Comparison

Backdrop vs strix!

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

Head to head
About

Backdrop

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Pick a Look and the camera changes. Point it at a street and the street is already painted in oil, or broken into dots, or drawn by hand. You are not previewing a filter. That is the picture, and the shutter keeps it. THE LOOKS Brush. Painted stroke by stroke, coarse to fine, as you move. Mosaic. Rebuilt from its own colours. Cells split where there is detail. Drawn. The world drawn instead of photographed. Flat colour, inked lines. Matter. The picture as a field of grains that drift and settle. Fur. Combed strands that follow what the camera sees. Dither. Tone traded for dots on one fixed grid, nothing in between. Halftone. Print dots on a square or hex grid, in four shapes. Fluted. Seen through ribbed glass. The world arrives in strips. Water. Refraction and caustics, the scene read through moving water. Code. Digital rain over katakana, lit by whatever the camera sees. The list grows. New Looks arrive in updates. TAP OR HOLD Tap the shutter for a photo. Hold it to record, up to ten minutes. Video renders in the background at full quality, one frame at a time, using the exact settings you shot with. TUNE ANYTHING Every Look has its own knobs. Size, grain, relief, speed, depth, whatever that Look actually has. Drag the handle at the edge of the screen and the picture changes under your thumb. Tap a knob to put it back. BRING YOUR OWN Choose from Photos to run something you already have through a Look. For video, trim it first, pick the frame, then render. NOTHING LEAVES YOUR PHONE No account, nothing to sign in to. No servers. What you shoot sits in the Shelf on your device. Saving a copy to Photos is a switch, off until you turn it on. BACKDROP PREMIUM Dither, Water, Halftone and Drawn are free, and they record video too. Premium opens every Look, including the ones added later, and takes the Backdrop mark off everything you shoot. Monthly and annual. Payment goes to your Apple Accou renews unless you turn it off at least 24 hours befo Manage or cancel in Settings, Apple Account, Subscri Privacy: backdrop.wiki/privacy Terms: backdrop.wiki/terms Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ iPhone. iOS 18 and later.

About

strix!

Features
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strix turns a photo into a stream of colour. Drag across the image and the pixels behind your subject stretch out and melt away, while the subject itself stays sharp. It finds the subject on its own. No masking, no lasso, no cutting it out by hand. HOW IT WORKS 1. Pick a photo โ€” recent shots appear right inside the app, or take a new one 2. Drag across it. The direction you drag is the direction the pixels flow 3. Share it, or save it to your photos Drag in a straight line, or switch to curve and draw the path yourself. Pull the effect out from both sides at once. Press and hold the eye to check the original at any time. TUNE IT Seven sliders, if you want them: strength, wave, wave cycles, jitter, fade, chromatic aberration, and start offset. Or ignore all of it and just drag. YOUR PHOTOS STAY YOURS strix has no account, no server, and no analytics. Every pixel is processed on your iPhone's GPU, and subject detection runs on device too. Your photos are never uploaded anywhere. We could not look at them if we wanted to. STRIX PRO strix is free, and shows a full-screen ad when you export your image. strix Pro removes those ads for a single payment. It is not a subscription โ€” buy it once and restore it any time with the same Apple Account.

Screenshots

Backdrop4 screens
strix!4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: strix! at none against Backdrop's 2. Backdrop's advantage is ads (none vs shown). On price, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Backdrop sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $11.99 per month. strix! asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard2 real differences ยท 4 level
Backdrop versus strix!: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBackdropstrix!
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 11 daysโ€”
AdsNo โ€” betterYes
In-app purchasesYesNo โ€” better
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS18.017.0 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size127 MB5 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperShekhar UpadhayaJahyeon Ko

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Backdrop

Subscriptions2
  • Backdrop Premium โ€” Monthly$11.991 Month
  • Backdrop Premium โ€” Annual$79.001 Year
None

strix!

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Backdrop free?
Backdrop is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is strix! free?
strix! is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Backdrop or strix! have ads?
strix! shows ads; Backdrop does not.

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