Makanim Light vs variant
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Makanim Light
Create stunning, interactive animations with multi-touch gestures. Explore endless visual effects, shapes, and patterns for relaxation or live performance. Save your creations as wallpapers.
- Multi-touch graphic generator
- Real-time preset editing
- Up to 3-finger gestures
- Multiple animation modes and shapes
- Adjustable speed, size, and chaos
- Save creations as screenshots/wallpapers
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AppAdvice.com review: "This generative art app will provide you with pure visual stimulation." AppSplit.com review: "With its level of customization, it's definitely still worthy to try it." Want to relax or have fun? Enjoy an amazing graphic experience with Makanim. Create stunning animations by playing with multi-touch. Snap your creations and use them as wallpapers. Play with Makanim at home for fun, at a party, or on stage for VJing: improvise during live performances and create new animations on the fly. Makanim offers endless combinations of visual effects by changing nine simple parameters. You can spend hours discovering the different ways to animate shapes. Makanim is a powerful app that can both entertain and relax. FEATURES - Multi-touch particle generator - Up to 10 fingers at once, depending on your device - 10 animation modes - 48 beautiful and original shapes - 22 color palettes - 112 editable presets, saved as you play - Thousands of possible combinations - Edit presets in real time - Switch between modes, shapes and colors - Control speed, size and chaos - Background color and particle opacity controls - Random button for surprise combinations - Interactive sounds - Animation auto-play - Screenshot button to save images to your photo library - Expert mode: hide or show the menu bar - Fingers limit, to avoid clashing with your device's multi-touch gestures LINKS Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flR6mz788h0 Visit http://appakabar.com for more information. Makanim Light is the free version of Makanim: it includes 12 of the 112 presets, 4 of the 10 modes and 7 of the 48 shapes, with up to 3 fingers at once. Unlock everything with a single in-app purchase. No subscription.
variant
Experience a unique, ever-evolving audiovisual artwork that generates new music and imagery with every touch. Designed for all ages, this generative art piece offers a dynamic and unpredictable sensory experience.
- Generative music and imagery
- Interactive touch controls
- Multi-touch support (up to 10 fingers)
- Visualizes audio engine
- Screenshot functionality
- Ever-changing, non-repeating experience
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variant:breaker is an audiovisual artwork that creates beautiful, ever-changing music and imagery. The app combines user input and built-in randomness to create images and music that will continually change, grow and evolve, offering a new and different experience every time. For users of all ages, variant:breaker is a chance to explore and experience a unique work of generative art. variant:breaker was created for an installation in New York City’s Times Square, and combines immediately responsive interactivity with aggressive visuals and sound designed to stand up to one of the most intense audiovisual environments in the world. To interact with variant:breaker, simply touch the screen. Each touch will play a new, randomly selected sound and alter the visuals. You can use up to 10 fingers at once to control the sounds and visuals. You can view the indeterminate audio engine by tapping the dot in the lower right. The display shows the different elements of the musical composition as they are loaded by the engine through a combination of chance and user input. The center button opens a menu of settings for the app, and the button to the right allows you to take screenshots of the visuals, automatically saving them to your photo library. The Variant apps are a new series of generative audiovisual artworks from Interval Studios featuring visuals by Joshue Ott and music by Kenneth Kirschner. Each Variant features a unique visual composition by Ott based on his superDraw visual performance software, as well as a new indeterminate musical composition by Kirschner. Each Variant app also offers a different set of interactive controls for the user, ranging from the ability to subtly influence the development of the piece to total interactive control over both visuals and sound. All of the Variants are generative artworks: through a varying combination of built-in randomness and user input, each Variant will continually grow and evolve over time without ever directly repeating itself either visually or musically, offering the user an ever-changing, ever-evolving audiovisual experience.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: variant at 4.8 against Makanim Light's 3.8. variant also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 1) and update cadence (weekly vs every 13 months). On price, review sentiment, ratings volume 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. Makanim Light sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. variant asks for nothing beyond the download.
variant holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 3.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 5 and 6 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 60% of Makanim Light's written reviews are positive against 67% of variant's.
Makanim Light ships an update every 13 months, variant weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Makanim Light | variant |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.8 (5 ratings) | 4.8 (6 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 60.0% of reviews | 66.7% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 5 | 6 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 13 months | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 8.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 11 MB | 80 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Appakabar | Interval Studios |
Customer experience
Makanim Light
variant
In-app purchases
Makanim Light
- Unlock everything$4.99
variant
No in-app purchases








