Celestia vs Conway's Life Lab
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Celestia
Explore the universe in real-time 3D. Visit planets, moons, star clusters, and galaxies, viewing them from any point in space and time. Customize your experience with expandable content and detailed simulations.
- Real-time 3D space visualization
- Explore planets, moons, stars, galaxies
- Accurate solar system object positions
- Interactive planetarium mode
- Expandable content with add-ons
- Customizable celestial databases
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Celestia — real-time 3D visualization of space 3D Space Simulator | Celestia lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Celestia simulates many different types of celestial objects. From planets and moons to star clusters and galaxies, you can visit every object in the expandable database and view it from any point in space and time. The position and movement of solar system objects is calculated accurately in real time at any rate desired. Interactive Planetarium | Celestia serves as a planetarium – for an observer on any celestial object. You can easily navigate to any world and land on its surface. When used as a planetarium, Celestia shows accurate positions of solar system objects in the sky. You can switch labels and other supporting features on and off with hotkeys, or zoom in and out on an object of interest, for example Jupiter’s system of moons. Expandable Content | Customize Celestia according to your needs. Celestia’s catalogues can be easily expanded. There are many different add-ons available containing new objects like comets or stars, high-resolution textures of Earth and other well mapped solar system bodies, as well as 3D models for asteroids and spacecraft on precise trajectories. Even fictional objects from well-known sci-fi franchises can be found. EULA(End User License Agreement): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Conway's Life Lab
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Conway's Life Lab turns the classic Game of Life into a hands-on playground for curiosity. Draw on a large zoomable board, load famous patterns, and watch simple local rules create surprising behavior. Standard Conway Life—B3/S23 with wrapping toroidal boundaries—is ready the moment you open the app. When you want to look closer, open the optional Lab: • Inspect any cell and count its eight neighbors • Predict birth, survival, or death before stepping • See transitions highlighted directly on the board • Rewind recent generations without changing the latest state • Compare wrapping and finite boundaries • Explore eight named binary Life-like B/S rule presets • Try six illustrated demos of self-copying patterns, geometry, and motion • Follow guided experiments built around classic patterns • Track population changes over time In Lab > Explore Rules, discover Replicator, Persian Rug, Maze, and 2×2 alongside familiar Life-like rules. Apply a rule to keep your current cells, or confirm Try demo to load a centered starting pattern. Each demo starts paused and includes a short guide to what to watch for. This collection is free and runs entirely on your device. Free play stays simple: navigate, draw, inspect, play, pause, step, randomize, adjust speed, and browse a thumbnail library of gliders, oscillators, spaceships, methuselahs, and more. Save discoveries from your board, import standard RLE patterns from the wider Life community, and share any board or gallery pattern as a portable .rle file. Imported patterns keep compatible B/S rules; saved patterns can be renamed, reloaded, or deleted whenever you like. Make the laboratory your own with six built-in looks: Neon, Synthwave, Terminal, Blueprint, Paper, and Retro LCD. Choose square, rounded, or circular cells. Your appearance is saved on your device, and changing it preserves your board, rules, and progress. Where available, describe a visual idea in AI Pattern Studio. It creates a best-effort binary Life-like rule and starting pattern that you can keep, rename, export, delete, and evolve on the board. Each generated pattern is a separate consumable In-App Purchase; all core Play, Lab, pattern, and RLE features remain available without purchase. No account. No ads. No analytics. No tracking. Core features run on your device; where AI Create is available, it sends only the description you choose through Sub Rosa's service to a third-party generation provider. See the privacy policy for details.
Screenshots
Verdict
Celestia and Conway's Life Lab are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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
Both are free to download. Celestia sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per 7 days and Conway's Life Lab sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Celestia ships an update fortnightly, Conway's Life Lab every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on October 27, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Celestia | Conway's Life Lab |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.4 (338 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 78.9% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 338 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | Every 10 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 550 MB | 2 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | 林峰 李 | Sub Rosa Industries |
Bugs and requests
Celestia
Reported bugs
3 issues- Milky Way and other galaxy textures not loading properly
- Crashes when using certain add-ons
- Issues with planet and moon orbits not being accurate
Requested features
5 requests- Add more exoplanets and distant star systems
- Implement terrain generation for planets
- Expand to include more galaxies and the overall universe structure
- Add support for black holes, pulsars, and other exotic objects
- Improve controls and camera movement
Conway's Life Lab
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Celestia
- Celestia PLUS (Weekly)7 Days trial$0.997 Days
- Celestia PLUS (Monthly)$1.991 Month
- Celestia PLUS (Yearly)$19.991 Year
- Celestia PLUS (Lifetime)$79.99
Conway's Life Lab
- AI Pattern Generation$0.99
Questions
Is Celestia free?
Is Conway's Life Lab free?
Do Celestia or Conway's Life Lab have ads?
Which is updated more often, Celestia or Conway's Life Lab?
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