PinPal vs Best Bowling
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
PinPal
Track your bowling scores and analyze detailed statistics to improve your game. This app supports leagues, tournaments, and open play, offering insights into your spare pickups and common misses.
- League, tournament, and open bowling score tracking
- Detailed statistical analysis
- Spare pickup and leave analysis
- Multiple score entry methods
- Average calculation
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PinPal is a bowling scorekeeping application designed to provide bowlers with detailed statistics to help improve their average. PinPal keeps track of both leagues, tournaments, and open bowling, allowing bowlers to view their average and other statistics in many different ways. PinPal puts tons of useful stats right at your fingertips. Ever wondered what your average would be if you picked up all your single pin spares? Ever wondered what spares you leave the most, and how often you are able to pick it up? Well now you can find out! Scores can be entered either by selecting all the pins you knocked down or entering the scores you get for each ball. Also, if you don't want to take the time to enter each frame, you can just enter the final score for the game. Make sure to check out PinPal Lite if you want to try it out before buying! Any questions, comments, concerns, complaints, compliments, suggestions, or feedback of any other sort can be directed at PinPalApp@gmail.com, or to our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/PinPalBowling.
Best Bowling
Track your bowling scores and analyze your performance with detailed statistics and graphs. Easily input scores during games, manage multiple bowlers, and review your progress over time. Save and share your score sheets.
- Detailed score input for each frame
- Performance trend and distribution graphs
- Pin state and remaining pattern statistics
- Event list with search and filtering
- Multiple bowler management
- Save and share score sheets
- Input history for quick entry
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Various statistics! Easy input while bowling. Analyze it at any time! [Data Type] - Date-time for event - Event name (Practice, League, etc.) - Place - Notes - Handicap - Tag (for grouping and marking) - The score and state of the pins for each frame - Bowling ball, spare ball - Position and Spot [Statistics] - Performance Trend Graph - Performance Distribution Graph - Percentage for each pins' down states, statistics of remaining pin patterns - Performance Summary (Total games, High Game, 200up, Split Convert etc...) [Features] - Event list sorted by date - Search and filtering - Input history (No need to type every time.) - Save and share score sheet image - Multiple Bowler Management - iCloud supported - Supports new score calculation method "current frame scoring" [Point to be noted] - If your data is stored in iCloud, you can continue using the data from the LT version as is. If your data is stored on the device, please copy the data using the Files app. - Emoticons cannot be used
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: PinPal at 4.9 against Best Bowling's 4.5. PinPal also leads on review sentiment (92% vs 64%) and ratings volume (5.1K vs 146). Best Bowling's advantage is price ($4.99 vs $8.99) and device support (3 vs 1). On ads and in-app purchases 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
PinPal costs $8.99 and Best Bowling $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
PinPal holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: PinPal has 5.1K ratings behind it against 146, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 92% of PinPal's written reviews are positive against 64% of Best Bowling's.
PinPal ships an update every 6 weeks, Best Bowling every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on October 27, 2026 and October 26, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | PinPal | Best Bowling |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $8.99 | $4.99 — better |
| Rating | 4.9 (5.1K ratings) — better | 4.5 (146 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 92.2% of reviews — better | 64.4% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 5.1K — better | 146 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks — better | Every 4 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #10 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 7 MB | 67 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Jeff Stuart | Tatsuhiko Koyama |
Customer experience
PinPal
Best Bowling
User reviews
PinPal
From 5.1K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Easy to use
- 📊 Comprehensive stats
- 💯 Reliable and consistent
- 🔍 Helpful for improving game
- 🤩 Awesome app
Room to improve
- 🐛 Stats not accurate
- 🔄 No cloud backup/sync
- 🤔 Outdated with no updates
- 📱 Not compatible with iPad
- 🔢 Can't add more than 3 games
Best Bowling
From 146 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Easy to use
- 📊 Useful for score management
- 📈 Good for analysis
- 🎯 Helps identify areas for improvement
- 👨👩👧👦 Tracks multiple bowlers
Room to improve
- 🐛 Score calculation errors
- 🐛 Syncing issues
- 🐛 App freezes/crashes
- 🐛 Data loss/corruption
- 🐛 Difficulty entering 10th frame scores
Bugs and requests
PinPal
Reported bugs
2 issues- Games not generating correctly
- Incorrect strike/spare tracking
Requested features
8 requests- Add Apple Watch support
- Ability to track lane information
- Option to record ball speed
- Handicap calculation and tracking
- Landscape mode support
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- Multi-user support
- Ability to print stats
- No-tap and 9-pin no-tap options
Best Bowling
Reported bugs
35 issues- Syncing issues (iPhone/iPad)
- Score calculation errors
- Ball management screen image disappearing/names changing
- Score input screen not adding points correctly
- App freezes on sync screen
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- Data disappears
- Scores not reflecting after bowling
- Database errors/inconsistencies
- App crashes frequently
- iCloud sync errors
- App freezes after loading
- Scores not adding up correctly in 10th frame
- Cannot enter 10th frame bonus shots
- App not recognizing spares on 10th frame bonus shot
- Cannot delete bowlers
- Cannot delete events/threads
- App not working after iOS updates
- Purchased version asking to pay again
- Cannot add new balls (plus button disabled)
- Database doesn't exist error
- App freezes on 'synching' screen
- Date display sort order not working
- Data not visible after iOS 15.4 update
- Multi-bowler events showing only one score
- Score calculation errors after many games
- Cannot input 3rd throw in 10th frame
- Current score calculation mode cannot be switched
- Screen turns black and requires reinstallation
- Cannot search for anything
- Cannot migrate free version data
- Cannot input games, pin graphics missing
- Database does not exist or is inconsistent
- Cannot enter 10th frame pins
- 10th frame pin display missing for strike on first ball
- Inaccurate pin fall probability calculation
Requested features
27 requests- Add pin numbers to score input screen
- Display fallen pins on 2nd throw
- Show in-game high score
- Automatic series count for more than 3 games
- Apple Watch score input
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- Landscape mode for iPad
- Add cover rate and split make rate to analysis
- Allow date range selection for statistics
- Guidance on migrating data from LT to paid version
- Option to turn off EMA feature
- Add no-tap scoring support
- Option to record hitting/missing marks and direction
- Dark mode
- Max possible score display
- Cumulative running average
- Graphing of cover rate
- Display number of games per ball
- Prevent phone from sleeping
- Regular X for strikes
- Add split entry for 10th frame
- Support for more than 12 games per event
- Option to fix label OFF for frame score display
- Add tournament tab
- Track average scores on certain lanes/houses
- Stats per ball
- No-tap strike scoring
- Max score in game display
In-app purchases
PinPal
No in-app purchases
Best Bowling
No in-app purchases
