The open-source ASO tool for iOS keyword research

What is open source about RespectASO

The free edition of RespectASO is open source under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0. The full source for the free edition lives in the public repository at github.com/respectlytics/respectaso. Anyone can read it, run it, modify it, and redistribute their changes under the same license.

Pro is a different story, and we are upfront about that. The Pro AI features — AI Niche Researcher, AI Competitor Analyzer, ASO Score Simulator, and the agentic workflow that orchestrates them — are proprietary. They are not in the public repo, they require a paid Pro license, and they ship inside the Mac app rather than as part of the open-source distribution. We chose this split so the keyword research everyone needs stays free and inspectable, and the AI workflows we invest in have a sustainable business model behind them.

What you get in the free, open-source edition

Capability	What it does
Keyword popularity	Estimated 1–100 popularity score for App Store search terms, computed locally from public iTunes Search API responses.
Difficulty score	Competition difficulty broken out across Top 5, Top 10, and Top 20 ranking tiers.
Competitor analysis	For each keyword, the top apps with their ratings, review counts, genre, release date, and direct App Store links.
Country Opportunity Finder	Scan up to 30 App Store storefronts at once to find which countries have the best ranking opportunity for a keyword.
Multi-keyword and multi-country search	Research up to 20 keywords at once or run the same keyword across many countries in a single batch.
App rank tracking	Add your apps and see where you rank for each keyword next to the competitor data.
Search history	Browse past keyword research with sorting, filtering, and expandable detail views.

None of this requires an account, an API key, or a credit card. You install the app and start researching. For the Pro AI workflows, you bring your own LLM API key, so the cost and the provider stay your choice.

How the free edition runs on your machine

RespectASO is intentionally local-first. There is no backend service that brokers your queries; the app talks directly to Apple's public iTunes Search API from your machine and stores results in a local SQLite database. The data flow is short on purpose:

You can verify each step by reading the code. The free edition's keyword pipeline lives in the public repo; the iTunes Search calls, scoring rules, and storage models are all there to inspect.

Two ways to install

Download the Mac app

The simplest path is the Mac download page. Drag the `.dmg` to Applications and launch it — the free edition is fully usable from the first run, no signup. This is what most people use.

Run from source via Docker

If you want to inspect the code, run a modified build, or work on Linux or Windows under Docker, clone the public repo and use the included `docker-compose.yml`. This gives you the same free-edition keyword research workflow inside a container, with data persisted in a local volume. The Pro AI workflows are not part of this distribution — they ship only with the native Mac app.

Evidence: what proves what

Claim	Where you can verify it
Free edition is AGPL-3.0	Public repository with full source and license file.
Free edition runs locally and uses the public iTunes Search API	Free-edition source in the public repo — the keyword services and Apple API client are visible.
No telemetry or third-party data sharing in the free edition	Privacy policy and the absence of analytics/telemetry calls in the public repo.
Pro features are proprietary and license-key gated	Terms of service, pricing page, and the fact that Pro modules are absent from the public repo.
Scoring methodology	Methodology documentation and the scoring module in the public repo.

Who this fits

• Indie iOS developers who want serious keyword research without a SaaS bill or an account.
• Privacy-sensitive teams who can't justify uploading product roadmap signals (your keyword research) to a third-party vendor.
• EU and other compliance-heavy teams who prefer a tool that processes data on machines they control.
• Engineers and tinkerers who want to read the source, fork it, or extend the workflow for an internal use case.
• Agencies running ASO across many client apps that don't want every client's strategy passing through a shared vendor account.

Honest limitations

We aren't going to oversell this. A few things to be clear about:

• The free edition is built around the public iTunes Search API. That covers iOS App Store keyword research extremely well, but it isn't an Apple Search Ads product and isn't Google Play either.
• Pro AI workflows are proprietary and live only in the native Mac app. If you only run the Docker free edition, you'll get all the open-source keyword research and tracking, but not the AI Niche Researcher, AI Competitor Analyzer, or ASO Score Simulator.
• Open source isn't a substitute for support. If you run a modified build and break something, that's on you, not us.

FAQ

Is the free edition really free, or is it a trial?

It's free, not a trial. Keyword research, scoring, the Country Opportunity Finder, multi-keyword and multi-country search, app rank tracking, and competitor data are part of the AGPL-3.0 free edition. There is no expiration, no feature countdown, and no paywall on those features.

What's the relationship between the open-source repo and the Mac app?

The open-source repo is the free edition. The Mac app is the same free edition packaged as a native macOS application, plus Pro AI features available with a license key. We sync the public repo on every push, so the open-source code keeps pace with what ships in the free part of the app.

Can I self-host RespectASO and use it with my team?

Yes, with Docker. Run the included `docker-compose.yml` from the public repo and the free edition will run as a local web app on your network. AGPL-3.0 applies, so any modifications you make and serve to your team must be made available to those users under the same license.

Why AGPL-3.0 instead of MIT or Apache?

AGPL keeps the free edition genuinely open: anyone running a modified network version has to share their modifications under the same terms. We think that matches the spirit of an indie-developer ASO tool that respects how its users work.

Where do I report a bug or contribute?

Use the issues and pull requests on the public repository. For Pro-related questions, the contact links on the contact page reach the team directly.