# Codea vs GIF Distillery

The clearest difference is price: Codea at Free against GIF Distillery's $4.99. GIF Distillery's advantage is review sentiment (100% vs 88%). On update cadence, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

Codea is free to download; GIF Distillery costs $4.99 up front. Codea sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and GIF Distillery sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on November 8, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

## The numbers

| Metric | Codea | GIF Distillery |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Price | **Free** | $4.99 |
| Rating | **[4.5 (127 ratings)](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/codea/id439571171/reviews)** | — |
| Number of ratings | **127** | — |
| Positive reviews | 88.2% of reviews | **100.0% of reviews** |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Ads | No | No |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | Fortnightly |
| Monetization | **Freemium** | Paid |
| Size | 235 MB | 7 MB |
| Requires iOS | 18.5 | **18.0** |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | **iPhone, iPad, Mac** |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | [Two Lives Left](https://appshunter.io/developer/335953314) | [Hiroyuki Miura](https://appshunter.io/developer/985918150) |

## What reviewers say

### Codea

[App page](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/codea/id439571171)

Create interactive games, simulations, and visual projects using a touch-friendly code editor. Turn your ideas into reality with Lua scripting, advanced rendering, and physics engines. Export your creations to produce real applications.

**Highlights:** 2D and 3D renderer, Visual code editor with touch controls, Lua programming language, Physics engines, Export to Xcode, Live shader editor, Bluetooth keyboard support

**Features:** macOS Compatibility, Family Sharing, Vision Pro support, iPhone Duo support

**In-app purchases (3)**

| Purchase | Price | Billing |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Codea Pro (Monthly) | $4.99 | per month |
| Codea Pro (Yearly) | $29.99 | per year |
| Codea Pro Lifetime | $99.99 | one-time |

**What reviewers like**

- 🚀 Great for making games
- 👍 Lets me code when I feel the itch
- 💡 Powerful, Playful Development Environment
- 👍 Fantastic prototyping tool
- 👍 One of the best programming apps on iPad

**What reviewers complain about**

- 🐛 Assets don't work
- 🐛 Need Pencil scrolling slider. TOO MUCH ACCIDENTAL WRITING
- 🐛 Crashes frequently
- 🐛 Bugs with keyboard and cursor issues

**Reported bugs**

- App crashes when switching between documents
- Xcode export not working with latest version of Xcode
- Keyboard and cursor issues when using Bluetooth keyboard

**Requested features**

- Add ability to import sounds and 3D models
- Improve documentation and provide more tutorials
- Add support for more programming languages beyond Lua


### GIF Distillery

[App page](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/gif-distillery/id6768243296)

Easily create animated GIFs from your videos. Select a video, choose a range, and customize settings like frame rate and playback speed. Processing is done entirely on your device for privacy.

**Highlights:** Create GIFs from local videos, Select custom video range, Adjust frame rate, width, and color count, Control loop behavior and playback speed, On-device processing for privacy, Share, save, or copy exported GIFs

**Features:** Vision Pro support

**In-app purchases (2)**

| Purchase | Price | Billing |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Live Photos拡張パック | $2.99 | one-time |
| 透かしロゴを削除 | $4.99 | one-time |


## Frequently asked questions

### Is Codea free?

Codea is free to download, with in-app purchases available.

### Is GIF Distillery free?

GIF Distillery costs $4.99, and also offers in-app purchases.

### Do Codea or GIF Distillery have ads?

Neither Codea nor GIF Distillery shows ads.

### Which is updated more often, Codea or GIF Distillery?

Codea ships an update fortnightly, and GIF Distillery fortnightly. Most recently, Codea was updated on November 8, 2026 and GIF Distillery on October 31, 2026.

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*Compared by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/) from daily US App Store data. Review summaries are generated from verbatim App Store reviews.*