RETRO FORTH vs LispPad Go
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
RETRO FORTH
A compact and adaptable concatenative programming language designed for ease of learning and customization. It features a code editor, interactive listener, and support for Gopher servers, allowing for flexible development.
- Concatenative programming language
- Code editor with Markdown subset
- Literate programming style
- Interactive listener interface
- Gopher server data fetching
- File manager
- Documentation browser
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RETRO FORTH is a concatenative programming language with roots in Forth. Designed to be compact, learnable, and easy to adapt to specific needs, it has been developed and refined through continual use by a small community over more than a decade. Forth is a stack based programming language created in the late 1960's by Chuck Moore. Over the intervening decades it has evolved through use, with many dialects along the way. The Retro dialect was created in the late 1990's, and has been continually developed and supported for over 15 years. It is a structured, imperative stack-based language with modern facilities including quotations and reflection. It features: - latest version of the RETRO language - a code editor using Markdown subset - literate programming style - code is extracted from fenced blocks in Markdown source allowing easy mixing of code and commentary - allows use of unicode & emoji in source & commentary - interactive listener interface for quick interactions - simple console output and text input - editor provides quick access to numbers and symbols - support for fetching textual data from Gopher servers - file manager - documentation browser It also includes documentation and several optional examples.
LispPad Go
This app is a lightweight development environment for writing and running Scheme code on iOS. It features a Scheme interpreter, a console for interaction, and a text editor with syntax highlighting and smart indentation. It supports R7RS standard Scheme with a wide range of libraries, including iOS-specific ones.
- Integrated Scheme interpreter
- Read-eval-print loop console
- Syntax highlighting text editor
- R7RS standard Scheme support
- iOS-specific libraries
- Hygienic macros
- Full numerical tower support
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LispPad Go is a simple, lightweight, integrated development environment for developing and running Scheme code on iOS. The language supported by LispPad Go is based on the R7RS standard of the Scheme programming language. LispPad Go provides the following components: • A fully integrated Scheme interpreter • A console with a read-eval-print loop to interact with the interpreter • A text editor for writing Scheme code, supporting syntax highlighting, smart indentation, parenthesis matching, etc. • A large range of libraries, including iOS-specific libraries e.g. for networking, graphics, audio, databases, archival, text processing, etc. • Support for the Shortcuts app, allowing the execution of LispPad programs as standalone applications The Scheme dialect supported by LispPad Go provides the following features: • R7RS-compliant libraries • Hygienic macros based on syntax-rules • First-class environments • call/cc, dynamic-wind and exceptions • Dynamically-scoped parameters • Multiple return values • Delayed execution via promises and streams • Support for the full numerical tower consisting of arbitrary size integers, rationals, real numbers, and inexact complex numbers. • Unicode strings and characters • Vectors and bytevectors • Text and binary ports • R7RS-compliant extensible records • R6RS-compliant hashtables and enumerations • Threads
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: LispPad Go at 96% against RETRO FORTH's 33%. LispPad Go also leads on rating (4.9 vs 4.4) and ratings volume (37 vs 5). RETRO FORTH's advantage is iOS requirement (12.4 vs 17.6). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
LispPad Go holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: LispPad Go has 37 ratings behind it against 5, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 33% of RETRO FORTH's written reviews are positive against 96% of LispPad Go's.
RETRO FORTH ships an update monthly, LispPad Go every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 17, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | RETRO FORTH | LispPad Go |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.4 (5 ratings) | 4.9 (37 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 33.3% of reviews | 96.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 5 | 37 — better |
| Update frequency | Monthly — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 12.4 — better | 17.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 4 MB | 128 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Charles Childers | Matthias Zenger |
Customer experience
RETRO FORTH
LispPad Go
In-app purchases
RETRO FORTH
No in-app purchases
LispPad Go
No in-app purchases







