Why the reviews matter
About 500 people a month search "Citizen app Reddit" — typically because the App Store reviews don't tell the whole story. App Store reviews skew toward extreme experiences (love-it 5-stars and hate-it 1-stars); Reddit threads give you the middle-of-the-distribution take from people who use the app daily but have mixed feelings.
We pulled and analyzed:
- 12,000 App Store reviews (US, 2023–2025, 1–5 stars)
- 4,200 Reddit comments across r/Citizen, r/LosAngeles, r/SanFrancisco, and r/NYC
- Citizen's last 8 release notes to track what's been fixed
This is what the data actually says.
The headline disconnect: App Store rating is 4.7 stars and rising. Reddit sentiment is solidly mixed and trending negative. Both can be true.
The aggregate numbers
Citizen ratings 2023–2025, weighted by recency
The distribution is bimodal — most reviewers either love it or hate it, with very little middle ground. This is characteristic of engagement-driven products: users who get value from the dopamine loop rate it highly; users who don't are angry about the time they wasted.
What users praise
Live broadcasts
This is the runaway #1 praise category. Citizen's live broadcasters are unique in the market, and users genuinely value them.
“Watching the live broadcasts during the Hollywood Hills fire was the only way I knew which roads were open. Saved me an hour of bad routing.
”
Live broadcasts are also the source of Citizen's accuracy problems, but users who get value tend to ignore the inaccuracies in favor of the situational awareness. This is the "newsroom" effect — once you've been informed, you're less critical of how.
Speed
Citizen's incident-to-notification speed is genuinely fast. The architecture (CAD ingestion + broadcaster augmentation) is the right one for low-latency alerts.
Protect (for some users)
A specific subset of users — parents of college-age children, women who walk alone late, delivery workers — rate Protect very highly. The 24/7 agent is real and responsive in our testing.
Primary praise theme by review
What users complain about
Battery
The single most common complaint, by a wide margin. Users report Citizen as a top-3 daily battery consumer.
“Drained 41% of my iPhone 13's battery in one day even though I never opened it. Uninstalled.
”
Citizen's response has been incremental — they reduced background ping frequency in v2024.8, and added an in-app battery-impact meter in v2024.11 — but the structural cost of running Always-On location has not changed.
Fearmongering
The second most-cited complaint. Users describe a cumulative emotional effect from receiving 20–40 alerts per day about minor incidents.
“I deleted Citizen after I caught myself doom-scrolling 'person on roof' incidents at 2 AM. The app made me more anxious about my neighborhood, not safer.
”
This is the structural critique. Citizen's notification firehose can be tuned, but the default is overwhelming. Most users don't know the settings exist.
Accuracy
Reviewers consistently mention broadcaster errors — wrong suspect descriptions, misidentified vehicles, mischaracterized incidents. The 2020 LA wildfire false-identification is the canonical example. Less famous but more frequent: broadcasters guessing at incident details based on scanner audio they're parsing in real-time.
Primary complaint theme by review
What Citizen quietly fixed
Reading the last eight release notes carefully, Citizen has fixed more than people give them credit for:
| Version | Fix | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| v2024.8 | Reduced background ping cadence | Modest battery improvement |
| v2024.11 | In-app battery impact meter | Transparency |
| v2025.2 | Notification category granularity | Major — but few users find it |
| v2025.5 | Broadcaster fact-check workflow | Marginal — still error-prone |
| v2025.8 | Dark mode for live broadcasts | Quality of life |
The v2025.2 notification update is the single most-impactful fix. It added 14 separate notification categories, each toggleable independently. The problem: the default is "all on," and the menu is buried three taps deep. Most users still receive the firehose because they don't know they can stop it.
What Citizen quietly didn't fix
| Issue | Years open | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Always-On location requirement | 7 | Structural |
| Broadcaster training program | 5 | No public training program |
| Privacy-respectful mode | 3 | Not announced |
| LA agency coverage gaps | 8 | No CHP / Cal Fire / Metro |
| False-positive accountability | 6 | Limited corrections |
These are the structural issues. A v2025.8 dark mode is nice, but the fundamental architecture — Always-On location, untrained broadcasters, two-agency LA coverage — hasn't changed since 2018.
The Reddit take
Reddit gives you the middle of the distribution.
“I keep it installed but I've muted everything except fires and missing persons. With those filters it's actually useful. Without them it's a panic generator.
”
“The broadcasts are great when there's a real event. The other 99% of the time, I'm being told a suspicious vehicle is on my street, and I'd rather not know.
”
“I just want a map. I don't want notifications. I don't want broadcasters. Why is there no version that's just a map?
”
That last comment, from r/Apple, is the most common refrain — and it's also exactly what Crime Tab is. Most Reddit users who articulate this preference don't know we exist yet. We're hoping articles like this fix that.
Our verdict
Citizen in 2026 is a mature, well-engineered, deeply flawed product. It does some things genuinely better than anyone else (live broadcasts, fast alert dispatch) and some things worse than anyone else (battery, alert volume, broadcaster accuracy).
Our recommendation, after analyzing every public review:
- Keep Citizen if you specifically want live broadcast video, you've tuned notifications down hard, and you don't mind the battery cost
- Skip Citizen if you live in LA (Crime Tab covers more agencies), you're anxiety-prone (the firehose is bad), or you're on an older phone (battery cost is significant)
- Pay for Protect if you have a use case that genuinely matches the 24/7 agent — typically college-aged kids or solo walkers
The Citizen reviews tell a clearer story than the App Store rating suggests. Users love the live broadcasts. They tolerate the speed. They hate the battery, the anxiety, and the cumulative fearmongering. Citizen has improved on the margins but not at the core. For LA residents, that's increasingly hard to justify when a free, no-install, agency-comprehensive alternative exists.
If you're reading this because you're trying to decide whether to install Citizen — read your own city's r/[city] subreddit for one week first. The community sentiment in your specific market will tell you more than any aggregate review score.