Comparison

Hoops Lab vs Play Designer

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Hoops Lab

This sports team management app streamlines practice preparation and administrative tasks for coaches. It offers tools for designing plays, communicating with the team, managing schedules, and organizing rosters, allowing more time for actual practice.

Highlights
  • Play designer
  • Message board
  • Team schedule
  • Roster management
  • Practice preparation tools
Features
Read full description

Hoops Lab helps coaches run a more productive team. One where you spend less time standing around and more time practicing. With our play designer, message board, team schedule, and roster management, coaches can offload many of the setup and administrative tasks to happen before practice so that their players come prepared and ready to play.

About

Play Designer

This app helps basketball coaches create, share, and explain plays, practices, and drills. It features a customizable digital whiteboard, video recording, and shot charting tools to enhance team communication and training.

Highlights
  • Record and share play and drill videos
  • Create and manage custom practices
  • Access and build a drill library
  • Professional-grade shot charting
  • Customizable digital whiteboard with court dimensions
  • Team roster and lineup management
  • AirPlay support for team presentations
Features
Read full description

The modern basketball coach’s playbook: design plays, plan practice, organize drills, and teach your team clearly. Elite Hoops gives basketball coaches one place to design plays, build practices, organize drills, and teach more clearly. Used by over 14,000 coaches and trainers, from Division 1 to AAU to youth hoops. The star of Elite Hoops is our play designer that's approachable, affordable and advanced. Build polished, detailed plays frame by frame, show player movement with precision, organize everything with tags, smart tags call out screens and actions, and present concepts in a way players can actually follow. And when you need to draw something up fast, the Digital Whiteboard that coaches have used to share over 10,000 plays is right here too. But Elite Hoops is more than just a play tool. It brings together the full coaching workflow across plays, practices, and drills. Build practices from your device, create your own drill library, track with shot charts, record breakdown videos, and share everything with players and staff. Or, create a practice in a pinch with our AI practice builder, which uses your drills and learns from your team's practice to customize them. Preparing for practice, installing a set, or adjusting in-game, Elite Hoops helps you coach with more detail and less friction. It's all about plays, practices, and drills. In one spot. New: Team Plans. One private playbook for the coaches, players, and parents you invite. Coaches edit, players and parents view, and everything in Pro is included. -- Elite Hoops Features -- · Play Designer: ⤍ Build animated plays frame by frame with detailed movement and timing and create playbooks. ⤍ Organize plays with tags so your playbook stays easy to search and manage. ⤍ Show real lineups, spacing, actions, and concepts with far more clarity. · Digital Whiteboard: ⤍ Quickly draw up one-off plays, counters, out-of-bounds actions, and defensive concepts. ⤍ Share images fast when you need to teach on the fly. · Practice Planner: ⤍ Create and run practices from your device. ⤍ Print or share your practice plans as a .pdf. · Drill Library: ⤍ Use our 200+ drills or build your own personalized drill library. ⤍ Keep your best drills organized and ready for every session. · Share Links: ⤍ Create a share link for any play, practice, or drill, and turn it off anytime. ⤍ Send coaching material to players and staff without exporting a file. · Video Export: ⤍ Record and export breakdown videos of your plays, drills, and concepts to share anywhere. · Shot Charts: ⤍ Track makes and misses during games, scrimmages, or training. ⤍ Review trends with a fast, coach-friendly shot chart tool. · Customizable Court: ⤍ NBA, FIBA, WNBA, NCAA, EuroLeague, and High School court dimensions. ⤍ Your own court color, hardwood styles, and boundary line colors. · Team Plans: ⤍ Invite unlimited coaches, players, and parents by email, link, or code. ⤍ Coaches edit the plays, practices, and drills; players and parents view them. · Team Tools: ⤍ Add as many teams as you coach, with rosters, jersey numbers, and team colors. · Coaching Tools: ⤍ Add an opposing team to demonstrate actions and counters. ⤍ Show zone and press defenses with Zone Overlays. ⤍ Sub players in and out, and place your real lineup on the court. · Built for Apple devices: ⤍ Full Apple Pencil support. ⤍ AirPlay your board to a television to teach the whole team at once. -- LEGAL -- · View our terms of service here: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ · View our privacy policy here: https://www.elitehoopsapp.com/privacy Subscriptions will be charged to your credit card through your iTunes account. Your subscription will automatically renew unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage your subscriptions in Account Settings after purchase.

Screenshots

Hoops Lab4 screens
Play Designer4 screens

Verdict

The call

Hoops Lab and Play Designer both sit at 4.5 stars, but that hides the real split: 93% of Play Designer's written reviews are positive against 33% of Hoops Lab's. Play Designer also leads on ratings volume (736 vs 13). Hoops Lab's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 17) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.5). On price, rating, update cadence and ads 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Play Designer sells 17 in-app purchases, starting at $7.00 per 7 days. Hoops Lab asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.5 for Hoops Lab against 4.6 for Play Designer. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Play Designer has 736 ratings behind it against 13, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 33% of Hoops Lab's written reviews are positive against 93% of Play Designer's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Hoops Lab ships an update weekly, Play Designer every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on September 20, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Hoops Lab versus Play Designer: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHoops LabPlay Designer
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.5 (13 ratings)4.6 (736 ratings) — better
Positive reviews33.3% of reviews92.9% of reviews — better
Number of ratings13736 — better
Update frequencyWeekly — betterEvery 10 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Vision Pro
Requires iOS15.0 — better18.5
Further details — not scored
Size34 MB193 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLabrador SportsDay Well Spent LLC

Customer experience

Hoops Lab

All ratings13 ratings
Positive76.9%
Neutral23.1%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive33.3%
Neutral66.7%
Negative0.0%

Play Designer

All ratings736 ratings
Positive90.8%
Neutral3.0%
Negative6.3%
Written reviews56 reviews
Positive92.9%
Neutral0.0%
Negative7.1%

Bugs and requests

Hoops Lab

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

Play Designer

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Recording issues with no sound and inability to close/discard videos
  • Crashes and freezes on some devices

Requested features

3 requests
  • Ability to design and animate plays
  • More advanced player movement and positioning features
  • Free recording and playback functionality

In-app purchases

None

Hoops Lab

No in-app purchases

17 purchases

Play Designer

Subscriptions16
  • Weekly Tournament Pass$7.007 Days
  • Tournament Pass$7.997 Days
  • Unlimited access$9.991 Month
Show 13 more
  • Elite Hoops Pro$10.007 Days
  • Elite Hoops Pro Monthly3 Days trial$12.991 Month
  • Elite Hoops Pro$12.991 Month
  • Elite Hoops Pro Monthly$12.991 Month
  • Elite Hoops Pro Quarterly3 Days trial$24.993 Months
  • Elite Hoops Pro$24.993 Months
  • Season Pass7 Days trial$25.003 Months
  • Unlimited access3 Days trial$39.991 Year
  • Elite Hoops Pro7 Days trial$45.001 Year
  • Elite Hoops Pro3 Days trial$49.991 Year
  • Elite Hoops Pro$59.991 Year
  • Elite Hoops Pro7 Days trial$59.991 Year
  • Elite Hoops Pro7 Days trial$65.001 Year
One-time1
  • Unlimited access$149.99

Questions

Is Hoops Lab free?
Hoops Lab is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Play Designer free?
Play Designer is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Hoops Lab or Play Designer?
Play Designer is rated higher. Hoops Lab averages 4.5 out of 5 from 13 ratings, while Play Designer averages 4.6 from 736 ratings.
Do Hoops Lab or Play Designer have ads?
Neither Hoops Lab nor Play Designer shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Hoops Lab or Play Designer?
Hoops Lab ships an update weekly, and Play Designer every 10 days. Most recently, Hoops Lab was updated on September 20, 2026 and Play Designer on September 24, 2026.

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