Griptonite vs Retro Flash
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Griptonite
Enhance your climbing experience by discovering beta, routes, and inspiration from a community of climbers. Track your progress, identify areas for improvement, and compete with others through global and venue-specific rankings.
- Discover beta and routes
- Learn from community experience
- Track personal progress
- Identify areas for improvement
- Global and venue rankings
- Filterable leaderboards
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The Griptonite app is a perfect companion to your climbing life. Discover what's important to you. Be it beta, routes, or inspiration. Our community ticks thousands of routes every day and we enable you to learn from their experience. Everyone loves to get better, and seeing gains is a crucial part of staying motivated. In climbing, it's often hard to pin these down and so progression tends to plateau. The app helps you drill into the areas you can improve at your own pace. Got a competitive or curious side. Or, just want to smash your own PB? The app has both global and venue linked rankings that are fully filterable to help you in your quest.
Retro Flash
This app helps climbers maximize their spray wall training with unique tools for setting various problems and supports multiple grading systems. It fosters a community for climbers to share and improve their training.
- Spray wall problem setting
- Supports symmetrical, partly symmetrical, adjustable, and private walls
- Circuit and competition boulder creation
- Fontainebleau, Dankyu, and Hueco grading systems
- Customizable grading systems
- Wall upgrades for new possibilities
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Welcome to Retro Flash and the Arcade Bouldering Community! Retro Flash is the Ultimate Spray Wall App, designed with every member of the climbing community in mind! We have created a lot of unique tools to ensure that everyone has everything they need to get the most out of their spray walls! For example, we support symmetrical, partly symmetrical, adjustable and private walls! Set all kinds of problems on your wall, like circuits or even competition boulders! With our wall upgrades, we upgrade your walls to the next level, opening up a lot of new possibilities! Now, you can even upgrade your walls by yourself!! Retro Flash supports the Fontainebleau, Dankyu and Hueco grading systems. You can also define your own grading systems or even deactivate grading! Download Retro Flash now and become a part of our growing community!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Retro Flash at 4.7 against Griptonite's 3.0. Retro Flash also leads on review sentiment (84% vs 45%) and ratings volume (226 vs 21). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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. Griptonite sells 6 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and Retro Flash sells 8 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Retro Flash holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 3.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Retro Flash has 226 ratings behind it against 21, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 45% of Griptonite's written reviews are positive against 84% of Retro Flash's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Griptonite | Retro Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.0 (21 ratings) | 4.7 (226 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 45.3% of reviews | 84.4% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 21 | 226 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Every 3 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.5 — better | 15.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 91 MB | 162 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Cascom Ltd | Arcade Bouldering UG (haftungsbeschrnkt) |
Customer experience
Griptonite
Retro Flash
User reviews
Griptonite
From 21 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Tracks climbing progress effectively
- 💡 Motivates users to climb more
- 👍 Easy to log climbs
- 📈 Shows improvement over time
- 🤩 Makes climbing feel like a game
Room to improve
- 🐛 Very buggy and glitchy
- 🐌 Slow performance
- 💥 Frequent crashes
- ❌ Poor UI/UX
- 💸 Filters behind paywall
Retro Flash
From 226 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Easy to use and intuitive
- 💰 Free to use, affordable one-time fees
- 🏠 Perfect for home walls
- 👥 Great community feature
- 🚀 Fast and functional
Room to improve
- 👎 Horrid UI
- 🐛 Massive bugs and data loss
- 🛠️ App is useless when buggy
- ❓ Unclear target audience
- 🧭 Navigation can be challenging
Bugs and requests
Griptonite
Reported bugs
30 issues- App constantly erroring
- Filters won't reset or apply
- Projects not registered properly
- App freezes when uploading video
- App crashes frequently
Show 25 moreShow fewer
- Login screen freezes
- White screen of death on sign-in
- Filters not filtering properly
- Feed is glitchy
- Cannot log anything
- App crashes on iOS 16.3.1
- UI lags and jumps when scrolling
- Phantom notification icons
- Cannot clear notification badges
- Novice/intermediate/advanced grading inaccurate
- Ability breakdown doesn't show all grades
- Notification badges not clearing
- Grading of beginner/novice out of line with French system
- Blank screen after entering name
- App instant crashes on opening
- Latest update not working on older iOS
- Cannot get past sign-up page
- Password not visible due to privacy
- Slide to tick interaction not working
- Delay on feedback requests
- Cannot correct age category
- App crashes after a few minutes of usage
- UI is broken, cannot make account
- App crashes on iPhone 12
- App crashes on older iPhone/iPad
Requested features
34 requests- Social sign-in (Apple/Google)
- Total grades/routes climbed count
- Sortable monthly gym results table
- Quick navigation between map and stats
- REST API for data access
Show 29 moreShow fewer
- More holistic progress tracking (training, mood)
- Integration with health apps (Google Fit, Apple Health)
- Privacy mode (hide from leaderboards)
- Ability to log climbs offline
- Star/favorite problems
- Filter for routes not completed this month
- Visual indicator for attempted problems
- Add friends and leaderboards for friends
- Trophy section for comp achievements
- Check beta videos on profile
- Add/follow other climbers
- Clear breakdown for grade progression (novice to advanced)
- Search gyms by name
- Follow gyms for reset notifications
- Apple Watch integration
- Option to log 'clean/dogged' status
- Nominate incorrect grades
- Option to permanently skip video submission
- Toggleable option for route reset points
- Dark mode option
- AI driven training plans
- Filter by grade in free version
- More detailed analysis of climbs
- Sort completed climbs by grade
- League table for top ten climbs
- Line graph of points or top ten grades over time
- Ability to add line pics
- See which problems you’ve attempted at least once on the gym view
- Make it easy to see which problems you’ve attempted at least once on the gym view (eg making the number amber)
Retro Flash
Reported bugs
8 issues- Cannot see sends anymore
- All boulders set to unclimbed for all users
- Statistics are gone
- Won't let me reset wall
- Won't let me delete walls
Show 3 moreShow fewer
- Won't let me add a new wall on a new account
- Camera button to add a photo doesn't do anything
- Can't change the angle of the wall
Requested features
4 requests- Add a tick list of all climbs done
- Show number and distribution of grades
- Copy route feature for minor adjustments
- Ability to edit names or grades of existing boulders
In-app purchases
Griptonite
- Griptonite Pro1 Month trial$4.991 Month
- Griptonite Pro14 Days trial$4.991 Month
- Griptonite Pro$39.991 Year
Show 3 moreShow fewer
- Griptonite Pro1 Month trial$49.991 Year
- Griptonite Pro$49.991 Year
- Griptonite Pro14 Days trial$49.991 Year
Retro Flash
- Unlock Rules for Circles$4.99
- Home Wall Year Pass$4.99
- 1 Month Upgrade Pass$8.99
Show 5 moreShow fewer
- Additional Wall$9.99
- Gym Year Pass Tier 1$14.99
- Add Gym$14.99
- Gym Year Pass Tier 2$29.99
- 6 Months Upgrade Pass$44.99
