Comparison

xFractal vs AboutNumbers

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

Head to head
About

xFractal

Explore the intricate beauty of fractals with real-time GPU rendering. Zoom infinitely into the Mandelbrot and Julia sets, discover various fractal types, and enjoy smooth coloring with multiple palettes. Replay your explorations as animated movies.

Highlights
  • Mandelbrot, Julia, Newton, and Multibrot fractals
  • Deep zoom capabilities
  • Multiple classic color palettes
  • Julia presets and Multibrot exponents
  • Exploration replay as animated movie
  • Cross-device continuity
Features
Read full description

Explore the infinite beauty of fractals with your fingertips. Pinch to zoom, drag to pan, and dive into the endless detail of the Mandelbrot set and its relatives โ€” rendered in real time on your device's GPU. xFractal, first released in 2008, is back โ€” rebuilt from the ground up for today's iPhone and iPad. FEATURES: โ€ข Mandelbrot, Julia, Newton and Multibrot fractals โ€ข Deep zoom: magnify the Mandelbrot and Julia sets more than a trillion times โ€ข Four classic palettes โ€” Hot, Cold, Gray and Chromatic โ€” with smooth coloring โ€ข Julia presets (Dendrite, Spiral, Rabbit, Galaxy, San Marco), Multibrot exponents 2โ€“8, three Newton polynomials โ€ข Replay: watch your whole exploration animate back as a short movie โ€ข Picks up exactly where you left off โ€ข Free and open source Deep zoom uses K. I. Martin's perturbation technique.

About

AboutNumbers

Features
Read full description

AboutNumbers is an early math application aimed at dealing with counting, sets, numbers and calculating in the number domain up to 10. An important feature throughout the entire applications is the structured representation of sets (2 lines and 5 columns) to facilitate non-counting strategies of recognizing sets, the understanding of the relation among numbers and the notion of numbers in general. AboutNumbers for iPad is available in 2 versions: - AboutNumbers: Only a limited number of exercises can be used. An In-App Purchase is required to use all exercises. - AboutNumbers PRO: All exercises can be used without limitation. The application is designed for pre-school and elementary school children with or without impairments, for people with math deficiencies, as well as young people and adults with learning disabilities. The application contains a wide number of increasingly complex exercises. Each exercise is aimed to further a specific skill (e.g. counting or calculating). Completed exercises are recorded by the application to document the learning progress. To enable the use of this application with several people, a user manager is offered. Individual settings and results will be saved and can be loaded quickly. The exercises can be operated by alternative input devices such as external switches or eye tracking. Objectives: Practice counting and calculating in the number domain up to 10 Train non-counting strategies of recognizing sets Areas of application: Early Intervention Children and adults with learning disabilities Dyscalculia

Screenshots

xFractal4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: xFractal at none against AboutNumbers's 1. xFractal also leads on update cadence (every 6 weeks vs every 11 months) and device support (3 vs 1). AboutNumbers's advantage is iOS requirement (12.0 vs 17.0). On price and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. AboutNumbers sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. xFractal asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

xFractal ships an update every 6 weeks, AboutNumbers every 11 months. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 26, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences ยท 4 level
xFractal versus AboutNumbers: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterxFractalAboutNumbers
PriceFreeFree
Positive reviews71.4% of reviewsโ€”
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeks โ€” betterEvery 11 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo โ€” betterYes
MonetizationFreeโ€”
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac โ€” betteriPad
Requires iOS17.012.0 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size9 MB103 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJean BovetIntegraTools GmbH

In-app purchases

None

xFractal

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

AboutNumbers

One-time1
  • All exercises$44.99

Questions

Is xFractal free?
xFractal is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is AboutNumbers free?
AboutNumbers is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do xFractal or AboutNumbers have ads?
Neither xFractal nor AboutNumbers shows ads.
Which is updated more often, xFractal or AboutNumbers?
xFractal ships an update every 6 weeks, and AboutNumbers every 11 months. Most recently, xFractal was updated on October 30, 2026 and AboutNumbers on October 26, 2026.

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