Ethos Idle vs Santa's Workshop
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Ethos Idle
Guide humanity's progress from its earliest discoveries to the distant future. Manage your tribe's choices, develop over 200 unique ideas, and explore the world. Advance your civilization, unlock bonuses, and enjoy a single-player, offline experience with optional ads.
- Develop over 200 historic ideas
- Explore and exploit the world
- Manage tribe choices
- Unlock exploration bonuses and synergies
- Prestige mechanic upgrades
- Customizable challenge scenarios
- Offline single-player experience
Read full descriptionHide full description
Chart the progess of Humanity through the ages, and guide their every discovery from the moment they kindle the first fire to the far future. Develop over 200 unique ideas across three different flavours of thought. Help your people to conquer or make peace with their enemies, explore and exploit the world, and develop projects to meet their needs. Manage your tribe's choices to squeeze out more strength, or sit back and idle as your clan develop on their own. Advance as far as you can take your people, and then collect bonuses to improve future runs. Select varied challenges that change the way the game plays, and combine these challenges to create your own unique scenarios with big rewards. Features: - Over 200 historic ideas to develop, across 3 flavours of thought - Dozens of exploration bonuses and synergies to unlock and exploit - Permanently power up your civilisation with prestige mechanic upgrades - Combine varied challenge conditions to create your own scenarios with powerful rewards - Optional, out-of-the-way ads won't interrupt your experience - A completely offline, single player experience - All game content is accessible for free
Santa's Workshop
Help the elves craft toys and find Santa before it's too late in this holiday-themed idle game. Manage your workshop, care for reindeer, and complete missions to spread joy.
- Tap to build 25 unique toys
- Offline toy crafting
- Complete missions
- Care for reindeer
- Search for Santa
- Collect achievements
- Accessibility mode
Read full descriptionHide full description
The elves need your help! Santa is missing and they need your help to craft toys and find him before it's too late. This game features no ads, and no data mining! - Tap to build 25 unique toys. - Open factories to craft toys offline. - Chat with the head elf and complete missions. - Wrap presents and collect holiday spirit. - Feed and care for your Reindeer. - Use the locator to search for Santa! - Collect achievements along the way. Offers guides on each screen to help you navigate the game, and notifications so you know when it's time to return and collect your coins! Santa's Workshop was designed with accessibility in mind, and features an accessibility mode that provides greater support for Voice Over. Santa's Workshop takes inspiration from classic idle games and offers a unique holiday themed adventure. Fun for all ages, talk to the holiday elves and manage the workshop to build enough toys. Feed and take care of your reindeer and even decorate the stables. Use the locator to help search for Santa, and fly on your reindeer to search for him. Santa's Workshop was designed to help you get in the holiday spirit and spread a little joy!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Santa's Workshop at none against Ethos Idle's 1. Santa's Workshop also leads on ads (none vs shown). Ethos Idle's advantage is review sentiment (84% vs 60%) and ratings volume (242 vs 42). On price, rating, update cadence 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
Both are free to download. Ethos Idle sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Santa's Workshop asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for Ethos Idle against 4.7 for Santa's Workshop. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Ethos Idle has 242 ratings behind it against 42, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 84% of Ethos Idle's written reviews are positive against 60% of Santa's Workshop's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 3 weeks. Both last shipped on November 4, 2026.
| Parameter | Ethos Idle | Santa's Workshop |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (242 ratings) — better | 4.7 (42 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 84.4% of reviews — better | 60.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 242 — better | 42 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Every 3 weeks |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 15.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 101 MB | 147 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Graham Goldstein | aleros.io LLC |
Customer experience
Ethos Idle
Santa's Workshop
Bugs and requests
Ethos Idle
Reported bugs
2 issues- RNG for challenges is unfair and unfun
- Unlocking buffs for inaccessible technologies
Requested features
2 requests- Option to remove ads entirely
- Clarification on prestige warp gain multipliers
Santa's Workshop
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Ethos Idle
- x2 Speed$6.99
Santa's Workshop
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Ethos Idle free?
Is Santa's Workshop free?
Which has better reviews, Ethos Idle or Santa's Workshop?
Do Ethos Idle or Santa's Workshop have ads?
Which is updated more often, Ethos Idle or Santa's Workshop?
Other comparisons
