Alternatives to HP
By App Store Tracker Editorial · Updated — live App Store data verified
The short version
The HP app sets up printers and handles printing, scanning, and support for HP devices. The alternatives here are third-party AirPrint utilities that print and scan documents, photos, and PDFs from your iPhone to many printer brands. The HP Smart Printer App by Steve Lee leads on rating at 4.55, but none offer HP's official setup and support depth, and most rely on in-app purchases.
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HP Inc.
The best of HP, in one place
People look past the official HP app when setup fails, the app won't open, or they want a lighter tool that prints to any printer, frustrations echoed in HP's own reviews. The picks below share the HP app's core job: printing documents, photos, web pages, and PDFs from your phone, plus scanning via the camera and basic document handling. Most are generic AirPrint-based utilities that work across printer brands rather than HP-only tools. We ranked these alternatives by embedding similarity against the HP app's feature set, then weighed each app's live App Store rating and review volume so the order reflects relevance and real sentiment. Note these third-party apps often charge through in-app purchases and lack official HP support.
Why it's similar
Smart Printer App for HP targets the HP app's core: printing documents, photos, web pages, and text from your iPhone or iPad, compatible with a wide range of printers. It serves users who want straightforward mobile printing.
How it differs
This is a third-party app with in-app purchases, not HP's official tool, so it lacks HP's printer setup, firmware, and support features. Its 4.33 rating across only 181 reviews shows a small track record next to HP's millions of users.
Why it's similar
Smart Printer App iPrint Scan covers the HP app's print-and-scan basics, supporting AirPrint for fast, high-quality printing of photos and documents. It targets users who want quick wireless printing from Apple devices.
How it differs
This app leans on AirPrint and Mac companion features rather than HP-specific setup, and it's a free app with in-app purchases. Its 3.33 rating across 454 reviews points to a less reliable experience than HP's official, better-rated app.
Why it's similar
Smart Printer & Print App turns your device into a printing hub for printing, scanning, and managing printers in real time, supporting Canon and HP printers. It overlaps the HP app's everyday print-and-scan role.
How it differs
This third-party app uses in-app purchases and has only 17 ratings, so it's essentially untested. It lacks HP's official device setup, support, and personalization, working as a generic print utility rather than a full HP app replacement.
Why it's similar
Smart Printer App by Netsis handles everyday printing of documents and photos, scanning receipts, and editing PDFs on the go, cable-free, covering the HP app's print-scan-manage tasks. It targets users who want hassle-free mobile printing.
How it differs
This app has no ratings yet, so it's unproven against the HP app's huge base. As a generic third-party tool with in-app purchases, it lacks HP's official printer setup, firmware updates, and support, offering only basic print-and-scan functions.
Why it's similar
HP Smart Printer App by Steve Lee turns your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch into a wireless print, scan, and document hub for any AirPrint printer. Its 4.55 rating across 203 reviews makes it the best-rated alternative here for quick HP-style printing.
How it differs
Despite the name, this is a third-party AirPrint utility with in-app purchases, not HP's official app, so it can't set up HP printers or provide official support. It focuses on AirPrint printing rather than HP's full device-management ecosystem.
Why it's similar
Smart Printer App Scan iPrint is an all-in-one printing solution for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, simplifying printing and document management, overlapping the HP app's print-and-scan role. It serves users wanting seamless cross-device printing.
How it differs
This free app with in-app purchases has a 3.81 rating across 901 reviews, below the HP app's. As a generic third-party utility, it lacks HP's official setup, firmware, and support, offering basic printing rather than full HP device management.
Why it's similar
HP Smart Printer App + Scanner prints documents and images plus PDFs, photos, web pages, passports, and labels directly from your device, covering the HP app's everyday printing tasks. It targets users who want simple, reliable mobile printing.
How it differs
This app has only 3 ratings and a 3.33 score, so it's brand new and untested. Despite the HP name, it's a third-party tool lacking official HP printer setup and support, serving as a basic print utility rather than the HP app.
Why it's similar
Printer: Smart Print App lets you print, scan, edit, and organize documents and photos from your phone as an all-in-one printer-and-scanner tool, overlapping the HP app's core functions. It serves users wanting everyday print-and-scan convenience.
How it differs
This third-party app uses in-app purchases and has a 4.46 rating across only 298 reviews, a tiny base versus the HP app. It works across printer brands via AirPrint rather than offering HP's official device setup, firmware, and support.
Every app in our database carries a dense vector embedding derived from its title, subtitle, full description, and category metadata. To find apps similar to HP, we compute cosine distance against every other app and surface the closest 60 candidates. The similarity score shown on each pick is 1 - distance/2 clamped to [0,1] — 100% means the embedding spaces are identical, 0% means orthogonal.
We then re-rank the candidate set using current App Store rating and review-count signals so a 4.8-star app with 100,000 reviews ranks above a 4.5-star app with 200 reviews even when their embedding distance is similar. Apps that haven't shipped an update in 12 months are filtered out before re-ranking.
The similarity cache is recomputed weekly. Live App Store data (rating, review count) is verified every 6 hours.
No paid placements. No affiliate links. No sponsored picks. Read our full methodology.
More popular iPhone apps with curated alternative lists, each ranked by embedding similarity, rating, and category fit.
