Hobo Simulator vs Ethos Idle
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Hobo Simulator
Embark on a rags-to-riches journey, starting as a homeless individual. Engage in various street activities to earn money, build businesses, and climb the social ladder. Manage your health and happiness to survive and thrive in this random, life-simulation game.
- Earn money through street activities
- Start businesses and startups
- Manage health, happiness, and satiety
- Randomly generated events
- Compete with friends
- Purchase immortality pill
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• Get drunk and achieve the maximum popularity! • Search for coins on the streets, wash cars, get into street fights, rob strangers and banks! • Open your office or found your own startup! • Make the most money in the shortest time! Compete with your friends! Almost every event in this game happens randomly. Every move equals one day. Every day your health, happiness and satiety decrease. If your health, happiness or satiety will drop to zero, you have 7 days to improve the situation, otherwise you will die. Every year you will celebrate your birthday and get presents. Every day you have a chance to find empty bottles and then sell them. Sooner or later you will die from old age. To avoid that, you can buy an immortality pill. Note that it DOES NOT protect you from dying from hunger, sickness, unhappiness or poverty.
Ethos Idle
Guide humanity's progress from its earliest discoveries to the distant future. Manage your tribe's choices, develop over 200 unique ideas, and explore the world. Advance your civilization, unlock bonuses, and enjoy a single-player, offline experience with optional ads.
- Develop over 200 historic ideas
- Explore and exploit the world
- Manage tribe choices
- Unlock exploration bonuses and synergies
- Prestige mechanic upgrades
- Customizable challenge scenarios
- Offline single-player experience
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Chart the progess of Humanity through the ages, and guide their every discovery from the moment they kindle the first fire to the far future. Develop over 200 unique ideas across three different flavours of thought. Help your people to conquer or make peace with their enemies, explore and exploit the world, and develop projects to meet their needs. Manage your tribe's choices to squeeze out more strength, or sit back and idle as your clan develop on their own. Advance as far as you can take your people, and then collect bonuses to improve future runs. Select varied challenges that change the way the game plays, and combine these challenges to create your own unique scenarios with big rewards. Features: - Over 200 historic ideas to develop, across 3 flavours of thought - Dozens of exploration bonuses and synergies to unlock and exploit - Permanently power up your civilisation with prestige mechanic upgrades - Combine varied challenge conditions to create your own scenarios with powerful rewards - Optional, out-of-the-way ads won't interrupt your experience - A completely offline, single player experience - All game content is accessible for free
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: Hobo Simulator at none against Ethos Idle's shown. Hobo Simulator also leads on ratings volume (2.7K vs 239) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.0). Ethos Idle's advantage is rating (4.8 vs 4.5) and update cadence (fortnightly vs monthly). On price, review sentiment, 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. Hobo Simulator sells 6 one-off in-app purchases and Ethos Idle sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Ethos Idle holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Hobo Simulator has 2.7K ratings behind it against 239, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 82% of Hobo Simulator's written reviews are positive against 84% of Ethos Idle's.
Hobo Simulator ships an update monthly, Ethos Idle fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 18, 2026 and September 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Hobo Simulator | Ethos Idle |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (2.7K ratings) | 4.8 (239 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 82.0% of reviews | 84.4% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 2.7K — better | 239 |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Fortnightly — 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 | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 11 MB | 101 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Denis Tokarev | Graham Goldstein |
Customer experience
Hobo Simulator
Ethos Idle
User reviews
Hobo Simulator
From 2.7K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Fun and addictive game
- 💡 Unique concept
- 🚀 No ads
- 🚀 Low power consumption
Room to improve
- 🐛 Glitchy save system
- 🐛 Unclear mechanics and lack of tutorial
- 🐛 Overly harsh random events
- 🐛 Difficulty progressing early on
Ethos Idle
From 239 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Fast progression
- 👍 Minimal ad interruption
- 👍 Simple and enjoyable design
- 👍 Great for relaxing and watching numbers go up
- 👍 Excellent incremental game design
Room to improve
- 🐢 Slower progression speed desired
- 🛒 IAP for 2x production doesn't eliminate video ads
Bugs and requests
Hobo Simulator
Reported bugs
2 issues- Incorrect deduction amounts for bodyguard and lawyer
- Inability to survive on disability for too long
Requested features
4 requests- Calendar and calendar events
- More variety in jobs and content
- Notification for impending death
- Rebirth/prestige system
Ethos Idle
Reported bugs
2 issues- RNG for challenges is unfair and unfun
- Unlocking buffs for inaccessible technologies
Requested features
2 requests- Option to remove ads entirely
- Clarification on prestige warp gain multipliers
In-app purchases
Hobo Simulator
- The Immortality Pill$0.99
- Pack 1$0.99
- Pack 2$1.99
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- Pack 3$3.99
- Pack 4$6.99
- Pack 5$9.99
Ethos Idle
- x2 Speed$6.99
Questions
Is Hobo Simulator free?
Is Ethos Idle free?
Which has better reviews, Hobo Simulator or Ethos Idle?
Do Hobo Simulator or Ethos Idle have ads?
Which is updated more often, Hobo Simulator or Ethos Idle?
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