Model Colors vs Hobby Life
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Model Colors
This app helps hobbyists manage their paint collections for models. Track colors you own, colors you need, and easily share lists. Find similar colors and organize them into custom lists for different projects.
- Track owned and needed paint colors
- Browse over 40,000 colors from various brands
- Share color lists via email and messaging
- Set favorite colors for quick access
- Find similar colors using standards or calculations
- Create custom color lists for projects
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Model Colors is an application for helping you keep track of your hobby model colors and projects. Have you ever ended up buying the wrong colors because you didn’t remember the exact code of the color you needed or forgot to get that pesky Dunkelgelb that you needed to finish that glorious tank you’re working on? If so, then Model Colors helps you keep track of the colors that you own and the colors that you need to buy. The application contains lists of all colors from a set of brands and you can browse these lists and mark the ones you already own and the ones you need to buy. Currently the app has over 50000 colors included from most big and many small manufacturers. The lists of your own colors and colors that you need to buy can be easily shared via mail, iMessage etc. If you mainly use some particular color types or individual colors you can set them as favorites and easily access them from the main menu. You can check for colors that are similar to a certain color either via color standards like FS, RAL, RLM etc, or via industry standard CIE deltaE 2000 calculations. Various colors can also be grouped together for quick access into custom color lists. You can keep the colors you normally use for US airplanes in one list and colors you use for fantasy miniatures in another, making them easy to find. Some of the included brands: Abteilung 502, Agama, AKAN, AK Interactive, Alclad II, Ammo, Andrea, AOK Silveroaks, Apple Barrell, Arcus Hobby Colors, Army Painter, Badger, Bits of War, Coat D'Arms, Colour Forge, Craft Smart, Createx, Creature Caster, Daler-Rowney, Darkstar Miniatures, Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy, Dwarven Forge, E7, Fantasy Flight Games, Faskolor, Fire Scale Modeler, Flames of War, Flory Models, ForgeWorld, Gaia, Gamescraft, Games Workshop, Golden, Gravity Colors, Green Stuff World, Hannants, Hataka, Heller, Hobby Mio, Huge Miniatures, Humbrol, ICM, Instar, Italeri, Jo Sonja's, Jumpwind, Kimera Models, Lefranc Bourgeois, LifeColor, Liquitex, Meng, Microscale, MIG Productions, Minuteman Scale Models, Mission Models, Modellers World, Modo, Monkey Modelling Paints, Monument Hobbies, Mr. Hobby, MR Paint, Nocturna Models, Paasche, Pacific88, Pactra, Pledge, Prince August, Privateer Press, ProScale Paints, Rackham, Reaper, Rembrandt, Revell, Rust-Oleum, Scale75, Scale Colors, Scale Modellers Supply, Sovereign Hobbies, Splash Paints, Tamiya, Testors, Titans Hobby, Tru-Color, True Earth, TT Combat, Turbo Dork, Ultimate Modelling Products, Vallejo, Vantage Modelling Solutions, Warcolours, Wargames Foundry, Warlord Games, Wilder, Winsor & Newton. You can also add the models that you are working on or plan to build in the future. For each model you can register the colors that are required and make sure that you don't forget to buy any essential colors. Each model can have a photos associated with it as well as notes. Using the notes and photos it is easy to keep a build diary or just keep track of things that you need to do at some point. Model Colors requires iCloud and iCloud Drive to be enabled for the app to work. iCloud Drive is used to save photos and documents for our models. Model Colors uses a subscription in order to support the application development and there's a trial period that lets you evaluate the app. Please see the link https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ for the End User License Agreement.
Hobby Life
Track your miniature collecting and army building progress. Log your backlog, monitor monthly progress and spending, and predict completion times. Link painting projects to army lists and view progress with attached photos.
- Collectibles tracking
- Army building progress
- Backlog prediction
- Monthly progress monitoring
- Spending habit analysis
- Painting project linking
- Photo gallery
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Hobby Life allows you to track your miniature collecting and army building progress and even predict when you will finish preparing your army based on the current backlog. Start by building your collection and wishlist, then view your current monthly progress and spending habit to make choices about your next hobby steps. You can even link your painting projects to army lists which automatically update when you make some progress, so you can see how close you are to finishing your lists. This app is not a comprehensive list builder but does have some tools to help you bring in your lists from list builders. You can attach photos to your projects and view them in a gallery. Try out the seasonal scoring, try to get the lowest score each season. Customisation is encouraged, the app will transform to light and dark mode based on your system settings and also provides a number of colour theme options.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Hobby Life at none against Model Colors's 4. Hobby Life also leads on review sentiment (85% vs 61%) and iOS requirement (16.0 vs 26.0). Model Colors's advantage is ratings volume (449 vs 5) and rating (4.6 vs 4.4). On price, update cadence, ads and device support 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. Model Colors sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Hobby Life asks for nothing beyond the download.
Model Colors holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Model Colors has 449 ratings behind it against 5, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 61% of Model Colors's written reviews are positive against 85% of Hobby Life's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Model Colors ships an update monthly, Hobby Life every 3 weeks. Both last shipped on October 24, 2026.
| Parameter | Model Colors | Hobby Life |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (449 ratings) — better | 4.4 (5 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 60.6% of reviews | 84.6% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 449 — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 16.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 84 MB | 10 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | D-Pointer Oy | Neil North |
Customer experience
Model Colors
Hobby Life
In-app purchases
Model Colors
- 1 month subscription7 Days trial$0.991 Month
- 3 month subscription14 Days trial$1.993 Months
- 6 month subscription1 Month trial$3.496 Months
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- 1 year subscription1 Month trial$5.991 Year
Hobby Life
No in-app purchases









