Comparison

Xplor Playground vs Herding Caterpillars Lite

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Xplor Playground

This app helps educators document children's learning journeys, monitor their health, and manage emergencies. It facilitates secure sharing of information with parents and allows for quick attendance tracking and ratio management.

Highlights
  • Capture learning observations
  • Monitor child health at a glance
  • Offline emergency lists
  • Secure parent sharing
  • Digital attendance and ratios
  • Detailed food and medical records
Features
Read full description

Xplor Playground, by Xplor Technologies helps Capture every moment in a child's learning journey, keep on top of health and wellbeing at a glance, and stay ready for anything, from daily routines to emergencies. Keep parents in the loop by securely sharing with them. OBSERVATIONS & LEARNING Don't miss a moment. Capture an observation in seconds, share up to 16 photos at once, and tag learning outcomes as you go, or save as a draft and finish later. HEALTH & ROUTINES See every child's day at a glance. Sleep checks follow Red Nose Australia guidelines and ACECQA endorsement, with bulk logging so routines don't eat into your day. Timers flag nappy changes and rest checks before they're missed. MEDICATION & INCIDENTS A simplified medication workflow with signature support for administrators and witnesses. Incident records now include digital signatures, so documentation is complete without the paperwork. DOCUMENTS, YOUR WAY Categorise child documentation for easier organisation and reporting, and choose which attachments educators see directly in the app. EMERGENCY READY Works without an internet connection. Mark children safe, add notes, and time-stamp the response as it happens. MADE FOR SHARING One tablet or phone, many educators. The dashboard makes handovers between staff in a room simple. ATTENDANCE & RATIOS See who's signed in and booked in at a glance and stay in ratio without the guesswork.

About

Herding Caterpillars Lite

Features
Read full description

The companion to the book! A short animation, viewed on your smartphone, of the mutual symbiosis of the Chequered Copper (Lucia limbaria) butterfly, bringing the book to real life! Each trigger in the book will also take you to a website where you can see the behind the scenes and making of the Herding Caterpillars experience and other related resources.

Screenshots

Xplor Playground4 screens
Herding Caterpillars Lite4 screens

Verdict

The call

Xplor Playground and Herding Caterpillars Lite are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Xplor Playground versus Herding Caterpillars Lite: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterXplor PlaygroundHerding Caterpillars Lite
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (2 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews66.7% of reviews—
Number of ratings2 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeks—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS16.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size121 MB165 MB
Age rating12+12+
DeveloperXplorBrewed Engagement Extended Reality Labs

Bugs and requests

Xplor Playground

Reported bugs

22 issues
  • Forgot password emails never send or take too long
  • Educators randomly unable to sign in
  • Accident reports cannot be opened once saved
  • Accident reports cannot be deleted
  • Pin is incorrect repeatedly
Show 17 more
  • Unable to save posts, system freezes
  • Posts saving on wrong accounts
  • Posts not saving after update
  • Food, sleep, nappy changes not visible to parents
  • App constantly logs users out
  • Cannot save drafts
  • Observations for previous days require individual child search
  • Notifications not coming through properly
  • New users don't have sign-up option
  • Cannot log in despite correct credentials
  • App says password is wrong but works on computer/web
  • Password reset link not received
  • Error page for reporting faults
  • App shuts down every few minutes
  • Families only see a fraction of uploaded photos
  • Photo uploading function not working
  • App doesn't work, says 'oops something has gone wrong'

Requested features

13 requests
  • Allow booking children into multiple sessions
  • Improve 'forgot password' functionality
  • Make accident reports deletable
  • Allow delegates option to delete posts
  • Improve editing time limits for posts
Show 8 more
  • Simplify 'Framework' section
  • Improve meal time logging visibility
  • Allow multiple staff sign-in
  • Make sign-in/out process more efficient for OSHC
  • Allow photo uploads across the whole center
  • Implement notifications for parent comments
  • Ensure all features are accessible on the app, not just desktop
  • Revert to simpler sign-in process like Xplor

Herding Caterpillars Lite

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Xplor Playground

No in-app purchases

None

Herding Caterpillars Lite

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Xplor Playground free?
Xplor Playground is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Herding Caterpillars Lite free?
Herding Caterpillars Lite is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Xplor Playground or Herding Caterpillars Lite have ads?
Neither Xplor Playground nor Herding Caterpillars Lite shows ads.

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