Comparison

Fractal Travel vs Surface Explorer

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

Head to head
About

Fractal Travel

Explore intricate mathematical fractals in real-time with stunning Metal-powered visuals. Discover and save unique patterns, with options for advanced exploration and premium content through subscription.

Highlights
  • Real-time fractal exploration
  • Pinch, pan, and auto zoom
  • Save and share fractal explorations
  • Unlock premium patterns
  • Monthly pattern drops
  • Supports numerous fractal types
Features
Read full description

Fractal Travel is a journey deep into fractal detail. Pinch into the Mandelbrot set or turn on auto zoom, and the view keeps traveling deeper, revealing new spirals, seahorse tails, and tiny copies of the whole set as it goes. Every frame is computed in real time with Metal, never a stock picture. WHAT YOU CAN DO - Pinch, pan, and auto zoom at up to 2x speed through 25 fractal patterns. - Reshape Julia, Magnet, and Koch Snowflake with their parameter pads. - Color the view with Band, Smooth, Flow, Glow, Orbit Circle, Orbit Cross, Angle, Cosine Palette, and Math RGB render styles. - Color By paints Mandelbrot, Julia, and the other escape-time patterns by Escape, Stripe, Trap, or Distance, and each reveals a different structure in the same fractal. - Choose Soft for a gentle pastel glow or Vivid for full-strength color. The palette swatches in Color Studio match what you see on screen. - Pick up where you left off: your last exploration is restored when you come back, and recent explorations are a tap away. FREE - Mandelbrot and Julia, plus one free pattern that changes every day - 3 color presets - Zoom up to 2,000x - Image saves with a watermark, up to 1280 px on the long side PREMIUM - All 25 patterns, every color preset, every render style, and every Color By method - Custom colors - Zoom past 2,000x on 23 of 25 patterns, as far as each pattern's precision holds: up to a trillion times on Mandelbrot and Julia. The Zoom Limit panel shows each pattern's maximum. - Watermark-free 4K images, wallpapers sized for your device, and GIF and video export Premium is an auto-renewing monthly or yearly subscription. The price is shown in the app before you buy. Payment is charged to your Apple Account when you confirm the purchase. The subscription renews automatically unless it is canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period, and you can manage or cancel it at any time in your Apple Account settings. 25 PATTERNS Mandelbrot, Julia, Spider, Tricorn, Newton, Phoenix, Sierpinski Carpet, Koch Snowflake, Apollonian Gasket, Burning Ship, Perpendicular Burning Ship, Burning Ship Julia, Magnet, Multibrot, Multicorn, Celtic Mandelbrot, Lyapunov, Nova, Lambda, Sine, Exponential, Boxfold, Ikeda, Kaliset, and Bifurcation. Made for anyone who loves math, generative art, or simply beautiful things to look at. Terms of Use (Apple Standard EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://smooth-bagel-d82.notion.site/e09ea2b0651943b18e48695f133b245e?pvs=4

About

Surface Explorer

Features
Read full description

Surface Explorer is a high-performance visualizer for intricate mathematical surfaces — 2D manifolds embedded in three- or four-dimensional space, and 3D slices of four-dimensional hypersurfaces — bringing abstract geometry to life with real-time GPU rendering. KEY FEATURES • Cross Section — slice four-dimensional hypersurfaces and watch their 3D sections change shape as you rotate them in 4D or slide the cutting plane along the fourth axis, even along a 4D camera path. • Ray Marching Engine — real-time rendering of implicit surfaces and signed-distance fields, with procedural displacement, transparency, adjustable shells, and a precise mode for high-degree equations. • Multi-Mesh Surfaces — build figures from several independent grids, set with a single field or a script, each with its own color, transparency, texture, image and domain. • Solid Curve — write a curve in 3D or 4D and see the tube drawn around it, with adjustable thickness; several tubes from a script. • Surface Borders — add a tube along the edges of a parametric surface, with its own color, texture and thickness. • Geodesic Flow — explore intrinsic geometry on curved manifolds (S³, H²×R, SL(2,R) and more), integrating geodesics from initial conditions. • 4D Spatial Exploration — dedicated controls for hyperspatial rotation (Omega, Phi, Psi), projection, and 3D and 4D camera paths. • 4D Lighting Models — Directional, Observer, and Slice lighting designed for hyperspace. • Dynamic GLSL Scripting — write custom shaders for procedural textures and surface logic in the built-in editor. • Backgrounds — images and procedural effects, fixed on screen or wrapped around the scene as a sphere, cylinder or cube. • Audio-Visual Synthesis — synchronize geometric parameters with a mathematical sound synthesizer. • Video Recording — capture your explorations directly in the app and save them to your device. A library of ready-made presets ships with the app, from classic parametric surfaces to black-hole ergospheres, curved-space tori and slices of the 3-torus, together with a searchable built-in manual. Built with Qt and Metal for smooth, native performance on iPhone and iPad.

Screenshots

Fractal Travel4 screens
Surface Explorer4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Surface Explorer at none against Fractal Travel's 3. Fractal Travel's advantage is iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). On price, update cadence, ads 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. Fractal Travel sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Surface Explorer asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Fractal Travel ships an update every 3 weeks, Surface Explorer every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 20, 2026 and October 21, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Fractal Travel versus Surface Explorer: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterFractal TravelSurface Explorer
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.7 (3 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews0.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings3 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeksEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS15.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size46 MB62 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developerhyeonsu jeongGAETANO MOSCHETTI

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Fractal Travel

Subscriptions2
  • Fractal Travel Membership$2.991 Month
  • Fractal Travel Membership3 Days trial$19.991 Year
One-time1
  • Various Patterns$3.99
None

Surface Explorer

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Fractal Travel free?
Fractal Travel is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Surface Explorer free?
Surface Explorer is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Fractal Travel or Surface Explorer have ads?
Neither Fractal Travel nor Surface Explorer shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Fractal Travel or Surface Explorer?
Fractal Travel ships an update every 3 weeks, and Surface Explorer every 2 weeks. Most recently, Fractal Travel was updated on October 20, 2026 and Surface Explorer on October 21, 2026.

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