The comparison where "we encrypt, they hide" does not apply

Most apps in this category hide files. They move photos into a folder the gallery skips and put a passcode on the front door, and if someone plugs the phone into a computer the files are sitting there in the clear. Against those apps, the argument writes itself.

Encamera is not one of those apps. It encrypts media on the device, it takes no account, and it shows no ads — the same starting position as Vaultine. So this page is not about who is serious about encryption. It is about three differences that decide which one fits: the devices it runs on, what happens when you are made to open it, and what it costs to keep.

The devices you actually own

Encamera's listing covers iPhone and iPad. That is a coherent scope, and it is also the ceiling: a vault that only exists on Apple hardware protects only the files that live there.

Vaultine's bet is that households are mixed, and that phones get replaced. The same vault opens on a Windows laptop, a Mac, an iPhone and an Android phone, with the same 5x5 pattern or six-digit PIN and the same file format underneath. The documents that matter most are usually on the laptop, not the phone, and an Apple-only vault cannot reach them there.

What you give up: Vaultine is not open source, and it has no private camera — you import files into the vault rather than capturing them inside it. If auditing the code yourself is the deciding factor, that is the trade you are making.

The code you give up under pressure

Encryption protects a file from someone who does not have your key. It does nothing about the situation where the person in front of you is waiting for you to type it — a border desk, a stolen phone with the owner still present, a domestic argument.

Vaultine's Decoy Vault opens on a second code and shows a vault you stocked in advance with harmless files, so what gets seen is what you decided would be seen. The Duress Vault opens on a third code, shows an empty vault, and wipes your real vaults as it does. Once it has, that vault becomes your main vault, so there is no empty shell left sitting there to explain. Both are Pro features, both are prepared deliberately by you, and because Vaultine rejects any code it does not recognise, the vaults on the device are exactly the ones you created. Encamera's listing describes Face ID and PIN protection and does not mention anything comparable.

What a lifetime costs

Both apps sell a permanent option, and the gap is large enough to state plainly. Vaultine's lifetime is $39.99, once. Encamera lists two lifetime tiers, $49.99 and $99.99, alongside weekly, monthly and yearly subscriptions.

The weekly tier is the one worth doing the arithmetic on before you pick it, in any app that offers one: $1.99 a week is a little over $100 a year, which is more than two and a half times Vaultine's lifetime price for a single year of access.

One vault, four platforms

Encryption is the part both apps get right, which is why it is not the deciding factor between them. What decides it is everything around the encryption.

Vaultine puts the same vault on Windows, macOS, iPhone and Android, opened by the same 5x5 pattern or six-digit PIN, with no account anywhere in the process. It adds the two codes that matter when encryption alone has run out of road — a Decoy Vault that shows what you chose to be seen, and a Duress Vault that opens empty and wipes the real ones behind it. And it stops asking for money at $39.99, once.

Start free with one vault of up to 10 files, on whichever device is in your hand right now.