Not Evil Sudoku vs Cracking the Cryptic
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Not Evil Sudoku
Enjoy a distraction-free Sudoku experience with helpful features like hints and real-time validation. Track your progress, compete globally, and customize the app with themes. Play daily puzzles for free or upgrade for unlimited games and advanced statistics.
- Fully offline play
- No ads or distractions
- Real-time move validation
- Shake for hints
- Daily puzzles with leaderboards
- Customizable themes and icons
- Notes and auto-clear notes
Read full descriptionHide full description
A joyful sudoku-solving experience built natively for iPhone and iPad and optimized for a zen solving experience free from bloat and distraction. Designed to be easy to play and meet you where ever you are in your sudoku journey: a casual solver or a sudoku pro. Stuck on a puzzle? Shake your phone for hints and turn on move by move validation in settings to get immediate feedback on your solve. Tickle your brain as you learn new solving strategies and customize the app to your taste with themes and alternate app icons. Play a daily puzzle at a difficulty of your choice and see where you stack up with players across the globe. Or just turn off the stopwatch and relax. Key features: - Fully offline: no internet required - No ads or distractions - Real-time move validation to get immediate feedback - Shake for a hint on the next logical move - Leaderboards with assist tracking - Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulty levels - Light/Dark mode - Stopwatch and best time tracking - Notes: Keep track of candidates - Auto-clear Notes: removes candidate numbers automatically in row, column, and box when they become outdated - Speed demon: Lock numbers and place them in multiple tiles at once - Arithmophobia: Sudoku with letters instead of numbers - Daily streak tracking - Daily reminder notifications - Highlighter: tap a number to highlight all its instances on the board - Themes to customize the interface (some require Pro) - Alternate app icons (Pro) - Charts and statistics (Pro): track solve speed over time and puzzle count by difficulty Play the daily puzzle at your preferred difficulty for free without any limits on assists or game features. Upgrade to Pro with a one-time purchase to unlock unlimited games, detailed stats, more themes, and alternate app icons. Pro supports Family Sharing.
Cracking the Cryptic
This app offers a curated collection of handcrafted Sudoku puzzles from world-renowned constructors. Explore classic and unique variants, with new puzzle packs released regularly. A free introductory pack is included with download.
- Handcrafted Sudoku puzzles
- Curated by expert constructors
- Classic and unique variants
- Regularly released puzzle packs
- Free introductory puzzle pack
Read full descriptionHide full description
OUR NEWEST PACK – CLASSIC VOLUME #2! Classic sudoku is where it all began, and there is still lots of skill to be deployed to solve classic puzzles, and new techniques to be explored. Nikoli, the Japanese puzzle house, named and popularised sudoku from 1984, and we have commissioned 20 puzzles from them for this Classic Sudoku 2 app. We have also created 20 ourselves, and sourced 20 more from Sam Cappleman-Lynes, the brilliant British sudoku expert. The result is a wonderful 60-puzzle pack which will delight and challenge you. -------------------- Welcome to the brand new Sudoku app from the most popular Sudoku channel, Cracking The Cryptic. Unlike other Sudoku apps, we feature handcrafted and curated puzzles from the world’s best Sudoku constructors. Each collection features puzzles made by various authors that are now familiar names to those who follow the channel. Authors like Phistomefel, Clover, Sam Cappleman-Lynes, Christoph Seeliger, Richard Stolk, jovi_al, Qodec, Prasanna Seshadri and of course, Simon and Mark! Downloading Cracking the Cryptic will give you access to our first free collection – a variety pack by Prasanna Seshadri featuring 7 puzzles inspired from our previous Sudoku apps; Sandwich, Classic, Chess, Thermo, Miracle, Killer and Arrow Sudoku. We also have purchasable packs designed for all skill levels and featuring many unique variants not seen previously. We’ll be releasing more free and paid packs in the future so keep an eye on the app for more Sudoku content from Cracking The Cryptic!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Not Evil Sudoku at every 9 days against Cracking the Cryptic's every 3 weeks. Not Evil Sudoku also leads on ratings volume (983 vs 208). Cracking the Cryptic's advantage is iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15). On price, rating, review sentiment 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
Both are free to download. Not Evil Sudoku sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Cracking the Cryptic sells 13 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Not Evil Sudoku holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.4. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 983 and 208 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 74% of Not Evil Sudoku's written reviews are positive against 72% of Cracking the Cryptic's.
Not Evil Sudoku ships an update every 9 days, Cracking the Cryptic every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and September 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Not Evil Sudoku | Cracking the Cryptic |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (983 ratings) — better | 4.4 (208 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 73.7% of reviews — better | 72.1% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 983 — better | 208 |
| Update frequency | Every 9 days — better | Every 3 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 23 MB | 234 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Ashish Selvaraj | Nick Carney |
Customer experience
Not Evil Sudoku
Cracking the Cryptic
User reviews
Not Evil Sudoku
From 983 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Clean, minimalistic design
- 🔒 No ads or tracking
- 👍 Customizable features
- 👍 Good puzzle difficulty
- 👍 Helpful community
Room to improve
- 🐛 Disappearing numbers glitch
- 🐛 App icon doesn't change for dark mode
- ⏱️ Limit of one game per day on free version
- 💰 Paid version considered expensive by some
Cracking the Cryptic
From 208 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Best sudoku app
- 👍 Great variety of puzzles
- 👍 Excellent user interface
- 👍 Challenging and fun puzzles
- 👍 Constant updates with new puzzles
Room to improve
- 🐛 Hints are often incorrect or unhelpful
- 🐛 Bugs and crashes, especially after updates
- 🔋 Battery draining issues
- 🔒 Too many in-app purchases required to access content
Bugs and requests
Not Evil Sudoku
Reported bugs
2 issues- Disappearing numbers when closing the app
- Numbers swapping to incorrect spots
Requested features
6 requests- Add auto-clear notes option without move validation
- Provide more theme color options
- Implement a 'warm' mode similar to other sudoku apps
- Add ability to remove notes after number is placed
- Highlight all instances of a number in the puzzle
Show 1 moreShow fewer
- Remove a number as a choice when it has been placed successfully
Cracking the Cryptic
Reported bugs
4 issues- Puzzle progress and purchases disappearing after updates
- Incorrect rules or hints in certain puzzles
- Crashes and freezes, especially on older devices or Macs
- Inconsistent behavior when switching between portrait and landscape modes
Requested features
5 requests- Add more color options for pencil marking and highlighting
- Implement a way to clear progress or start puzzles from scratch
- Integrate all CTC apps into a single app for better organization
- Add keyboard support, especially on Mac
- Improve the quality and clarity of hints
In-app purchases
Not Evil Sudoku
- Pro$4.99
Cracking the Cryptic
- CTC Worms - James Sinclair$0.99
- CTC Worms - Marty Sears$0.99
- CTC Worms - Zetamath$1.99
Show 10 moreShow fewer
- CTC Worms - Blobz$1.99
- CTC Worms - Michael Lefkowitz$1.99
- CTC Worms - Phistomefel$1.99
- GAS Volume #1$2.99
- GAS Volume #2$2.99
- CTC Approachable Sudoku #1$2.99
- Domino Sudoku Pack$4.99
- Lines Variety Pack$4.99
- Classic Volume #2$4.99
- CTC Fog Pack #1$4.99
Questions
Is Not Evil Sudoku free?
Is Cracking the Cryptic free?
Which has better reviews, Not Evil Sudoku or Cracking the Cryptic?
Do Not Evil Sudoku or Cracking the Cryptic have ads?
Which is updated more often, Not Evil Sudoku or Cracking the Cryptic?
Other comparisons















