sigil. vs SPV

Short answer: choose SPV if you want a simple PIN-protected photo album that works on iPhone and iPad and you're fine with a subscription for Premium. Choose sigil. if you want the lock to be the encryption itself, with a sign you draw, a decoy pattern that opens a decoy vault, and hidden vaults the app never lists.

Both apps are local: neither runs a cloud account for your photos. The difference is what stands between a stranger and your files once they hold your phone.

sigil.

SPV - Secret Photo Vault

Price

Free · Pro €39.99 once or €19.99/yrWeekly, monthly or yearly Premium 'from USD 2.99'; US IAPs listed from $4.99 to $39.99

Lifetime option

€39.99 once, no subscription—

Free tier

100 photos and documents + 10 videos per vault, 1 vault + decoy vaultFree download; Premium by subscription (7-day trial on yearly)

Account required

No account at all—

Encryption

256-bit encryption; key unlocked by your pattern (Argon2id, bound to the secure chip)—

Zero-knowledge

Yes — no server, we never see anything—

Multiple vaults

Up to 7 vaults with Pro, one pattern each; the app never lists them—

Decoy vault

Free: a decoy pattern opens a decoy vault with harmless photos and erases nothing—

Disguised icon

Neutral utility icons that don't say vault.—

Private camera

Photos never touch the Camera Roll—

EXIF / location removal

Location/EXIF stripped on import and export—

Cloud sync

No — local-first, no cloud backup yetNo server; device storage only, deleting the app deletes the photos (vendor-stated)

Unlock

Only the pattern you draw — no Face ID or Touch ID, by designPIN

Break-in alerts

No intruder photos; optional self-destruct after too many wrong patterns—

Platforms

iPhone onlyiPhone, iPad

sigil. compared with SPV - Secret Photo Vault

Feature	sigil.	SPV - Secret Photo Vault
Price	Free · Pro €39.99 once or €19.99/yr	Weekly, monthly or yearly Premium 'from USD 2.99'; US IAPs listed from $4.99 to $39.99
Lifetime option	€39.99 once, no subscription	—
Free tier	100 photos and documents + 10 videos per vault, 1 vault + decoy vault	Free download; Premium by subscription (7-day trial on yearly)
Account required	No account at all	—
Encryption	256-bit encryption; key unlocked by your pattern (Argon2id, bound to the secure chip)	—
Zero-knowledge	Yes — no server, we never see anything	—
Multiple vaults	Up to 7 vaults with Pro, one pattern each; the app never lists them	—
Decoy vault	Free: a decoy pattern opens a decoy vault with harmless photos and erases nothing	—
Disguised icon	Neutral utility icons that don't say vault.	—
Private camera	Photos never touch the Camera Roll	—
EXIF / location removal	Location/EXIF stripped on import and export	—
Cloud sync	No — local-first, no cloud backup yet	No server; device storage only, deleting the app deletes the photos (vendor-stated)
Unlock	Only the pattern you draw — no Face ID or Touch ID, by design	PIN
Break-in alerts	No intruder photos; optional self-destruct after too many wrong patterns	—
Platforms	iPhone only	iPhone, iPad

Security model

SPV's lock is a PIN. The listing we checked describes PIN protection, but we could not find a statement about how the files are encrypted, if at all, or which cipher is used. That doesn't mean SPV doesn't encrypt; it means the listing doesn't say, so the encryption row in the table is empty. Why this matters for PIN-gated vaults is covered in are calculator vault apps safe?

sigil. makes the lock and the encryption the same thing. You draw a sign on a 5×5 grid; the sign is hardened with Argon2id and bound to the phone's secure chip, and only then does it unlock the 256-bit key that decrypts the vault. There's no stored code to compare against, so a wrong sign doesn't fail a check, it opens nothing. More in pattern encryption and pattern lock vs PIN vs password.

The flip side: if you lose your sign, only your written recovery phrase gets you back in. Nobody has the key, not even us.

Privacy

On storage, SPV says: No server; device storage only, deleting the app deletes the photos (vendor-stated). That is a good starting point and matches sigil.'s approach. Its App Store privacy label, however, reads: App Store privacy label: Data Used to Track You (Identifiers, Usage Data, Diagnostics). The label is the developer's own declaration to Apple; it covers app data such as identifiers and usage, not necessarily your photos.

sigil. has no account, no server and no ads. We don't know who you are, how many vaults you have or what's in them. The app sends no usage statistics.

Features

Decoy vault. We could not find a decoy PIN or fake vault in the SPV listing. sigil. has a free decoy vault, opened by its own decoy pattern, while your other vaults stay hidden.

Multiple vaults. The SPV listing doesn't describe separate vaults behind different PINs. In sigil. each sign opens its own vault and the app never lists them (multiple hidden vaults).

Self-destruct. sigil. can erase all vaults after too many wrong signs (self-destruct), free and off by default.

Disguised icon and camera. Not described in the SPV listing we checked. sigil. can show a neutral icon that doesn't say vault (disguised icon), and the private camera writes photos straight into the vault, never into the Camera Roll.

Metadata. sigil. strips EXIF and location on import and export. You can inspect any photo with the photo metadata viewer.

Unlock. sigil. has no Face ID or Touch ID, by design, because biometrics can be forced. It takes no intruder photos either.

Price

SPV on the US App Store: Weekly, monthly or yearly Premium 'from USD 2.99'; US IAPs listed from $4.99 to $39.99. Free version: Free download; Premium by subscription (7-day trial on yearly).

sigil. is free with every feature included (decoy vault, self-destruct, disguised icon): 100 photos and documents plus 10 videos per vault, one vault plus the decoy vault. Pro lifts the photo and video limits and gives you up to 7 vaults, each opened by its own pattern: €39.99 once, lifetime, no subscription, or €19.99 per year. No free trial and no monthly plan. Over the free limit nothing is locked; you just can't add more. See pricing.

Where SPV is better

• iPad. SPV runs on iPhone, iPad. sigil. is iPhone-only today.
• User base. SPV is an established app with 70K ratings on the US App Store. sigil. is new.
• Simplicity. A PIN and an album is about as simple as it gets. If you don't need decoys or several vaults, there's less to learn.
• Free trial. SPV offers a Premium trial, per the listing; sigil. has no trial, its free plan plays that role.

Neither app keeps a cloud copy. Read how to securely back up private photos before relying on any local-only vault.

How to switch from SPV to sigil.

1. In SPV, select the items you want to move and export them to your iPhone's Photos library.
2. Install sigil., draw a sign and write the recovery phrase down on paper.
3. Import the exported items into your vault. sigil. strips location and EXIF data on import.
4. Open a few items in sigil. to check they are there and readable.
5. Delete the exported copies from Photos, then empty Recently Deleted (how to delete Recently Deleted photos).
6. Once everything has moved, delete SPV. Remember that deleting the app deletes its photos, so only do this after step 4. Cancel any subscription in your App Store settings.

Verdict

SPV is a straightforward, popular PIN album that keeps files on the device. sigil. keeps the same local-only approach and adds what the SPV listing doesn't describe: a key derived from your sign, a decoy vault with its own pattern, hidden vaults and self-destruct. If a PIN in front of an album is all you need, and you want iPad, SPV works. If you want the lock to actually be the encryption, sigil. is the better fit.

For more options, see the best private photo vault apps for iPhone or sigil. vs Keepsafe.