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You swam with a rainbow blur, locked eyes with something slug-shaped, and saw a fish that looked like it lost a bet. Now you're back on the boat, nodding like you totally know what you just saw.
That striped fish that vanished into a crevice? The weird jelly-like blob hovering by the reef? No clue. And that’s the problem: for all the marine life we see, most of it slips away unnamed and unlogged.
Fish ID apps are here to help. But many are built for fishermen, aquarium enthusiasts, or birdwatchers who took a wrong turn. Only a few actually understand what it’s like to shoot a semi-blurry photo in surge and still want a species name, or the panic of trying to ID something before your dive buddy swipes to the next photo.
So which ones are worth your time (and phone storage) in 2025? We tested the most popular fish ID apps to see which deliver fast, accurate results, and which leave you guessing.
Butterflyfish – Round, colorful, often in pairs. Think “reef ornaments.”
Angelfish – Larger than butterflyfish with trailing fins and bold color blocks.
Parrotfish – Chunky, beak-like mouth, often chewing coral.
Wrasse – Long-bodied, fast swimmers, often with bright patterns.
Groupers – Big heads, thick bodies, usually resting under ledges.
FINS is the new kid on the block. And in my opinion is an app that actually understands what divers need — and doesn’t assume you’re casting a line or naming your pet clownfish. FINS was built by divers, for divers, with a clean, modern interface and some serious tech under the hood. It uses powerful AI for real-time photo ID, and if you’re on a FINS+ plan, it kicks things up with an even more advanced model that handles backscatter, motion blur, and questionable framing surprisingly well.
But FINS isn’t just an ID app — it’s also packed with smart, diver-friendly features. There’s a clean, easy-to-use logbook where you can record dives and add marine life sightings directly to each profile, keeping all your info in one place. Want to export a log or share it with a friend? That’s just a tap away.
There's also a dedicated “Marine Life” tab that tracks every species you’ve logged in the app. It’s perfect for monitoring your progress, saving favorites, and brushing up on your IDs post-dive.
Gamified badges keep things fun — whether it’s spotting your first nudibranch or racking up dives across different regions, there are plenty of ways to unlock achievements as you explore underwater.
Planning your next trip? FINS’ built-in travel tab includes liveaboard listings that’ll have you researching Raja Ampat before you’ve even rinsed your gear.
Price? The core version is free, but limits AI scans to five per month. FINS+ unlocks the full experience — unlimited scans, some offline functionality (internet is required for AI ID), species packs, no ads, and next-gen AI — for just $4.99/month or $24.99/year.
FINS is hands-down the most complete, diver-focused marine life app out there. No bait, no fluff, just pure underwater nerd joy. With a database of over 5,000 tropical fish, invertebrates, and other reef species, FINS offers one of the most comprehensive marine ID libraries available — more than enough to cover nearly every dive encounter in the Indo-Pacific, Caribbean, and Red Sea. Download FINS
At first glance, Picture Fish looks promising — an AI-powered app that promises to identify fish from a quick photo. And for aquarium hobbyists, it’s not a bad fit. But for divers hoping to identify reef species after a dive, it quickly shows its limitations.
Picture Fish uses an image recognition model trained on a wide variety of species, including freshwater, saltwater, and aquarium fish. This makes it broad in scope but shallow in depth. Tropical marine biodiversity, especially the kinds of species you’d see in Indonesia, the Red Sea, or the Caribbean, is barely represented. You’ll find clownfish and angelfish, sure, but once you get into wrasses, gobies, or nudibranchs, it’s a bit of a toss-up.
The app's AI is quite fast and moderately accurate, but it struggles with the types of photos divers tend to take. It often returns overly general matches or guesses fish that don’t inhabit the same hemisphere as your dive site. For divers who care about precision, that’s a major drawback.
There are no dive logs, no tools to track your sightings, no way to mark species by location, and no offline access. It’s not really trying to be a dive companion — it's more like a digital fish encyclopedia for curious surface-dwellers. The app has a clean interface and a free version with limited scans. For full access, including unlimited identifications and premium features, users must subscribe, typically around $29.99/year.
In short: Picture Fish can work in a pinch, especially if you’ve got a clear, well-lit photo of a common species. But if you’re diving reefs and want reliable IDs or a way to log your encounters, this app probably won’t go the distance.
Seabook has carved out a steady following among divers. Its core strength is a well-organized, visually rich database of marine species, over 1,700 in all. You can search by family, habitat, or body type, and most entries include high-quality images, scientific details, and common names. It’s essentially a digital reef guide in your pocket.
Seabook doesn’t use AI for photo identification, yet. I've read that the developers plan to implement it later in 2025. For now, you’ll need to manually browse and visually match what you saw. This can be fun for some, but time-consuming for others — especially if your photo is blurry or the fish you saw was gone in seconds.
Seabook features a detailed dive logging system, with multiple structured fields for things like water temperature, visibility, depth, time in/out, and more. It is akin to filling out a dive roster rather than a freeform journal, you’ll need to complete most fields to log the dive properly.
If you’re looking for a well-organized marine life encyclopedia with detailed entries and a structured dive log it’s a dependable tool. A basic version of the app is free, but full access to the species library requires a subscription of $33 per year. For divers who love structured data and want a digital field guide on hand, Seabook is a good option.
FishVerify isn’t shy about what it is — this app is built for anglers, not divers. Its main audience is recreational and sport fishers in the U.S., especially those wanting to stay compliant with state fishing regulations. And to that end, it does its job well. The app includes real-time AI photo recognition, catch legality data based on location, tide charts, and fishing rules that update based on state and species.
But for scuba divers or snorkelers? The value drops off quickly.
The identification database is heavily skewed toward North American gamefish — think snappers, groupers, sea bass, and flounder — not butterflyfish, wrasses, nudibranchs, or the hundreds of small, brightly colored reef fish you’ll encounter on a dive. There’s little to no support for Indo-Pacific or Red Sea species, and certainly nothing for marine invertebrates or coral types. So even if the AI works well for its intended use, it simply doesn’t have the right content to serve divers in most of the world’s dive destinations.
From a technical perspective, FishVerify’s interface is clean and polished, and the image scanner responds quickly when you upload photos. But it suffers from the same limitation as most fishing-first apps — it assumes you're topside, rod in hand, and curious about what you caught, not what you saw. That context matters.There are no features for dive logging, marine life journaling, or community engagement. No gamified achievements, no offline support, and no way to organize or revisit your sightings unless you’re specifically looking to understand fishing rules. Subscriptions start at $29.99/year, which makes it a mid-tier price point — but not a great deal if your fins are in the water instead of a boat.
Bottom line? FishVerify is a strong tool if you’re trying to figure out whether you can legally keep a red drum in Texas. But it’s not going to help you ID a juvenile sweetlips in Raja Ampat.
iNaturalist is a community-powered biodiversity platform backed by the California Academy of Sciences and National Geographic. Unlike most apps on this list, it wasn’t built just for fish — or even just for animals. It’s designed to document all of Earth’s living organisms, from moss on mountaintops to reef-dwelling scorpionfish, using a mix of AI and crowdsourced expertise.
Here’s how it works: you upload a photo of the species you saw (including underwater ones), and iNaturalist’s AI offers its best guess based on visual similarity and location data. From there, other users — often scientists, hobbyists, or naturalists — weigh in to confirm or correct the ID. If enough people agree on a match, your observation gets "Research Grade" status and becomes part of a growing open database used by scientists and conservationists around the world.
Sounds awesome, right? And for many wildlife observations, it is. But underwater, things get murky — literally and figuratively.
For divers, the experience can vary wildly. Many tropical reef species are underrepresented in the database, especially outside of popular citizen science regions like California or Australia. And because the AI model is trained on all types of organisms, not just fish or marine life, it often fails to provide accurate suggestions for more obscure, color-shifting, or juvenile reef species. Add in common underwater photo issues like motion blur, low light, or unusual angles, and the AI gets even less reliable.
That said, it’s completely free, which makes it a valuable tool for surface-level identification or post-dive analysis — especially if you're the kind of diver who likes contributing to marine science. While it doesn’t have a dedicated dive log, you can track your observations over time, view maps of your species encounters, and even join global biodiversity projects. There's also a vibrant community of marine biologists and ID enthusiasts who occasionally spot rare or misidentified species and help correct them.
But for quick, field-use identification — especially in remote tropical regions — iNaturalist probably won’t replace your go-to dive app. It’s not optimized for offline use, doesn’t have gamified features, and offers no curated species guides or learning tools for divers. Think of it more like a digital marine biology notebook: useful, especially when paired with better underwater photos and a bit of patience.
If your goal is to log your sightings, contribute to science, or explore life beyond the reef, iNaturalist is a fascinating tool. But for divers looking for fast, dive-specific fish ID, it’s more of a companion than a core solution.
If you're diving regularly and want to grow your marine knowledge (and logbook), FINS is the best app built for diving in 2025. But even casual users can get value from Seabook or iNaturalist, depending on region and goals. Try them out, see which suits your needs best, and take your diving to the next level.
