Comparison

Pixel Wild vs KnowKi

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

Head to head
About

Pixel Wild

Identify and collect flora and fauna by taking photos or videos, then transform them into pixel art. Build and customize your own digital world with your discoveries, and interact with friends' creations.

Highlights
  • Identify nature with camera
  • AI-generated pixel art
  • Collect and level up discoveries
  • Build and customize pixel worlds
  • Friend interactions and leaderboards
  • Daily quests and achievements
Features
Read full description

Point your camera at a sidewalk weed, a beetle on your balcony, a bird in the park — Pixel Wild names it, turns it into pixel art, and drops it into a wild little world that's yours to build. Naming the thing is where it starts, not where it ends. Every species you find becomes something you can place, grow, level up, and keep. COLLECT THE WILD • Snap a photo or a short video — we identify it and AI draws it as pixel art • Every discovery levels up as you learn about it, find it again, and care for it • Fun facts, size and habitat, and a spinnable globe of everywhere it's been seen • Filter your collection by scientific classification, kingdom down to species • New species added weekly • Daily and weekly quests • Achievements and milestones rewards BUILD YOUR SANCTUARY • Place your discoveries in a pixel world you shape tile by tile • Raise ground into cliffs and plateaus, lay paths, rivers and themed block sets • Water and feed your inhabitants to help them grow • Set the weather and the soundtrack • Arcade cabinet for your sanctuary BRING YOUR FRIENDS • Fly to a friend's world, sign their guestbook, care for their inhabitants • See what everyone's finding on the friends map • Climb the Ranger levels and compare on the leaderboards MAKE IT YOURS • A home-screen widget with your own discoveries • Imprint a discovery onto your avatar • Dark mode Nature enthusiast, casual explorer, photographer, hiker, parent, student — or just someone looking for a reason to spend more time outdoors. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

KnowKi

Discover and learn about the living beings in your chosen environment. This app uses real-world observations and interactive lessons to help you identify local flora and fauna, building your knowledge day by day. Engage with fun quizzes and track your progress in your personal field guide.

Highlights
  • Identify local species by group (birds, plants, insects, etc.)
  • Learn with real photos and iNaturalist observations
  • Daily quizzes and practice exercises
  • Personalized field guide with progress tracking
  • Explore species by region or specific locations
  • Connect with friends and share scores
Read full description

Get to know the living beings around you by name. KnowKi teaches you the species that people see regularly near a place you choose, with real photos, short practice, and a path that builds day by day. Botanist and writer Robin Wall Kimmerer suggests ki (say "key") for any living being of the Earth, in place of "it": a bird, a tree, a snail is someone, not something. Together they are kin, in place of "them." KnowKi helps you get to know the more-than-human beings around you, until you can recognize kin in the wild with no key. Your guide is Āki, a kiwi from Aotearoa New Zealand whose name, in te reo Māori, means to encourage and urge on. A PATH OF SIX SPECIES AT A TIME Pick a place and a group: birds, mammals, plants, insects, arachnids, herps (reptiles and amphibians), fish, crustaceans, sea slugs, or other mollusks. Groups appear where they live, so sea slugs show up on the coast, not in the desert. Each unit introduces six species: meet them, match each one to a new photo, practice with ten photos and four choices, then pass a checkpoint to open the next six. REAL SIGHTINGS FROM REAL PLACES Lessons use research-grade iNaturalist observations recorded near your place, most commonly seen first. Native species lead the way; each chapter ends with an optional unit of introduced species, the ones people brought here. Protected species are included too, with their conservation status, and their locations always stay hidden. Every photo is credited to the naturalist who took it. PRACTICE THAT STICKS Missed species come back next time, and correct answers return over the following days. Recall cards ask you to type or say a name from the photo alone. A species becomes kin once you recognize it in two different photos on two different days. PLAY The Daily: five species a day, easy to hard, in three editions: your neighborhood, your country, and the world. Share your score without spoilers. Quirky Quizzes test what wild neighbors leave behind: eggs, nests, bones, tracks, feathers, and scat. YOUR FIELDBOOK Every species you've met, with a short introduction from Wikipedia, a map of where it's found, and your progress. Filter by group, favorites, introduced or protected species, and earn milestones along the way. TRIPS Learn the kin of any country, every U.S. national park, marine sanctuaries, or the most biodiverse places for life on Earth. GO MEET YOUR KIN Once you have 10 kin, KnowKi shows which are out and about near you this month, with a monthly Field Bingo card. Photograph what you find and share it on iNaturalist; connect your iNaturalist username to stamp each species you've found. Know a species well? Help identify other people's observations of it. A HOME-SCREEN WIDGET Your trail, today's goal, and your Daily score, with Āki under a sky that follows the time of day. PLAY WITH FRIENDS Sign in, turn on Friends, pick a nature name, and send your invite link. See each other's kin, trails, milestones, and Daily scores (a friend's score shows once you've played that Daily too). Species and places are never shared. YOURS, ON EVERY DEVICE No account needed. If you like, sign in with Apple to keep one Fieldbook on your iPhone and at knowki.app; KnowKi never asks for your name or email. No ads, no analytics SDKs, and no tracking. Optional soundscapes and gentle reminders. Lessons need an internet connection. Photos and observations come from iNaturalist contributors under Creative Commons licenses; species introductions are excerpts from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).

Screenshots

Pixel Wild4 screens
KnowKi4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: KnowKi at none against Pixel Wild's 4. KnowKi also leads on ads (none vs shown). Pixel Wild's advantage is ratings volume (197 vs 2). On price, rating, review sentiment 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. Pixel Wild sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. KnowKi asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Pixel Wild against 5.0 for KnowKi. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Pixel Wild has 197 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 98% of Pixel Wild's written reviews are positive against 100% of KnowKi's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pixel Wild ships an update every 3 days, KnowKi every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on November 9, 2026 and November 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Pixel Wild versus KnowKi: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPixel WildKnowKi
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.9 (197 ratings)5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews97.9% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings197 — better2
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterEvery 4 days
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Mac — better
Requires iOS18.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size148 MB44 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTeam Common Ground LLCGarrett Craig

Customer experience

Pixel Wild

All ratings198 ratings
Positive99.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative1.0%
Written reviews96 reviews
Positive97.9%
Neutral1.0%
Negative1.0%

KnowKi

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

In-app purchases

4 purchases

Pixel Wild

One-time4
  • Small Matter Pack$0.99
  • Medium Matter Pack$4.99
  • Large Matter Pack$9.99
Show 1 more
  • XL Matter Pack$24.99
None

KnowKi

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Pixel Wild free?
Pixel Wild is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is KnowKi free?
KnowKi is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Pixel Wild or KnowKi?
KnowKi is rated higher. Pixel Wild averages 4.9 out of 5 from 197 ratings, while KnowKi averages 5.0 from 2 ratings.
Do Pixel Wild or KnowKi have ads?
Pixel Wild shows ads; KnowKi does not.
Which is updated more often, Pixel Wild or KnowKi?
Pixel Wild ships an update every 3 days, and KnowKi every 4 days. Most recently, Pixel Wild was updated on November 9, 2026 and KnowKi on November 10, 2026.

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