Comparison

SnapDrafter vs Life

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

Head to head
About

SnapDrafter

Digitally save, organize, and share your Magic: The Gathering draft decks with ease. Instantly import cards by snapping a photo, track your performance, and access card rulings. Enjoy an ad-free experience for all your drafting needs.

Highlights
  • Instant photo deck capture with OCR
  • Organized digital deck library
  • Track deck performance and stats
  • Export decklists as text
  • Quick card ruling lookups
  • Basic land calculator
Read full description

SnapDrafter turns your paper Magic: The Gathering decks into clean, organized digital decklists in seconds. • Snap a photo, get a digital decklist. Point your camera at your decklist and SnapDrafter's on-device OCR reads every card name, fuzzy-matching it against the full Magic card database. Review matches with confidence scores, tap to correct with autocomplete, and save. All processing happens locally on your device without an account. • A toolkit built for draft and cube players. Visualize your deck with mana curve and color distribution charts. Tap any card for its oracle text and official Gatherer rulings. Use the smart basic land calculator, weighted by mana cost, ramp, and fixing. Keep every token your cards create at your fingertips. • Your drafts, archived. SnapDrafter remembers every deck with its date, set or cube, and win-loss record. Filter, sort, revisit your history, and back everything up in one tap. • Share and export. Send your play group a beautiful decklist image with card art and your record, ready for social media. Or copy your deck as a standard text list to import into Cubecobra, Moxfield, Archidekt, and any other tool you love. No ads. No tracking. No cloud. SnapDrafter is local-only and free, supported by donations from players like you. If it makes your draft nights better, consider donating to show your support.

About

Life

A streamlined life tracker for competitive 1v1 Magic: The Gathering matches. It offers simple controls, game state tracking for common counters, and integrated note-taking for post-game analysis. Supports deck importing and Scryfall integration for quick card lookups.

Highlights
  • 1v1 life tracking
  • Game state counter tracking
  • Integrated note-taking
  • Deck importing and linking
  • Scryfall card lookup
  • Event history logging
  • Match timer
Features
Read full description

A life tracker for competitive 1v1 Magic: The Gathering. Clean layout, simple controls, and nothing unnecessary. Most players already know how to track a game. A notepad, two columns, a running tally of life totals. It's simple and it works. Life-Pad follows the same structure. The layout uses two columns like a notepad, adjustments happen with a tap, and the interface requires little explanation. This app has been designed to get out of your way so you can focus on the match. Life tracking here works the way you'd expect: every life change recorded in order. Adjustments can be staged before committing, so a complex combat step doesn't require rushed math. Common game counters (poison, monarch, initiative, night/day, and floating mana) are accessible without needing extra dice or separate tracking. For tournaments that require it: notes can be locked to the main screen so they're visible to players at all times. Recording known card information has been designed from the ground-up to be as quick and simple as possible in game - one tap to enter a card and one tap to dismiss it with customizable 'quick card' buttons available as well. Most other apps just can't provide the utility of pen and paper. Whether it's a Commander-focused app with four-player interfaces and a multitude of sub-menus, or a minimal counter with just plus and minus buttons, most life trackers don't offer match structure, notes, or history. Once the game ends, the information is gone. When at a tournament or FNM simply set up the event by giving it a name and every match and game are automatically tracked while they're happening. After the match, Life-Pad supports notetaking while details are still fresh and reviewing past matches across all saved events. It's a practical way to identify patterns or just to simply remember to add more lands. Import decks and link them to events as a snapshot so that you can always reference what was played on that day. Add your decks and track their history by attaching them to events. Scryfall integration provides quick card lookup in deck view or during a game - perfect for confirming modern printings and for the guy who always plays with foreign language cards. Pin up to 5 cards to the side of your play screen for quick reference during a game. All cards in deck or previously searched are stored on device for fast reference even when cell quality isn't perfect. -- Features include: - Clean two-player life tracking built for 1v1 play - Optional top/bottom simplistic tracking for quick games - Full game life total history - Quick access card-name notes for revealed info at a glance - dismiss with a single tap - Game state tracking for player-counters, monarch, initiative, and day/night - Track floating mana in-game - Scryfall integration for fast card lookup - iOS integration allows for Siri and Quick Action card lookup without opening the app - Calculator for determining the correct amount of each basic land for your Limited deck - Optional ability to lock notes to main screen if required per tournament rules - Event logging and persistent in-game and post-game notes - Deck importing, editing, and linking to events as snapshots. - Sideboard guide per deck with notes - Deck exporting as images or as a formatted PDF for tournament submittal - Event history exporting via JSON for backup, restoring, or additional analysis - Top/Bottom traditional 2-player mode for quick games - Match timer with Dynamic Island and Live Activity support - Pre-Set themes including 6 with the classic Magic: the Gathering card borders - iCloud data backup for added reliability on updates & phone migration

Screenshots

SnapDrafter4 screens
Life4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is monetization model: SnapDrafter at free against Life's paid. On price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence 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.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for SnapDrafter against 5.0 for Life. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 4 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

SnapDrafter ships an update fortnightly, Life weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 17, 2026 and October 16, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
SnapDrafter versus Life: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSnapDrafterLife
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (2 ratings)5.0 (4 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings24 — better
Update frequencyFortnightlyWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree — betterPaid
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS18.0 — better18.6
Further details — not scored
Size96 MB44 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperDorian BrownJoseph Bertolini

Customer experience

SnapDrafter

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Life

All ratings4 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

SnapDrafter

No in-app purchases

None

Life

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is SnapDrafter free?
SnapDrafter is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Life free?
Life is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, SnapDrafter or Life?
SnapDrafter and Life are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 2 and 4 ratings respectively.
Do SnapDrafter or Life have ads?
Neither SnapDrafter nor Life shows ads.
Which is updated more often, SnapDrafter or Life?
SnapDrafter ships an update fortnightly, and Life weekly. Most recently, SnapDrafter was updated on October 17, 2026 and Life on October 16, 2026.

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