Comparison

Spike™ LEGO® Education vs Explorer Glide

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

Head to head
About

Spike™ LEGO® Education

This app facilitates playful STEAM learning for students, designed to work with specific LEGO® Education kits. It helps develop computational thinking through coding, encourages building and experimentation, and supports programming for various projects and competitions.

Highlights
  • Icon-block, word-block, and text-based coding
  • Develop computational thinking
  • Build, tinker, and experiment with LEGO® creations
  • Program and debug designs
  • Create stories with LEGO® Minifigures
  • Prepare for FIRST® LEGO® League competitions
Read full description

Engage every student in playful STEAM learning with the LEGO® Education SPIKE™ App. Designed for use with the LEGO® Education SPIKE™ Portfolio, the SPIKE App is a powerful tool that helps teachers facilitate engaging, hands-on STEAM learning.      When combined with SPIKE Essential or SPIKE Prime, the SPIKE App allows students to:  - Develop computational thinking skills using a progression of icon-block, word-block, and text-based coding. - Build, tinker, and experiment - progressing from simple creations to complex structures. - Learn to program, test and tweak designs, debug and optimize, create stories with LEGO® Minifigures, prepare for FIRST® LEGO® League competitions, and more! *** IMPORTANT***  This is not a standalone educational app. This app is used to program LEGO® Education SPIKE™ Essential and LEGO® Education SPIKE™ Prime, which are sold separately. Please contact your local LEGO Education reseller for further information.    LEARN MORE: LEGOeducation.com/Teacher-resources For app support, contact LEGO® Education at https://support.legoeducation.com. LEGO, the LEGO logo and the SPIKE logo are trademarks and/or copyrights of the LEGO Group. FIRST® LEGO® League is a jointly held trademark of FIRST® and the LEGO Group. ©2026 The LEGO Group. All rights reserved.

About

Explorer Glide

Features
Read full description

Lean to the left and the bird turns left. Look down and it swoops low over the rooftops, then tip your head back and it climbs again. Explorer Glide lets children explore the real world from above, steering a bird with nothing but their head, over real satellite maps of anywhere on Earth. FLY ANYWHERE Start at Uluru, the Great Barrier Reef, the Grand Canyon, the Pyramids, Mount Fuji or the Amazon. Or type in your own street, your school, or a park you know. If it is on the map, you can fly over it. STEER WITH YOUR HEAD The front camera watches how you tilt. Lean to turn. Look down to swoop, and tip your head back to climb. There is nothing to hold and nothing to press. Arrow keys work as well, for anyone who would rather sit still. BRING BACK A MAP Turn on the path and your flight draws itself across the map while you fly. At the end you can save a picture of the whole journey, showing your route, where you started and how far you went. It prints well and looks good on a classroom wall. LEARNING ABOUT MAPS Distances are given in things a child can picture, like blue whales end to end or laps of a running track. Height is described rather than measured, from skimming the rooftops to up with the clouds. The compass reads in words instead of degrees. You can switch between satellite photos, photos with names on them, and a plain drawn map, which is a simple way to see how a map relates to the ground it describes. NOTHING TO WIN OR LOSE There is no score, no timer and no way to fail. Children fly for as long as they want and stop when they are ready. ON EVERY SCREEN Explorer Glide runs on iPhone, iPad and Mac. It works best on a bigger screen that can sit still on a desk, where there is more room to see where you are going.

Screenshots

Explorer Glide4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: Spike™ LEGO® Education at 14.0 against Explorer Glide's 17.0. On price, ads, in-app purchases 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

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
Spike™ LEGO® Education versus Explorer Glide: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSpike™ LEGO® EducationExplorer Glide
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (3.7K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews68.2% of reviews—
Number of ratings3.7K — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 months—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPad, MaciPhone, iPad, Mac — better
Requires iOS14.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size227 MB7 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLEGO EducationPaul Hamilton

Bugs and requests

Spike™ LEGO® Education

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Bluetooth connection issues
  • Unable to flash hub or connect
  • Incompatibility with programs written in previous version

Requested features

5 requests
  • Hub-to-hub control
  • RC features
  • Merge Inventor app into one
  • Add more color options for color sensor
  • Bring back Python coding support

Explorer Glide

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Spike™ LEGO® Education

No in-app purchases

None

Explorer Glide

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Spike™ LEGO® Education free?
Spike™ LEGO® Education is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Explorer Glide free?
Explorer Glide is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Spike™ LEGO® Education or Explorer Glide have ads?
Neither Spike™ LEGO® Education nor Explorer Glide shows ads.

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