VirtuPet vs Pathlings
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
VirtuPet
This app transforms your daily steps into a virtual pet game. Walk to keep your digital companion healthy, hatch eggs found on a map, and collect over 100 unique animals. Compete with friends and complete quests to earn rewards.
- Step tracking integration
- Virtual pet care
- Egg hatching and collection
- Map-based egg discovery
- Friend leaderboards and challenges
- Daily quests and rewards
- Home screen widget
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Your steps keep a little pet alive. Walk, and they thrive. VirtuPet turns every walk into a game. Apple Health counts your steps in the background, your pet's health follows your daily goal, and the eggs you find on the map hatch as you walk. WALK. THEY THRIVE. Hit your goal and your pet is happy, healthy and full of energy. Skip a day and they feel it. It's the nudge to move that actually works, because someone is counting on you. FIND EGGS ON THE MAP. Open the Map and eggs land near you, at real parks, cafés and landmarks. Walk to one, pick it up and pop it in your incubator. Your steps do the rest. HATCH AND COLLECT 101 ANIMALS. Fill your Virtudex with dogs, cats, wildlife and mythic creatures from nine regions. Hatch one you already own and it ranks up to bronze, silver and gold. Bring your favourites on walks as your Walking Crew: they follow you on the map and leave paw prints behind. KEEP YOUR STREAK. Every day you hit your goal grows your streak, and the calendar shows each goal day with the steps you walked. Hit your goal without opening the app? It still counts. WALK WITH FRIENDS. Add friends with a code and climb this week's leaderboard. Start a Duo Challenge: pick a friend and a weekly step goal, walk it together, and you both spin for Scout Packs, coins and XP. QUESTS, XP AND PAW COINS. New daily quests every morning. Earn XP to level your pet up, and Paw Coins to spend in the Paw Shop on looks, scenes and themes. Play minigames with your pet between walks. ON YOUR HOME SCREEN. Add the widget and your pet is there every time you pick up your phone. VIRTUPET PREMIUM VirtuPet is free to download and free to play: walk, hatch and collect, forever. Premium adds a second incubator and a bigger egg bag, all three daily quests, biome eggs on the map and a Grand egg every Sunday, better hatch odds, two pets in your Walking Crew, full Insights and a free streak repair every month. Terms of Use: https://virtupet.app/terms Privacy Policy: https://virtupet.app/privacy Your steps have never meant more. Go find an egg.
Pathlings
This app transforms your daily steps into a gentle adventure with a virtual companion. Nurture your unique buddy, unlock new stages of growth, and complete daily quests to build a consistent routine. Goals are customizable to fit your lifestyle, making fitness fun and private.
- Virtual companion with unique personalities
- Daily step-based adventures and quests
- Unlockable growth stages and rewards
- Customizable step goals
- Collect in-game items
- Private and ad-free experience
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Walk more with a little buddy who grows alongside you. Pathlings turns your real daily steps into a cozy game. Choose a tiny creature, give them a name, and help them grow through five forms as you reach milestones and finish quests. There are snacks to share, Rubies to collect and a home to make your own. • Find your walking buddy. Start with a leaf-eared forest mouse, a lava frog or a water panda, each with their own personality and five forms to discover. Feed them snacks, play with toys, and watch them grow. • Make room for more friends. Save your Rubies to adopt other Pathlings, including a storm owl and Pebblehorn, the sandstone rhino. Decorate their home with plants, lanterns and treasures, unlock new habitats, and watch your little crew wander around together. • See who walks the most. PathLeague turns your weekly steps into a friendly race with your Game Center friends. See their Pathlings, chase a place on the podium, and win weekly Ruby prizes. Earn 100 Rubies for each new friend you add who plays Pathlings. • Turn your steps into playtime. Earn a Trail Run pass halfway to your daily goal and another when you reach it. Then dash down forest, volcanic, underwater, mountain or canyon trails: switch lanes, jump over obstacles and collect Rubies to bring home. • Take your Pathling for a stroll. Follow your walk live on your iPhone’s Lock Screen and look back on your outings in Walk History. Walk half your daily goal in one stroll, with a minimum of 2,000 steps, to earn 50 bonus Rubies once a day. • Find a pace that fits. Choose your own daily step goal and change it whenever you need to. Complete daily and weekly quests, collect badges, and look back on your progress with a weekly recap. When you need a day off, a Rest Day Shield can protect your streak. • Keep your buddy close. Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets let you check in at a glance, with Feed and Play shortcuts on the Home Screen widget. See your synced progress and PathLeague race on Apple Watch, start and end walks from your wrist, or ask Siri to start a stroll. Pathlings counts your steps using Apple Health and your iPhone’s motion sensor. Free to play with optional Ruby packs. No ads, no subscriptions, and no Pathlings account needed. PathLeague is optional and uses Game Center. Choose your buddy and take your first walk together.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is monetization model: Pathlings at free against VirtuPet's freemium. Pathlings also leads on update cadence (weekly vs every 3 weeks) and rating (4.5 vs 4.3). VirtuPet's advantage is review sentiment (100% vs 88%). On price, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases 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. VirtuPet sells 8 in-app purchases, starting at $7.99 per month and Pathlings sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Pathlings holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3 and 8 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 100% of VirtuPet's written reviews are positive against 88% of Pathlings's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
VirtuPet ships an update every 3 weeks, Pathlings weekly. Both last shipped on November 5, 2026.
| Parameter | VirtuPet | Pathlings |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.3 (3 ratings) | 4.5 (8 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better | 87.5% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 3 | 8 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.6 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 483 MB | 249 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | MONTEL ANTHONY NEVERS | Dave Mohan |
Customer experience
VirtuPet
Pathlings
In-app purchases
VirtuPet
- VirtuPet: Premium - Monthly7 Days trial$7.991 Month
- VirtuPet: Premium - Annual7 Days trial$79.991 Year
- Scout Pack$2.99
- 1000 Paw Coins$2.99
- Ranger Pack$4.99
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- 2500 Paw Coins$4.99
- Naturalist Pack$9.99
- Curator Pack$19.99
Pathlings
- 500 Rubies$0.99
- 1,200 Rubies$1.99
- 3,000 Rubies$4.99
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- 6,500 Rubies$9.99









