin wrapper apps carry more approval risk than natively-compiled alternatives.
Pricing, plan by plan
Adapty
Free- Pro under thresholdFree
- Free until monthly revenue reaches 5,000 USD
- All core features, no tiers and no fixed costs
- Paywall builder and A/B testing included
- Pro$undefined/month
- 1 percent of monthly revenue above the 5,000 USD threshold
- Refund Saver adds 0.2 percent of monthly revenue
- Ads Manager adds 3.5 percent of monthly ad spend
- Enterprise$undefined/year
- Quoted
- White-glove onboarding
- 24/7 dedicated Slack support and a success manager
Capacitor
Free- CapacitorFree
- MIT licensed, unlimited apps
- Core plugin set included
- Community support via GitHub and Discord
Which should you pick?
Choose Adapty if
- You need visual paywall builder.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on iOS, Android, Web, React Native, Flutter.
- You also want a/b testing on paywalls.
Choose Capacitor if
- You need native project generation.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want plugin bridge.
Questions people ask
- Is Adapty or Capacitor better?
- Neither clearly leads. Adapty starts at Free and Capacitor at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Adapty or Capacitor?
- Adapty starts at Free and Capacitor at Free.
- Does Adapty or Capacitor run on more platforms?
- Adapty runs on iOS, Android, Web, React Native, Flutter. Capacitor runs on Web, iOS, Android.
- Can I use Adapty for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Adapty best used for?
- Adapty is most often used for a growth marketer who needs to test paywall pricing weekly without an engineering ticket or an app release, a small subscription app that wants to stay free longer than the 2,500 usd threshold offered by the main competitor, consolidating subscription analytics and paywall experimentation in one place rather than wiring an analytics tool to a billing sdk, automating apple refund responses where a measurable share of revenue is lost to refund requests. Of those, a growth marketer who needs to test paywall pricing weekly without an engineering ticket or an app release and a small subscription app that wants to stay free longer than the 2,500 usd threshold offered by the main competitor are not what Capacitor is typically brought in for.
- What can Adapty do that Capacitor cannot?
- Adapty covers Visual paywall builder, A/B testing on paywalls, Cross-platform entitlements, Subscription analytics. Capacitor covers Native project generation, Plugin bridge, Custom native plugins, Live Reload.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Adapty: How much does it cost above the free threshold?
1 percent of monthly revenue, measured in USD before platform fees, with billing starting once you exceed 5,000 USD in a 30 day period.
Capacitor: Do I need Ionic components to use Capacitor?
No. Capacitor is the native runtime and plugin bridge; the Ionic UI component library is a separate, optional layer.
Adapty: Is the free tier really more generous than RevenueCat?
On the base product yes, 5,000 USD against 2,500 USD of monthly revenue, but add-ons are priced separately where the competitor bundles more into its single rate.
Capacitor: Is Capacitor free for commercial apps?
Yes, it is MIT licensed with no fee for commercial use, and there is no paid tier of Capacitor itself.
Adapty: Can marketing change paywalls without a release?
Yes, that is the main reason teams choose it; paywalls are configured server side and published without going through app review.
Capacitor: Is it a replacement for Cordova?
Functionally yes for most teams, though existing Cordova plugins need adaptation rather than working unmodified.
Adapty: What does Refund Saver actually do?
It responds to Apple refund requests with transaction evidence to contest them, and it costs an additional 0.2 percent of monthly revenue.
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