Lightbot vs The Witness
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Lightbot
This game teaches programming logic through engaging puzzles. Players guide a robot using commands to solve levels, fostering an understanding of procedures, loops, and conditionals. It's an excellent introduction to coding for kids and puzzle enthusiasts.
- Programming logic puzzles
- Robot guidance with commands
- Teaches procedures, loops, conditionals
- 50 levels and 20 challenge stars
- Multiplayer progress tracking
- Multiple language support
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Featured by Apple in over 100 countries *Best New Apps and Games* *Best for Learning to Code* *Best in Hot Educational Games* Get kids hooked on coding within minutes! Lightbot is a programming puzzle game- a game whose game mechanics require using programming logic to solve levels. Simply guiding a robot to light up tiles and solve levels using commands, Lightbot cultivates a real understanding of procedures, loops, and conditionals. Educators around the world are choosing to use Lightbot first when introducing their students to programming, coding and Computer Science. Lightbot features 50 levels and 20 challenge stars to collect and is a must-have for puzzle enthusiasts. This version of Lightbot can be played in English, French, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Norwegian, Slovenian, Romanian, Indonesian, German, Polish, Danish, Croatian, Dutch, Slovak, Czech, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Thai, Hindi, Swedish, Finnish and Hungarian! Just hit the associated flag icon on the main screen to select a language. Lightbot features multiple save slots and separate progress tracking for multiple players. Multiple players can advance at their own pace in their own save slot, and also compete on number of levels finished, number of stars collected and number of overall commands used to complete the game. There are NO in-app purchases in Lightbot.
The Witness
Explore a mysterious island filled with over 500 unique puzzles. Uncover clues to regain your memory and find your way home in this open-world adventure. The game respects your intelligence with no filler content.
- Open-world exploration
- Over 500 unique puzzles
- Memory recovery narrative
- Intelligent puzzle design
- Single-player experience
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You wake up, alone, on a strange island full of puzzles that will challenge and surprise you. You don't remember who you are, and you don't remember how you got here, but there's one thing you can do: explore the island in hope of discovering clues, regaining your memory, and somehow finding your way home. The Witness is a single-player game in an open world with dozens of locations to explore and over 500 puzzles. This game respects you as an intelligent player and it treats your time as precious. There's no filler; each of those puzzles brings its own new idea into the mix. So, this is a game full of ideas.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Lightbot at 4.5 against The Witness's 4.0. Lightbot also leads on price ($2.99 vs $9.99) and review sentiment (85% vs 58%). The Witness's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 2 months) and ratings volume (581 vs 38). On 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
Lightbot costs $2.99 and The Witness $9.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Lightbot holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: The Witness has 581 ratings behind it against 38, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 85% of Lightbot's written reviews are positive against 58% of The Witness's.
Lightbot ships an update every 2 months, The Witness every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 25, 2026 and September 26, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Lightbot | The Witness |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.99 — better | $9.99 |
| Rating | 4.5 (38 ratings) — better | 4.0 (581 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 84.7% of reviews — better | 58.3% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 38 | 581 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Best chart rank | — | #72 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 5.1.1 — better | 13.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 53 MB | 2.2 GB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | SpriteBox LLC | Thekla, inc. |
Customer experience
Lightbot
The Witness
User reviews
Lightbot
From 38 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Great for learning programming
- 💡 Fun and engaging gameplay
- 🧠 Thought-provoking puzzles
- 👨👩👧👦 Good for kids and adults
- ✨ Well-designed and polished
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent crashes and bugs
- ⏳ Game is too short
- ❌ Difficulty spikes
- 🎧 Cannot listen to music while playing
- 🐞 Some levels have bugs
The Witness
From 581 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🌟 Stunning graphics and visuals
- 🧠 Challenging and thought-provoking puzzles
- 🌳 Immersive open-world exploration
- 🕰️ Excellent value for the price
- 🌐 Seamless cross-device sync
Room to improve
- 🤢 Causes motion sickness for some users
- 🔋 High battery consumption
- 🤖 Repetitive puzzle mechanics
- 🤯 Extremely difficult puzzles with unclear solutions
- 🧭 Confusing navigation and lack of guidance
Bugs and requests
Lightbot
Reported bugs
7 issues- App crashes on open/startup
- App crashes during gameplay/levels
- Conditional level 2 bug
- Play button covers code in Conditional level
- Not loading due to iOS version
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- English levels not working on iPod 4th gen
- Crashing on 4th gen iPod/iPad
Requested features
8 requests- More levels
- Puzzle editor/user-created levels
- Hint system
- Ability to listen to music while playing
- Unlockable content/robot customization
Show 3 moreShow fewer
- More reward for completing challenges
- More levels to reinforce concepts
- Solutions page
The Witness
Reported bugs
3 issues- Frequent crashes and save file loss
- Unresponsive puzzles and controls
- Automatic brightness adjustment issues
Requested features
4 requests- Add virtual joystick or controller support
- Provide more in-game hints and tutorials
- Optimize performance and battery life
- Improve accessibility for colorblind and hearing-impaired players
In-app purchases
Lightbot
No in-app purchases
The Witness
No in-app purchases
