Best Memorial Apps in 2026: 13 Compared (iPhone and Android)
A memorial app turns the phone in your pocket into something quietly meaningful: a private place to keep photos and stories of someone you lost, a way to be reminded gently on anniversaries, and a portable home for grief that travels with you.
The category is confusing, though, and for one reason. Search either app store for "memorial app" and you get grave-finding tools, grief journals, funeral-home apps, candle simulators, and a lot of things that are not memorials at all β mixed in with several of the biggest names in online memorials, which never built an app of any kind. They are websites, and you reach them through a browser.
That is not necessarily a problem. But you should know which is which before you spend an evening uploading three hundred photos.
How this list is ordered. iPhone first, then Android, because the answer genuinely differs between them β the best free native app on Android is not available on iOS at all, and vice versa. Within each platform, apps you can actually install come before browser-only services. Every entry says which it is, so you can check the order against the labels rather than take our word for it.
If you only want the short answer:
| You are on | You want | Start with |
|---|---|---|
| iPhone | A beautiful memorial page built from your phone | GetMemorial (native app) |
| iPhone | Cemetery records and a family tree | Keeper (native app) |
| iPhone | Completely private, family-only | Apple Photos shared album |
| Android | A free native app for photos, stories and voices | FamilySearch Memories |
| Android | A shareable memorial page | A browser-based service β see Part Two |
| Either | Fifty short messages, fast | Kudoboard |
Part One: Memorial Apps for iPhone
In 2026, only a handful of memorial apps are genuinely well-built for iOS. Many "memorial" apps in the App Store are really web wrappers with poor mobile experiences, or pivoted from other categories. Below are the eight worth knowing about, native iOS apps first and web-only options last β which is the distinction this section exists to make.
Why Use a Memorial App on iPhone (Not Just a Website)?
A few reasons a native iOS app is worth the install:
- The camera roll, directly β no exporting, resizing, or emailing photos to yourself first
- Faster photo and video uploads than mobile web
- A home-screen icon, which matters more than it sounds: the page gets visited when it is one tap away
- Better camera and photo library integration
- A private, dedicated space that's not buried in a browser
- Smoother performance β memorial pages load instantly
For most families, the iPhone is the device on which they actually create, visit, and contribute to a memorial. A native app meaningfully improves that experience.
1. Keeper β Best for Cemetery and Family Tree
Price: Free, with a one-time lifetime plan under $100 iOS: Native app Best for: Families who want to pair a memorial with cemetery records and a family tree
Keeper is a different angle on memorials: every memorial can be linked to a real cemetery location and integrated into a multigenerational family tree. The iOS app supports cemetery navigation (find a gravesite by GPS), scanning headstone inscriptions, and adding family members as nodes in a tree.
The trade-off is a more functional, less emotional design. If your priority is genealogical record-keeping, Keeper is excellent. If your priority is a beautiful memorial experience, look elsewhere.
2. Apple Photos Memorial Album β Best Built-In Option
Price: Free (built into iOS) Best for: Private, family-only memorials
Not technically a memorial app, but worth mentioning. Apple Photos already supports shared albums with family contributors, and many families use this as a quiet, private memorial. You create a shared album, give it a meaningful name, and family members add photos and comments.
The advantages: $0, completely private, integrated with the photos you already have. The drawbacks: not searchable, not permanent in the way a memorial site is, and lacks the structure of a proper memorial (life story, tribute guestbook, a link you can hand to relatives).
For some families, this is enough. For most, it's a starting point that complements a real memorial app.
3. GetMemorial β Editor's Pick β
Price: Free, $4.99/month, $39.99/year, or $89.99 lifetime iOS: Native iPhone and iPad app Best for: Beautiful, mobile-first memorials with family co-creation
GetMemorial is the only memorial app we tested that feels designed for iOS rather than ported to it. The app is fast, the templates are tasteful, and the experience of creating a memorial is genuinely smooth β closer to using Apple Notes than filling out a form.
A few things stood out:
- Mobile-first creation flow. Building a memorial on the iPhone takes about 5 minutes.
- Native photo picker integration. Importing 30 photos from your library is two taps.
- Virtual candles and offerings. A way to visit that is not only writing.
- Family co-creation. Multiple relatives can contribute without sharing passwords.
- Ad-free. Even on the free tier.
- iCloud-style aesthetics. Soft typography, warm color palettes, calm layouts.
- Multilingual. First-class English, Spanish, and Chinese.
The free tier is generous; the $89.99 lifetime upgrade is the cheapest paid plan in the category and unlocks unlimited media and premium templates.
We build this one, so treat the placement accordingly. On Android there is no app yet β see Part Two for how it works in a browser there.
4. Kudoboard β Best for Group Tributes
Price: Free trial, per-pack pricing iOS: Native app Best for: Collaborative tribute boards (coworkers, classmates, large extended families)
Kudoboard isn't built specifically for memorials β it's a general-purpose group greeting card platform β but it's become popular for collaborative tribute boards. Each contributor adds a "card" with a photo or message. The result is a colorful collage rather than a structured memorial.
The iOS app is well-built. Best for short-term collective tributes (a funeral memorial wall, a celebration of life) rather than permanent biographical memorials.
5. Empathy β Best for Grief Support
Price: Free trial, subscription iOS: Native app Best for: Practical and emotional support after a loss
Empathy isn't a memorial app per se β it's a grief and loss support app that walks families through the practical aftermath of a death (estate paperwork, account closures) along with emotional content. Memorial features are minimal, but if you're in the early weeks after a loss and feeling overwhelmed by logistics, Empathy is excellent.
Pair it with a dedicated memorial app like GetMemorial for the long-term tribute.
6. MyKeeper β Best for Digital Legacy Planning
Price: Subscription iOS: Native app Best for: People planning their own end-of-life digital legacy
MyKeeper focuses less on after-death memorials and more on pre-death planning β storing important documents, passwords, photos, and final wishes. The iOS app is solid; the memorial features are secondary.
Worth considering if your priority is planning ahead rather than honoring someone now.
7. Forever Missed β Largest Library
Price: Free with ads, paid lifetime upgrade available iOS: Web app, no native iOS app Best for: Long biographical stories
Forever Missed has been around for nearly two decades and has the largest library of templates and active memorials. The downside for iPhone users: no native iOS app. The mobile web works, but the experience feels slow and dated compared to native apps.
Worth considering if you've already been using Forever Missed on desktop.
8. Ever Loved β Best Free Web Option
Price: Free iOS: Web app, no native iOS app Best for: Funeral planning and memorial in one place
Ever Loved is best known for combining funeral planning, RSVPs, and memorial pages into one free product. The mobile web is functional but not native. If you're using Ever Loved primarily for funeral logistics, the web app is fine. For a long-term memorial experience on iPhone, you'll likely want something else.
iPhone: Quick Comparison Table
| App | Native iOS | Free Tier | Lifetime | Ad-Free | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GetMemorial | Yes | Yes | $89.99 | Yes | Beautiful, mobile-first memorials |
| Keeper | Yes | Yes | Under $100 | Yes | Cemetery + family tree |
| Apple Photos | Built-in | Yes | n/a | Yes | Private family-only |
| Forever Missed | Web only | Yes (with ads) | Higher $100s | No | Long biographies |
| Ever Loved | Web only | Yes | n/a | Yes | Funeral planning + memorial |
| Kudoboard | Yes | Trial | Per-pack | Yes | Group tribute boards |
| MyKeeper | Yes | Trial | Subscription | Yes | Self pre-planning |
| Empathy | Yes | Trial | Subscription | Yes | Grief support |
iPhone: How to Choose
A 30-second decision guide:
| Your priority | Pick |
|---|---|
| Beautiful, permanent memorial built on iPhone | GetMemorial |
| Cemetery + family tree integration | Keeper |
| Completely private, family-only | Apple Photos shared albums |
| Funeral planning + memorial together | Ever Loved (web) |
| Group tribute board for coworkers | Kudoboard |
| Help with the logistics of loss | Empathy |
| Plan your own digital legacy | MyKeeper |
For most families on iOS, GetMemorial is the right starting point: it's the only app that combines mobile-first design, an ad-free experience, lifetime pricing, and modern templates in one place.
Part Two: Memorial Apps for Android
Search the Play Store for "memorial app" and the same confusion applies, with one difference that matters: the strongest free native option on Android is a genealogy tool, and most of the well-known memorial services have no Android app at all. On Android you reach them through Chrome.
Anything that builds a shareable memorial page comes first below; the adjacent tools β grave finders, grief support, photo albums β come after. Within each group, apps you can install from Google Play come before browser-only services.
Android: Apps and Services That Build a Memorial Page
1. FamilySearch Memories β Best Free Native Android App
Price: Free Google Play: Yes, native Android app Best for: Preserving photos, written stories and voice recordings for a whole family line
FamilySearch Memories is a free app from a genealogy organisation, and it is the strongest genuinely-native Android option for keeping someone's memories. You add photos, typed stories and audio recordings, tag the relatives who appear in them, and everything syncs to the free FamilySearch Tree app and website.
The audio recording feature deserves particular attention. Recording an older relative telling a story, in their own voice, is the single most valuable thing most families never get around to doing.
The trade-off: it is a genealogy tool, not a memorial tool. There is no memorial page you can hand to a hundred people, no guest book, no service details. It is a private archive that happens to hold memories beautifully.
2. Memor: Gravefinder & Memorial β Native App With a Memorial Profile
Price: Free tier Google Play: Yes, native Android app Best for: Pairing a memorial with an actual gravesite
Memor sits between the two halves of this list: it locates a gravesite by GPS and lets you build a memorial profile with photos, a short biography, military history and important dates. It also supports adding a song that plays when someone opens the page, which some families love and others find a lot.
It is a small app relative to the names below it, and the memorial pages are simpler. But if the grave and the memorial are the same thing in your mind β a place to visit and a place to read β it is the only Android app on this list that does both natively.
3. GetMemorial β Editor's Pick, Browser-Based β
Price: Free tier; paid plans from $4.99/month, $39.99/year, or $89.99 lifetime Google Play: No β browser-based on Android. Native app on iPhone and iPad; an Android app is in development. Best for: A beautiful, permanent memorial page that family can add to from any device
We build this one, so treat the placement accordingly β it sits third because the two above it are installable and this is not, and we would rather say that plainly than pretend otherwise.
On an Android phone you open getmemorial.com in Chrome and use it there. Creating a memorial takes a few minutes: a name, dates, a cover photo, a life story. You then send one link to the family, and anyone who opens it can add photos and write a tribute without creating an account first β which matters enormously when the people you most want to hear from are in their seventies.
What it does not do: it does not search newspaper obituary archives, it does not run fundraising, it does not locate graves, and it does not send you a reminder on the anniversary. If you want a reminder, put it in your own calendar.
If you are on an iPhone rather than Android, the native app is covered in Part One above.
4. Ever Loved β Best Free Option With Fundraising
Price: Free memorial pages; fundraising takes a cut Google Play: No β browser-based Best for: Families raising money for funeral costs alongside the memorial
Ever Loved's free tier is genuinely generous, and its real strength is that the memorial page and the fundraiser are the same page. When a family is trying to cover an $8,000 funeral bill, not asking people to visit two links is worth a great deal.
The design is functional rather than beautiful, and the pages carry more platform branding than some families want. We wrote a fuller breakdown in Ever Loved alternatives, including where it is the right answer.
5. Forever Missed β Largest Library, Oldest Design
Price: Free tier with ads; paid tiers remove them Google Play: No β browser-based Best for: Reaching an audience already on the platform
Forever Missed has been running for well over a decade and hosts an enormous number of memorial pages. That longevity is a real argument: it has outlasted platforms that promised permanence and closed anyway.
The interface shows its age, and the free tier carries advertising on a page about someone who died, which many families find hard. Details in Forever Missed alternatives.
6. Kudoboard β Best for a Group Tribute Card
Price: Free for a small board; paid for larger ones Google Play: No β browser-based, no mobile app Best for: Collecting many short messages quickly, especially from colleagues
Kudoboard is a digital group card. Everyone posts a note, a photo or a GIF to a shared wall. It was built for workplace celebrations and gets used for memorials because it is the fastest way to collect fifty short messages from people who will not sign up for anything.
It is not a memorial. There is no life story, no permanence guarantee, no structure. Use it as a first gathering step, then move the messages somewhere lasting.
Android: Adjacent Tools Worth Knowing
7. Find a Grave β Free, and the Biggest Database
Price: Free Google Play: Yes, native Android app
Owned by Ancestry, Find a Grave gives you access to a very large collection of burial records β hundreds of millions of graves across half a million cemeteries. You can find a cemetery near you, locate a specific grave, add headstone photos and GPS coordinates, and create a basic memorial record with a bio and photos.
Treat the memorial records as a listing rather than a tribute page. They are indexed, searchable and useful for relatives researching the family in twenty years. They are not where you tell the story.
8. BillionGraves β Free, GPS-Tagged Headstone Photos
Price: Free Google Play: Yes, native Android app
BillionGraves works the other direction: you photograph headstones during your own cemetery visits and the app uploads them with GPS data to a shared database. For families with graves scattered across several states, it turns "somewhere in that cemetery" into a pin on a map.
9. Empathy β Loss Companion β For the Admin and the Grief
Price: Often free through an employer or insurer; otherwise paid Google Play: Yes, native Android app
Empathy is not a memorial app at all. It is a companion for everything that follows a death: a personalised care plan with actual steps, on-demand support from care managers, journaling, guided meditations, and shared access so up to five family members can split the tasks.
Many people get it free through a life insurer or employer benefit, so check before paying. If you are drowning in the logistics rather than the words, this is the app on this list that helps most. Our own checklist for the first weeks covers similar ground for free.
10. Google Photos Shared Album β The One Already Installed
Price: Free (within your storage quota) Google Play: Yes, pre-installed on most Android phones
Create a shared album, name it after the person, and invite the family. Everyone contributes from their own camera roll in about thirty seconds, with no sign-up and no learning curve. For pure photo-gathering it beats every paid option here.
What it lacks: a life story, any structure, a link you can put in an obituary, and searchability. It is not permanent in the way a memorial site is β it lives inside one Google account, and accounts lapse.
The pattern that works well: gather in a shared album first, because it is frictionless, then build the actual memorial from what arrives.
Android: Quick Comparison
| App | On Google Play | Free tier | Builds a memorial page |
|---|---|---|---|
| FamilySearch Memories | Yes | Yes, fully | Private archive only |
| Memor | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| GetMemorial | No (browser) | Yes | Yes |
| Ever Loved | No (browser) | Yes | Yes |
| Forever Missed | No (browser) | Yes, with ads | Yes |
| Kudoboard | No (browser) | Small boards | Message wall only |
| Find a Grave | Yes | Yes | Listing only |
| BillionGraves | Yes | Yes | No |
| Empathy | Yes | Via employer | No |
| Google Photos | Pre-installed | Yes | No |
Android: How to Choose
Answer one question first: do you need a link, or do you need a place?
If you need a link β something to put in the obituary, text to two hundred people, and have relatives open on whatever device they own β you need a memorial page, and on Android that means a browser-based service. Anything from position three down.
If you need a place β somewhere private to keep photos, voices and stories that only the family sees β an installable app is better, and FamilySearch Memories is free and excellent at exactly this.
Two other things worth deciding early, because they are painful to change later:
Who owns it. If the page lives in one person's account and that person stops paying or stops answering email, the page goes. Prefer platforms where a memorial can have more than one administrator.
How people contribute. The single biggest predictor of whether a memorial fills up is whether an eighty-year-old can add a photo without creating an account. Test that before you commit, not after.
If you would rather compare the browser-based services properly rather than app by app, our roundup of online memorial websites goes deeper on pricing and permanence, and how to create a free online memorial walks through the free routes end to end.
What to Watch Out For (Either Platform)
- "Memorial" apps that are really utility apps. Several apps labeled "memorial" in both stores are actually candle simulators or affirmation apps. Read recent reviews carefully.
- Heavy in-app purchases. Some free apps push aggressive upsells. Look for transparent pricing.
- No web access. A memorial accessible only through one app on one device is fragile. Look for apps that also offer a web view for sharing.
- Privacy policies that share data. A memorial app should not be selling user data to advertisers. Check the privacy policy.
- A page that only one person can administer. Accounts lapse and people stop answering email. More than one administrator is the cheapest insurance there is.
Final Thoughts
A memorial app is a small, quiet thing β a way to keep someone close on the device you carry every day. The best ones don't demand attention. They just sit there, available, and gently remind you on the days that matter.
If you're picking one for the first time and you are on an iPhone, start with GetMemorial: it's free, takes five minutes, and you can decide later whether to upgrade. On Android, start with FamilySearch Memories if you want something installable, or a browser-based memorial page if what you need is a link to share. The decision is small. The act of doing it is what matters.
FAQ
Are memorial apps free? Most have a free tier. GetMemorial offers a generous free tier and an $89.99 lifetime upgrade. Some apps (Empathy, MyKeeper) are subscription-only. On Android, FamilySearch Memories, Find a Grave, BillionGraves and Google Photos are free with no paid tier required at all.
Is there a free memorial app for Android? Several. FamilySearch Memories, Find a Grave, BillionGraves and Google Photos are all free. Among browser-based services, Ever Loved and GetMemorial both have free tiers you can use without paying.
Which memorial apps are on iPhone but not Android? GetMemorial, Keeper, MyKeeper and Apple Photos shared albums are iOS-only or iOS-first. GetMemorial's Android app is in development; in the meantime it works in Chrome.
Why do so few memorial services have an Android app? Most were built as websites, and a memorial page is fundamentally a link you share β something a browser handles well. Building and maintaining two native apps is expensive for a small company, and iOS usually comes first because it is one platform rather than many. It is a resourcing decision, not a technical limit.
Can I use a browser-based memorial site properly on a phone? Yes. Uploading photos from your camera roll, writing a life story and reading tributes all work in Chrome and Safari. What you give up is a home-screen icon and the last few percent of upload speed. You can add most memorial sites to your home screen from the browser menu, which recovers the icon.
Do memorial apps work on iPad? Most native iOS memorial apps (GetMemorial, Keeper, Kudoboard) work on iPad. Some (notably GetMemorial) have iPad-optimized layouts.
Can family members access the memorial without the app? Most memorial apps also offer a web view of the memorial. GetMemorial memorials can be visited at a public URL even by people who don't have the app installed.
Which is best for collecting messages from a lot of people quickly? Kudoboard, by a wide margin, because it asks nothing of contributors. Move the messages onto a permanent memorial afterwards.
Will a memorial app remind me on the anniversary? Do not rely on it. Very few of these apps send anniversary reminders, and the ones that do change their notification behaviour over time. Put the date in your phone's calendar with a week's notice β our anniversary guide covers what to do when it arrives.
Can I switch memorial apps later? Switching requires manually downloading photos and re-uploading on the new app. There's no automatic migration between memorial platforms.
GetMemorial helps families build beautiful, lasting online memorials in minutes β a permanent home for tributes, photos, and stories, on iPhone or the web. Build yours at GetMemorial.com.
