Astro ASO tool review for App Store keyword research

Astro is a native Mac app for App Store Optimization (ASO) that shows which keywords people search on Apple's App Store, how hard each one is to rank for, and where your app sits today. It suits indie iOS and Mac developers who want simple keyword research at a flat yearly price, and it is not the Astro web framework, which is a different product entirely.

What the Astro ASO tool is

The Astro ASO tool is a desktop app for macOS 14 and later that tracks App Store keyword rankings, popularity and difficulty for your apps and your competitors. It is built and sold by indie developer Matteo Spada through tryastro.app, with payments handled by Lemon Squeezy.

It covers Apple platforms only, meaning iOS, iPadOS, macOS and visionOS apps. Popularity data comes straight from Apple Ads (Apple Search Ads), and the docs say Astro supports every storefront where Apple Ads runs, currently 91 of the App Store's 175 countries. New countries are added as Apple adds them.

Who it is for, and who should skip it

Astro (App Store Optimization) is for solo developers and small studios who choose their own App Store keywords and want answers fast rather than a large dashboard.

• Good fit: indie iOS developers with one or several apps, people validating an app idea before building it, and developers localizing metadata for other countries.
• Skip it if: you need Google Play data, you work on Windows or only in a browser, you want shared team workspaces, or you need paid ad intelligence and download estimates of the kind enterprise ASO suites sell.

How Astro works

The workflow is add an app, add keywords, then read popularity, difficulty and position in one table that refreshes itself every day.

1. Add your app. The search bar mirrors real App Store results for any of the 91 storefronts, and you can search by keyword or developer, or paste an App Store link. It also shows each app's review count and average rating.
2. Add keywords. Paste up to 100 comma-separated keywords at once, add them from Suggestions, or right-click a keyword to extract competitors' keywords from the titles and subtitles of apps ranking for it (only results with popularity above 5).
3. Read the table. Each keyword shows notes, last update, popularity, difficulty, your position, and the apps in the ranking. Click a position for a day-by-day ranking chart.
4. Let it update. Astro refreshes every tracked keyword automatically every 24 hours while the app is running, and marks gains and losses with green or red arrows.

As a rule of thumb, the docs recommend adding keywords with popularity above 25 and difficulty below 75 to your metadata.

Competitor research and app ideas

Astro's Suggestions view lists every keyword a given app ranks for in a store, sortable by popularity and difficulty. Paste any competitor's App Store URL into it, or click the eye icon next to an app in the "Apps in Ranking" column. Temporary apps let you research a category before your app exists, then copy the keywords across to the real app once it is published.

Ratings, tags and translations

A separate Ratings view totals your ratings across every store worldwide, with daily changes, a per-country list and charts of rating count and average over time. Tags, folders and notes help organize large keyword lists, keywords can be exported and imported as CSV, and a DeepL integration shows an English translation when you hover over a foreign keyword.

The Astro MCP server

Astro includes an MCP server, still labeled beta, that lets AI assistants such as Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code Copilot and Antigravity read and change your Astro data. It runs locally on port 8089, accepts connections from your own Mac only, and limits each client to 60 requests a minute. Its tools cover listing apps and keywords, rankings with history, ratings, competitor keyword extraction, live App Store search, keyword suggestions, and adding apps, keywords, notes and tags. Claude Desktop needs a Cloudflare quick tunnel to reach it. The docs warn that AI agents can make mistakes and that MCP use can burn a lot of AI tokens.

Astro pricing

Astro costs $108 a year for a single Mac license, which the site presents as $9 a month billed annually, and there is a limited free version. Prices are in USD and taxes may apply. Prices checked 10 Nov 2026.

You have 14 days after activating a subscription to ask for a refund by email. Subscriptions are managed through a Lemon Squeezy account using your purchase email, and you can generate an invoice with your company details there. A license runs on one Mac at a time, and moving to a new Mac means deactivating it first.

What it costs in practice

Because the price is flat, a developer tracking 2,000 keywords across five apps pays the same $108 a year as one tracking 50. The free version's 10-keyword cap and missing popularity scores make it a trial of the interface rather than a working research tool.

What users say about the Astro ASO tool

Most published praise for Astro is on its own site, where it quotes developers such as Sebastian Röhl of HabitKit, who says he doubled his impressions after changing keywords. These quotes are chosen by the vendor. The vendor also says 90% of Astro users see more app impressions within a week of updating their metadata, and that thousands of developers use it. Neither figure is independently checked.

Astro runs a public feedback board where users post requests and the developer replies. The MCP server itself started there as a user request in January and was marked completed in February.

Hard facts

Astro is a local Mac app, so your keyword database lives on your own computer.

• Platform: macOS 14 or later, downloaded as a .dmg. No Windows, web or mobile version.
• App platforms tracked: iOS, iPadOS, macOS and visionOS apps on Apple's App Store.
• Countries: 91 App Store storefronts, matching Apple Ads coverage.
• Data: popularity from Apple Ads, a proprietary difficulty score, daily ranking and ratings updates.
• Integrations: DeepL for translations, CSV import and export, and a local MCP server for AI clients.
• Company: made by solo developer Matteo Spada, sold through Lemon Squeezy as merchant.

What changed recently

Astro ships often. Its GitHub release feed shows build 328 on October 1, build 329 on October 6 and build 330 on October 27, 2026, after a steady run of builds since April. The biggest recent addition is the MCP server and an MCP prompts library with ready-made prompts for common ASO jobs.

Limits and drawbacks

Astro's main limits come from being a single-developer Mac app focused on Apple's store.

• Mac only. You need a Mac on macOS 14 or later, and each license works on one Mac at a time.
• Apple only. There is no Google Play keyword data.
• Updates need the app open. Daily refreshes run only while Astro is running.
• No team features. There are no shared workspaces or user roles.
• Thin free version. Ten keywords and no popularity or difficulty scores.
• MCP is beta. The maker warns about agent mistakes and token use.

Astro ASO alternatives

The closest alternatives are other App Store keyword trackers aimed at indie developers, plus one enterprise suite for larger teams.

• Altis ASO: another Mac app for iOS keyword tracking and low-competition keyword discovery, with a free tier for one app, worth comparing on price and interface.
• ASO Suite: an App Store rank tracker with popularity, difficulty and opportunity scores and a command line interface, for developers who want scripting.
• Asomium: a broader Mac app for App Store Connect that also handles multi-locale metadata, screenshots and build uploads alongside ASO tracking.
• AppTweak: an enterprise ASO platform covering both the App Store and Google Play, for teams that need Android data and shared reporting.

Verdict

The Astro ASO tool does the core keyword research job well, with Apple Ads popularity data, competitor extraction, daily rank tracking and no keyword limits for a flat $108 a year. I would pick it if you build Apple apps on a Mac and want fast, uncluttered research. If you need Google Play, a browser app or team access, choose a broader suite instead.