Comparison

Puppet Pals 2 vs ScratchJr

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

Head to head
About

Puppet Pals 2

Unleash creativity by creating animated cartoons with interactive puppets. Even young children can produce high-quality animated stories, starring alongside built-in characters. This app is ideal for educational purposes, allowing students to act out historical events, practice language skills, or deliver presentations.

Highlights
  • Create animated cartoons
  • Interactive puppet show
  • Star alongside built-in characters
  • Share finished projects
  • Educational content creation
  • Storytelling and reports
Features
Read full description

• “Puppet Pals is an amazing app that lets you create animated cartoons.” -David Pogue (NewYork Times) Children unlock creativity with this easy to use (but hard to put down) interactive puppet show! Even young children can create high quality cartoons from their imaginations. Kids can even star in the show along side the built-in characters! Teachers: Engage students by allowing them to act out historical events, practice language skills, or deliver a killer book report. The cartoons that kids are making have delighted thousands of teachers and parents around the world - let yours be next to experience this award-winning digital addition to your classroom. The finished projects are easily shared to be watched by others (share via email, Facebook, or simply copy the video file to your computer and distribute how you see fit - Hint: students love to see their work displayed on a classroom blog). • Create short instructional videos (in any learning area) • Storytelling, Reports, Historic Retells • Help reluctant public speakers present to the class • Help foreign language or ESL students practice their fluency & language skills • Brainstorming or storyboarding ideas and presentations Characters chosen from standard curriculum allow kids to fully engage with content - not even realizing they are actually learning valuable lessons that will stay with them for years to come!

About

ScratchJr

This app allows young children to create their own interactive stories and games by snapping together graphical programming blocks. It fosters problem-solving, creative expression, and develops early numeracy and literacy skills in a fun, motivating context.

Highlights
  • Program interactive stories
  • Create games
  • Snap-together programming blocks
  • Develop problem-solving skills
  • Foster creative expression
  • Learn coding fundamentals
Features
Read full description

With ScratchJr, young children (ages 5-7) learn important new skills as they program their own interactive stories and games. By snapping together graphical programming blocks, children can make characters move, jump, dance, and sing. In the process, children learn to solve problems, design projects, and express themselves creatively on the computer. They also use math and language in a meaningful and motivating context, supporting the development of early-childhood numeracy and literacy. With ScratchJr, children don’t just learn to code, they code to learn. ScratchJr was inspired by the popular Scratch programming language (http://scratch.mit.edu), used by millions of people (ages 8 and up) around the world. The ScratchJr interface and programming language were redesigned to make them appropriate for younger children’s cognitive, personal, social, and emotional development. ScratchJr is a collaboration between the Lifelong Kindergarten research group at the MIT Media Lab, the Developmental Technologies research group at Tufts University, and the Playful Invention Company. The ScratchJr project has received generous financial support from the National Science Foundation (NSF DRL-1118664), Scratch Foundation, LEGO Foundation, and British Telecommunications. If you enjoy using this free app, please consider making a donation to the Scratch Foundation (www.scratchfoundation.org), a nonprofit organization that provides ongoing support for ScratchJr. We appreciate donations of all sizes, large and small.

Screenshots

Puppet Pals 24 screens
ScratchJr1 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: ScratchJr at Free against Puppet Pals 2's $6.99. ScratchJr also leads on ratings volume (1.9K vs 6) and review sentiment (67% vs 58%). Puppet Pals 2's advantage is rating (4.3 vs 3.9) and update cadence (monthly vs every 6 months). On ads, in-app purchases, monetization model and device support 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

ScratchJr is free to download; Puppet Pals 2 costs $6.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Puppet Pals 2 holds the better App Store score, 4.3 against 3.9. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: ScratchJr has 1.9K ratings behind it against 6, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 58% of Puppet Pals 2's written reviews are positive against 67% of ScratchJr's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Puppet Pals 2 ships an update monthly, ScratchJr every 6 months. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Puppet Pals 2 versus ScratchJr: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPuppet Pals 2ScratchJr
Price$6.99Free — better
Rating4.3 (6 ratings) — better3.9 (1.9K ratings)
Positive reviews57.9% of reviews66.9% of reviews — better
Number of ratings61.9K — better
Update frequencyMonthly — betterEvery 6 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS12.011.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size339 MB51 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperPolished Play, LLCScratch Foundation, Inc.

Customer experience

Puppet Pals 2

All ratings6 ratings
Positive83.3%
Neutral16.7%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews38 reviews
Positive57.9%
Neutral23.7%
Negative18.4%

ScratchJr

All ratings1,812 ratings
Positive72.5%
Neutral7.1%
Negative20.4%
Written reviews598 reviews
Positive66.9%
Neutral10.9%
Negative22.2%

Bugs and requests

Puppet Pals 2

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

ScratchJr

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Freezing and crashing issues
  • Incorrect character movements and positioning
  • Saving and loading problems
  • Microphone and recording bugs

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add more frames/scenes per project
  • Improve drawing/editing tools
  • Expand color and customization options
  • Enhance audio features and sound library
  • Integrate with the full Scratch platform

In-app purchases

None

Puppet Pals 2

No in-app purchases

None

ScratchJr

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Puppet Pals 2 free?
Puppet Pals 2 costs $6.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is ScratchJr free?
ScratchJr is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Puppet Pals 2 or ScratchJr?
Puppet Pals 2 is rated higher. Puppet Pals 2 averages 4.3 out of 5 from 6 ratings, while ScratchJr averages 3.9 from 1.9K ratings.
Do Puppet Pals 2 or ScratchJr have ads?
Neither Puppet Pals 2 nor ScratchJr shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Puppet Pals 2 or ScratchJr?
Puppet Pals 2 ships an update monthly, and ScratchJr every 6 months. Most recently, Puppet Pals 2 was updated on November 1, 2026 and ScratchJr on November 6, 2026.

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