Comparison

System Design Arcade vs Hello Interview

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

Head to head
About

System Design Arcade

Learn complex system design concepts through engaging, bite-sized arcade-style games. Master building blocks, design full systems, and practice with real infrastructure tools. Progress is saved locally and no account is required.

Highlights
  • Arcade-style mini-games for system design concepts
  • End-to-end system design challenges
  • Hands-on drills with infrastructure tools
  • Narrative-driven story mode
  • Varied challenge types (multiple choice, puzzles, builder)
  • Daily challenges with streak tracking
  • Offline progress saving
Features
Read full description

NEW: THE AI ARCADE. Eight games on the system design round that didn't exist three years ago: RAG, LLM serving, embeddings, guardrails, and GPU fleets. Free, no subscription, and it plays offline. The system design interview is the one where the whiteboard goes blank. You've read the books. You've watched the videos. But when the interviewer says "design Instagram," or now "design a retrieval system for our support bot," you freeze, because reading about consistent hashing at 2am is not the same as knowing it cold. System Design Arcade is the fix. It turns every building block into 60-second arcade levels you can actually finish. On the subway. In line for coffee. While waiting for CI. On a plane with no Wi-Fi. THE AI ARCADE AI engineering is its own interview round now, and most prep hasn't caught up. The AI Arcade drills the systems behind it: - Design a RAG System: chunk boundaries, hybrid retrieval, reranking, and the permission bug that ends careers - LLM Serving: batching, KV caches, streaming, and GPU memory as the binding constraint - Feed Ranking: retrieval, ranking, and the feedback loop that decides what a model can ever learn - Embeddings: what "similar" means, how many dimensions you need, and migrating models without silent breakage - Feature Stores: one definition, two readers, and point-in-time correctness between training and serving - ML Observability: catching a model that is wrong while every dashboard stays green - AI Guardrails: where the checks sit, prompt injection from untrusted text, and what a model is allowed to reach - GPU Infrastructure: memory, interconnect, scheduling, and the bill FIVE TRACKS, ONE CURRICULUM Concept Arcade: master one building block at a time. Caches, databases, queues, replication, sharding, load balancing. Problem Arcade: design complete systems end to end. URL Shortener, Rate Limiter, News Feed, Chat, Ride Sharing, and a new Key-Value Store. The classics, played out like boss fights. Tool Arcade: hands-on drills with the infrastructure you'll use on the job. Redis. Kafka. Docker. Kubernetes. And Vector Vault, the vector store behind semantic search. AI Arcade: the eight games above. Story Mode: narrative capstones that walk an onsite round end to end: a Twitter-style home timeline, a chat system, Dropbox, typeahead search, a rate limiter, and a URL shortener. CHALLENGE TYPES THAT DON'T FEEL LIKE FLASHCARDS Multiple choice, ordering puzzles, fill-in-the-blank, API Builder, Architecture Builder, and Scenario-Why drills. Each level mixes formats so your brain has to actually engage. The Scenario-Why drills train the reasoning behind the answer, not just the answer. REVIEW THAT SPACES ITSELF OUT Miss a challenge and it comes back in Power-Up Review. Clear it and it returns on a widening schedule, so what you learn stays learned. DAILY CHALLENGE A fresh challenge every day, the same one for you and your study buddy. Streak counter. Optional reminder notifications, opt in from Settings. BUILT FOR YOUR EYES Retro arcade aesthetic by default. Pixel fonts. Neon glow. Prefer something softer? Switch to the playful sticker-card vibe, or open the Theme Lab and tune background, glow, gradient, and font until it feels right. Read Aloud narrates every explanation, so you can learn while you walk. YOUR PROGRESS STAYS YOURS Start playing instantly: Level 1 of every game needs no account. A free sign-in with Apple, Google, GitHub, or email unlocks every level and backs up your progress across your iPhone and iPad. Progress saves on your device. We use product analytics to see which levels need work, never the content of your answers. FREE TO PLAY No ads. No paywalls. No subscription. Every level is free with a free account. New games ship every sprint. Start with Level 1.

About

Hello Interview

Prepare for software engineering interviews with structured learning paths, practical guides, and interactive quizzes. Gain confidence in system design, data structures, algorithms, and behavioral questions. Access real interview experiences and community insights.

Highlights
  • Structured learning paths
  • Practical interview guides
  • Interactive quizzes
  • Real interview questions
  • Community discussions
  • Progress tracking
Features
Read full description

Prepare for your software engineering interviews with focused learning paths, practical guides, interactive quizzes, and insights from real interview experiences. Hello Interview helps you build the knowledge and confidence you need for technical interviews across system design, data structures and algorithms, low-level design, behavioral interviews, and more. With the app, you can: • Follow structured learning paths and track your progress • Read clear, practical interview guides • Explore real interview questions shared by candidates • Test your knowledge with interactive quizzes • Learn from community discussions and candidate success stories • Search across articles, guides, and interview questions • Continue learning wherever you are Sign in to sync your progress and access the content available to your Hello Interview account.

Screenshots

System Design Arcade4 screens
Hello Interview4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: System Design Arcade at none against Hello Interview's 3. Hello Interview's advantage is update cadence (every 6 days vs every 2 weeks) and ratings volume (44 vs 13). On price, rating, review sentiment and ads 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. Hello Interview sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. System Design Arcade asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for System Design Arcade against 5.0 for Hello Interview. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 13 and 44 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

System Design Arcade ships an update every 2 weeks, Hello Interview every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
System Design Arcade versus Hello Interview: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSystem Design ArcadeHello Interview
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (13 ratings)5.0 (44 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings1344 — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksEvery 6 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.1 — better16.4
Further details — not scored
Size39 MB53 MB
Age rating4+9+
DeveloperHarsha Hassan SomashekaraOptick Labs Inc. dba Hello Interview

Customer experience

System Design Arcade

All ratings13 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Hello Interview

All ratings33 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews12 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

System Design Arcade

No in-app purchases

3 purchases

Hello Interview

One-time3
  • Hello Interview Premium – 1 Month$47.99
  • Hello Interview Premium – 1 Year$89.99
  • Hello Interview Premium – Lifetime$299.99

Questions

Is System Design Arcade free?
System Design Arcade is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Hello Interview free?
Hello Interview is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, System Design Arcade or Hello Interview?
System Design Arcade and Hello Interview are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 13 and 44 ratings respectively.
Do System Design Arcade or Hello Interview have ads?
Neither System Design Arcade nor Hello Interview shows ads.
Which is updated more often, System Design Arcade or Hello Interview?
System Design Arcade ships an update every 2 weeks, and Hello Interview every 6 days. Most recently, System Design Arcade was updated on October 24, 2026 and Hello Interview on October 29, 2026.

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