Comparison

Kalkyl vs Samba Pad

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

Head to head
About

Kalkyl

A powerful and intuitive calculator designed for speed and ease of use. Features include collaboration, haptic feedback, and advanced input methods like keyboard trackpad mode. Offers basic graphing and localized number formatting for a seamless user experience.

Highlights
  • Optimized for quick calculations
  • Collaborate on documents
  • Intuitive design with haptic feedback
  • Keyboard trackpad and pointer interactions
  • Basic graphing capabilities
  • Localized number formatting
  • Undo and Redo support
Read full description

Kalkyl is just a really good calculator. • Optimized for quick calculations. • Collaborate on documents. • Simple and intuitive design. • Haptic feedback (on supported devices). • Undo and Redo support (shake to Undo). • Keyboard trackpad mode using 3D Touch, or Haptic Touch (on supported devices), or two fingers on iPad. • Pointer interactions on iPad. • Basic graphing. • Properly localized number formatting. • App-wide dynamic type support. • Accessible. Terms of Use: https://kalkyl.io/terms.html

About

Samba Pad

This app provides a collection of 36 authentic Brazilian and Latin drum beats for music production and live performance. It features independent track control, tempo adjustment, and intro/ending options for creative mixing.

Highlights
  • 36 Brazilian and Latin beats
  • 8 independent instrument tracks
  • Independent pan and volume control
  • Intro and ending playback
  • Mute track function
  • Adjustable BPM slider
Features
Read full description

Welcome to the envolving Brazilian music scene! This app is a drum machine application as an easy way to play 36 of our favorite and exotic beats from Brazilloops website. It comes with several variations of Samba, Bossa Nova, Muzenza, Maracatu, Capoeira, Afro-Brazilian beats and some Latin as well, ready to mix with your music in your studio or live performance. It’s a high quality sample player* with 8 instrument tracks, each one with independent pan and volume. It plays the factory loops previously downloaded in the player. Features an “intro” and “ending” playing and mute track function. Also you can change the speed in the bpm slider. Try it with your own settings of volume and panning, mute some instruments and you will find a new world of possibilities to mix in your project! It’s a loop player (pre-recorded audio) and not a sequencer machine, so it enables original Brazilian rhythms style and human touch in the project. A very handy application to play exotic Brazilian beats in the iPad for live performance or even for studio recording! *At the first launch, the synchronization slider is adjusted to 1/4. Different iPads/phones devices may need to adjust the sync slider for perfect synchronization between tracks. Adjust when the player is stopped.

Screenshots

Kalkyl4 screens
Samba Pad1 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Kalkyl at Free against Samba Pad's $19.99. Kalkyl also leads on rating (4.5 vs 4.0) and ratings volume (717 vs 1). Samba Pad's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). On update cadence, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Kalkyl is free to download; Samba Pad costs $19.99 up front. Kalkyl sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $4.99 per year. Samba Pad asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Kalkyl holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Kalkyl has 717 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Kalkyl ships an update every 5 weeks, Samba Pad every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 2, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Kalkyl versus Samba Pad: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterKalkylSamba Pad
PriceFree — better$19.99
Rating4.5 (717 ratings) — better4.0 (1 ratings)
Positive reviews74.7% of reviews—
Number of ratings717 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 5 weeks — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemium — betterPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Vision Pro — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.615.6
Further details — not scored
Size4 MB63 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developernordic ioEduardo Sallada

Customer experience

Kalkyl

All ratings714 ratings
Positive86.8%
Neutral4.2%
Negative9.0%
Written reviews75 reviews
Positive74.7%
Neutral9.3%
Negative16.0%

Samba Pad

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Kalkyl

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Crashes on launch for some users
  • Graphing issues with certain equations
  • Incorrect results for some calculations

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add a clear/reset button
  • Implement calculation history and memory functions
  • Improve graphing controls and zooming
  • Add support for more mathematical functions (e.g. factorials, fractions)
  • Provide an option for independent dark mode

Samba Pad

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Kalkyl

Subscriptions1
  • Kalkyl Pro3 Days trial$4.991 Year
None

Samba Pad

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Kalkyl free?
Kalkyl is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Samba Pad free?
Samba Pad costs $19.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Kalkyl or Samba Pad?
Kalkyl is rated higher. Kalkyl averages 4.5 out of 5 from 717 ratings, while Samba Pad averages 4.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Kalkyl or Samba Pad have ads?
Neither Kalkyl nor Samba Pad shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Kalkyl or Samba Pad?
Kalkyl ships an update every 5 weeks, and Samba Pad every 2 months. Most recently, Kalkyl was updated on November 1, 2026 and Samba Pad on November 2, 2026.

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