Bracket Master vs Foam Madness
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Bracket Master
Explore the complete history of the Men's College Basketball Tournament, from 1939 to the present. Examine over 85 championship brackets and detailed team accounts. The app assists both experts and novices in picking tournament brackets, offering data-driven predictions or automatic bracket generation.
- Complete tournament history (1939-present)
- 85+ championship brackets
- Detailed team accounts
- Bracket picking assistance
- Automatic bracket generation
- Tournament field simulation
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Bracket Master delivers the complete history of the Men's College Basketball Tournament. Every tourney game is presented, from the inaugural 1939 championship to the current day. Each of the 85+ championship brackets can be examined within the app. View detailed accounts of every team that has appeared in the tourney. From Cinderella upstart to Blue-Blood favorite, reminisce over each game of your team's magical run through the bracket. Designed for bracketology experts and novices alike, Bracket Master helps you pick a bracket for all your March pools. Use the extensive team, seed, and conference data to meticulously pick every tournament game, or have Bracket Master automatically fill in your bracket using one of several winning team rating methodologies. Simulate tournament fields of the past - try to get your favorite team to win the championship!
Foam Madness
Simulate basketball tournaments and single games with customizable rounds and shot values. Features include random shooting hand assignments based on historical data and live game scores from the ESPN API.
- Customizable rounds and shot values
- Random shooting hand assignment
- Single game mode
- Tournament mode with bracket selection
- Live game scores via ESPN API
- Men's and women's tournament brackets
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This app was made as a fun way to pass the time with a basketball hoop and ball (whether mini or full-size) during shelter-in-place in Spring 2020, with a certain college tournament otherwise cancelled. Game Rules Games are built with four rounds, made up of 10 shots (by default, but customizable from 3 to 15 shots) of escalating value: 1 point, 2 points, 3 points, and 4 points. Clicking on an individual basketball to make it orange will count it as a made shot; leaving it gray will not be counted. Points are only displayed at the end of all four rounds for each team, and then a statistics view is also available to show percentages by round. If overtime is needed, an additional round of shots is given per team, with each basket worth one point. An additional round of shots is added per additional overtime period, as necessary. Shooting Hand Each team is given a random selection to shoot either right or left-handed, set so that the "better" team has a better chance to shoot with their dominant hand. This chance is calculated separately for each team (i.e. both teams could end up shooting with the same hand) based on historical win probabilities in the tournament when those seeds face each other. Equal seeds, or seeds that have never faced each other, have a 50 percent chance of either hand. Single games outside of tournaments operate as if the teams are equal seeds. Single Game A single game will consist of players selecting two teams, with a 50% chance for each team to shoot each right or left handed; as noted above, this is calculated separately, so each team could end up shooting with the same hand. All teams in Division 1 are available to play with, not just tournament teams. Tournament Mode Tournament mode requires the user to either select an initial bracket or make a customizable bracket, and then they can select individual games to play by round or region. The currently viewed round can be changed with the +/- button from within a single tournament's menu (if in List view style), or the currently viewed region can be changed by selecting a different region (if in Bracket view style), although games will be unplayable until both teams have been decided for a given game (typically applicable to later rounds). Both men's and women's tournament brackets are available. You may simulate, and therefore not play, individual tournament games (but not single games), or even an entire tournament, where desired; the winner will be based on historical win probabilities, as used for shooting hand determination in a non-simulated game. Note that no statistics will be recorded, and the winner of each game will be given a winning score of 1 to 0. Live Game Scores Live game scores are obtained through the ESPN API.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Foam Madness at 5.0 against Bracket Master's 4.1. Foam Madness also leads on ads (none vs shown) and monetization model (free vs ad-supported). Bracket Master's advantage is update cadence (every 4 weeks vs every 5 months) and ratings volume (121 vs 7). On price, review sentiment, 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Foam Madness holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.1. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Bracket Master has 121 ratings behind it against 7, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 83% of Bracket Master's written reviews are positive against 75% of Foam Madness's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Bracket Master ships an update every 4 weeks, Foam Madness every 5 months. The most recent releases landed on November 2, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Bracket Master | Foam Madness |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.1 (121 ratings) | 5.0 (7 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 82.6% of reviews — better | 75.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 121 — better | 7 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 weeks — better | Every 5 months |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Ad-supported | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 187 MB | 1 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Scrutinous, LLC | Michael Virgo |
Customer experience
Bracket Master
Foam Madness
Bugs and requests
Bracket Master
Reported bugs
7 issues- Long Beach State team name incorrect
- NW State and SLU teams missing
- Oklahoma State championship count incorrect
- Down arrow doesn't work when making picks
- App shows glimpse of next round instead of allowing picks
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- 2019 tournament teams brackets shown incorrectly
- Marquette team in wrong conferences
Requested features
35 requests- Add custom bracket builder
- Add NCAA Football, NFL Football, MLB
- Option to pay to remove ads
- Add rival teams feature
- Simulate brackets back to 1939
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- Pick brackets back to 1939
- Add conference tournaments
- Add NIT results
- Add custom tournament builder
- Add women's brackets
- See NIT results
- See conference tournament results
- Create own brackets
- See rosters for other teams
- Simulate a season with own team
- Add team stats (points per game, etc.)
- Print created brackets
- Add Strength of Schedule (SOS) stat
- Update bracket weekly
- Add Duke to bracket
- Add college football version
- Ability to change teams in projected/old brackets
- See Monte Carlo simulation wins per team
- Custom tournament with teams from any year
- Custom tournament with teams from a specific year
- Option to turn off pick feedback (red/green)
- Simulate with different team overalls
- Update team data for conferences
- Add more teams from scrapped conferences
- Add game summaries
- Add roster information
- Add stats
- Add game summaries
- Add roster information
- Add stats
Foam Madness
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Bracket Master
No in-app purchases
Foam Madness
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Bracket Master free?
Is Foam Madness free?
Which has better reviews, Bracket Master or Foam Madness?
Do Bracket Master or Foam Madness have ads?
Which is updated more often, Bracket Master or Foam Madness?
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