Comparison

Magic Fluids Lite vs Grating Simulator

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

Head to head
About

Magic Fluids Lite

Experience a calming and creative fluid simulation that helps relieve stress and anxiety. Interact with mesmerizing, colorful swirls and patterns that evolve on your screen. Ideal for relaxation, meditation, or creating unique digital art.

Highlights
  • Hypnotizing fluid motion
  • Stress and anxiety relief
  • Aesthetic digital art creation
  • Configurable fluid behavior
  • Save custom presets
  • Smoke, water, and jello animation
  • Light and shadow effects
Features
Read full description

Magic Fluids Lite is a relaxing, colorful fluid simulation app that will help you calm down and relieve stress, or be creative and make aesthetic digital art. It is based on algorithms of fluid flow simulation and features fluid (pun intented!), beautiful graphics. It is the best time waster! TOUCH THE SCREEN and enjoy hypnotizing motion of fluid swirls moving around, sometimes slow, quiet and elegant, other times dynamic, satisfying and trippy. CALM DOWN AND RELAX as you draw and watch peaceful flows evolve in space and eventually settle down into colorful patterns. Magic Fluids will help you sleep, meditate, restore balance, relieve stress and anxiety. GET CREATIVE and, with a touch of your finger, bring to life stylish patterns of paint and particles. If you like abstract digital art or acrylic pour painting, you'll love Magic Fluids! You can create impressive eye-catching designs that look like swirls, galaxies, liquid, fire, light, smoke, lava and much more! KEEP YOUR KIDS BUSY - they love to doodle and watch the fluid move around! We hope that Magic Fluids can also help children with anxiety, autism and sensory issues. Please note: this is NOT a live wallpaper. Key features of Magic Fluids Lite: - Highly configurable fluid behaviour and look - Predefined configuration presets to get you started (10+ are free, ~70 more can be unlocked) - Save your own presets - Pause the animation anytime and save screenshots - Smoke, water and jello animation - 10 fluid textures that add fine detail to the fluid - Amazing light and shadow visual effects - Thousands of particles moving with the fluid - Highly optimized, multiple quality settings Fluid animation in your pocket! Touch the screen and create beautiful motion of colorful smoke and water. Calm down and relax as you watch trippy, magical swirls of flowing colors. Get artistic and design creative, satisfying patterns of paint and particles.

About

Grating Simulator

Features
Read full description

The laser interference pattern is similar to what would be produced by a Laser pointer’s beam passing through a diffraction grating – When you shine a laser pointer (green, 532nm wavelength) through a series of transmission diffraction gratings, you get a beautiful regular array of bright spots. The center spot is the zero-order (undiffracted beam), and the surrounding spots are the various diffraction orders. The symmetry and regularity of the pattern is characteristic of a diffraction grating pattern. This simulation could be used as a demonstration setup for physics education – teaching about wave optics, interference and diffraction. It is a classic physics demonstration that beautifully illustrates the wave nature of light and the principles of diffraction.

Screenshots

Magic Fluids Lite4 screens
Grating Simulator1 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Grating Simulator at none against Magic Fluids Lite's shown. Magic Fluids Lite's advantage is iOS requirement (15.6 vs 17.6). On price, update cadence, in-app purchases 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

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

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on November 11, 2026 and November 9, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Magic Fluids Lite versus Grating Simulator: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMagic Fluids LiteGrating Simulator
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (3.2K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews90.2% of reviews—
Number of ratings3.2K — better—
Update frequencyEvery 4 monthsEvery 4 months
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationAd-supported—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.6 — better17.6
Further details — not scored
Size43 MB1 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMad ScientistMark Barclay

Bugs and requests

Magic Fluids Lite

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Occasional screen freezing or glitches
  • Inconsistent ad availability

Requested features

4 requests
  • Option to change fluid colors
  • Live wallpaper support
  • More preset options in free version
  • Sound/music integration

Grating Simulator

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Magic Fluids Lite

No in-app purchases

None

Grating Simulator

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Magic Fluids Lite free?
Magic Fluids Lite is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Grating Simulator free?
Grating Simulator is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Magic Fluids Lite or Grating Simulator have ads?
Magic Fluids Lite shows ads; Grating Simulator does not.
Which is updated more often, Magic Fluids Lite or Grating Simulator?
Magic Fluids Lite ships an update every 4 months, and Grating Simulator every 4 months. Most recently, Magic Fluids Lite was updated on November 11, 2026 and Grating Simulator on November 9, 2026.

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