Chaos Lab vs Crystal Flight
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Chaos Lab
Explore the beauty of chaos through interactive simulations of mathematical objects, chemical reactions, and celestial mechanics. Manipulate parameters with device tilt and touch to create stunning visual art and understand complex scientific principles.
- Interactive strange attractors
- Chemical oscillator simulations
- 3-body chaos simulation
- Julian fractal morphing
- Real-time parameter control
- Multiple attractors included
Read full descriptionHide full description
Chaos Lab puts the beauty of chaos in your hands. With a tilt of your device, you control the parameters of beautiful mathematical objects called strange attractors, the reaction rates of a chemical oscillator, the position of two stars in a 3-body chaos simulation, and the shape of the Julian fractal. Now you can be an experimentalist and an artist. Using real-time integration of over 6,000 points for the attractors whose parameters are tied to your motion, over 7,000 data points for a fractal which morphs at your command, ten "asteroids" demonstrating chaotic sensitivity to initial conditions in a jittering twin-star system where the stars move with your tilt (can you keep them from escaping?), and a real-time BZ-reaction simulation which you control by both tilt and touch, this is chaos as you've never seen it before. Chaos Lab comes loaded with four of the most stunning attractors in chaos theory. The Rössler and Lorenz attractors are well known, but the Thomas and Newton-Leipnik attractors are relatively new and quite amazing! This work has been supported in part by grant PHY-0754081 from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Nonlinear Dynamics Research Group at Drexel University (directed by Dr. Robert Gilmore), and the Department of Physics at Drexel University. Please note, some of these experiments will run slower on the older models of iPhones and iPod touch devices. Find the beauty in the chaos!
Crystal Flight
Experience free flight within diverse crystal environments. Navigate your journey by simply tilting your iPhone or iPad to control direction.
- Free flight simulation
- Crystal environments
- Tilt-to-navigate controls
- iPhone and iPad support
Read full descriptionHide full description
Fly freely in a variety of crystals. To navigate, simply tilt your iPhone or iPad in the direction you want to go.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Chaos Lab at every 3 days against Crystal Flight's every 5 months. Chaos Lab also leads on ratings volume (8 vs 1). On price, rating, 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Chaos Lab against 5.0 for Crystal Flight. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Chaos Lab has 8 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Chaos Lab ships an update every 3 days, Crystal Flight every 5 months. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Chaos Lab | Crystal Flight |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (8 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 68.8% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 8 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 days — better | Every 5 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 7 MB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Timothy D. Jones | Jeff Weeks |
Customer experience
Chaos Lab
Crystal Flight
In-app purchases
Chaos Lab
No in-app purchases
Crystal Flight
No in-app purchases









