Bonsai³ vs Hotfork
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Bonsai³
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Turn your everyday GitHub activity into a bonsai. Bonsai³ turns your GitHub activity into a small voxel tree. Connect your account and see your recent contribution history take shape in its branches and foliage. When new contributions sync, gentle rain waters your bonsai and fresh growth appears. Rotate and zoom your tree, or simply enjoy it beneath a sky that changes from morning to night. • Choose from Maple, Pine, Cherry, and Azalea, with eight pot styles. • Each bonsai reflects 90 days of activity. Revisit past bonsai to see how your activity has changed over time. • Turn your bonsai into a postcard and share it as an image. • Keep your tree on the Home Screen with widgets for iPhone and iPad. Start with a sample garden—no sign-in needed. Your bonsai and contribution history are handled on your device. No ads or tracking. Bonsai³ never receives your GitHub password. Bonsai³ is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by GitHub.
Hotfork
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Never miss an idea again. See the open-source projects the world is building — in real time. Hotfork keeps you on top of the GitHub trends that actually move the industry: trending repositories, top GitHub repos, and the stars, forks and issues behind them — updated continuously, right on your iPhone. WHY HOTFORK Your daily tech radar. Browse the GitHub trending feed for Today, Week, or Month, filter by your favorite programming language (Swift, Rust, Python, TypeScript, Go, and more), and watch the leaderboard of repos gaining the most stars today. The result? You spot the next big open source project early — before it goes viral. WHAT'S INSIDE • TRENDING FEED — Infinite scroll through hundreds of trending repositories, ranked by stars today, with rank numbers, star deltas and language badges on every card. • ENGAGEMENTS — The hottest repos right now, sorted by stars gained today/week/month, with podium colors for the top 3. Know what developers were excited about today. • REPO DETAILS THAT TELL A STORY — Open any repo to see its README description, stars with +/− deltas, forks, open issues, open pull requests, a 12-month star history chart, language breakdown, topics and similar projects. • SMART SEARCH — Find any GitHub repo by name, description or topic, with language filters and debounced instant results. Never lose track of a project again. • SAVED & OFFLINE — Bookmark repositories for later. They stay available offline, with your own private notes attached. • FAST, NATIVE, QUIET — SwiftUI, iOS 18 design, smart caching (feeds load in milliseconds), monospace terminal-style numbers, dark-mode-first. No accounts, no trackers, nothing to configure. BUILT FOR Developers, open-source fans, tech investors, engineering managers, students and everyone who wants to know what's trending in code — in one tap. HOW IT WORKS 1. Open the app — the today's trending feed is already loaded. 2. Scroll. Star the repos you like. Save them for later. 3. Tap any repo to dig into its history, stars and similar projects. Privacy. Minimal. No account. No tracking. No nonsense. Just the best of GitHub, watching for you. Download Hotfork — see what developers are shipping — free.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: Bonsai³ at none against Hotfork's shown. On price, update cadence, in-app purchases 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Bonsai³ ships an update every 8 days, Hotfork fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Bonsai³ | Hotfork |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 8 days — better | Fortnightly |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 8 MB | 11 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Sakino Tomiura | Zordon Intelligence |
In-app purchases
Bonsai³
No in-app purchases
Hotfork
No in-app purchases









