HalftonePix vs PIXEL86
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
HalftonePix
Apply unique artistic effects to your photos with a variety of dot, line, and wave patterns. Customize shapes and colors for a personalized look. Transform selfies or gallery images into memorable artwork.
- Halftone dot effects
- Line and stripe effects
- Wave patterns
- Customizable shapes and colors
- Apply to selfies or gallery photos
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HalftonePix brings advanced artistic photo effects to your mobile device. Our filters include a variety of halftone styles, patterns, shapes, and colors. Customize everything for a truly unique effect. HalftonePix includes: - Variety of dot effects (akin to newspaper print or comics) - Line and stripe effects - Waves - Circles HalftonePix allows you to apply a halftone effect to a selfie or a photo from gallery. Don't miss out on this unique and memorable photo filter!
PIXEL86
Transform photos and videos with vintage pixel art aesthetics. Apply true black-and-white dithering, custom color palettes, and unique dithering styles to create retro media. Supports video editing and sharing your creations.
- True B/W dithering
- Video editing support
- Customizable color palettes
- Three dithering styles (Natural, Pattern, Flat)
- Vintage-inspired aesthetics
- Social media sharing
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PIXEL86 — Retro Dithering for Photos & Videos Make your media look like it came from a cooler, glitchier timeline. Bring back the charm of vintage tech with PIXEL86, the ultimate tool to transform your photos and videos into pixel-perfect black-and-white or limited-palette art. Inspired by early computer graphics, old-school printers, and classic GIFs — this is retro done right. True B/W Dithering No grays. Just black or white pixels smartly arranged to simulate shadows and depth — exactly how early screens did it. Now Supports Video Editing Apply your favorite dithering style to video clips. Make every frame look like a piece of pixel-art history. Color Palettes, Reimagined Choose from curated vintage-inspired palettes Hit random for a fresh surprise every time Or build your own custom palette for a personalized look Three Dithering Styles Natural — Smooth, classic error diffusion. Clean and expressive. Pattern — Retro dot-matrix vibes. Adjustable matrix for custom textures. Flat — Not technically dithering, but perfect for dramatic, posterized effects in both stills and motion. Share Your Style Use #pixel86 on social and tag @pixel86app on Instagram — we love featuring the coolest creations from the community.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: HalftonePix at none against PIXEL86's shown. HalftonePix also leads on device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (9.0 vs 18.0). PIXEL86's advantage is review sentiment (100% vs 67%) and rating (4.6 vs 4.3). On price, in-app purchases and monetization model 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. HalftonePix sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and PIXEL86 sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
PIXEL86 holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: PIXEL86 has 42 ratings behind it against 7, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 67% of HalftonePix's written reviews are positive against 100% of PIXEL86's.
HalftonePix ships an update fortnightly, PIXEL86 every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 21, 2026 and October 27, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | HalftonePix | PIXEL86 |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.3 (7 ratings) | 4.6 (42 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 66.7% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 7 | 42 — better |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | Every 5 days — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 9.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 17 MB | 87 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Aevica Software | Peter Tretyakov |
Customer experience
HalftonePix
PIXEL86
In-app purchases
HalftonePix
- Premium Styles$4.99
PIXEL86
- License Discount$9.99
- Perpetual License$19.99









