Comparison

Volta Battery Bench vs Dev Idle

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

Head to head
About

Volta Battery Bench

Features
Read full description

Charge is money — and it does not sit still. Volta is an idle-merge game set on a Victorian galvanic battery bench. Brass voltaic cells sit on a bench grid: every cell builds charge on its own, but every cell also self-discharges, second by second, so charge bleeds away the moment you stop tending. That upkeep tension is the whole game — you are always racing your own leakage. Drag a cell onto a matching-tier cell to merge one tier up, from a Simple Cell all the way to a Grand Bank. Bigger banks hold and generate far more charge, but they also leak faster when neglected, so a merged bench is powerful and greedy at once. Buy the inverter and set cells beside it: the routing lines light up and every adjacent cell outputs double. Tap the charge to bank it as coin, then reinvest — fresh acid and platinum plates for more generation, gutta-percha insulation to slow the leak, a wider bench, and an Auto-Tender who sells for you. When you have sold enough charge, stack a New Pile: the bench strikes galvani sparks — a permanent +12% to everything — and the Galvani Vault keeps whatever you buy there through every reset. And every New Pile is now a real decision: swear the next pile to one of four Charter Schools. Volta's Charter generates furiously but leaks harder; Daniell's barely leaks but runs cool; Grove's makes every merge strike a surge of coin but prices the cells up; Faraday's sells dear from smaller jars. Complete a pile under a charter and its permanent mastery is yours — four levels per school, and which school you master first is yours to plot. Meanwhile the Commission Book keeps a patron waiting: twenty-eight commissions from the electrical age — the Lyceum, Sir Humphry Davy, the Royal Society, the Great Exhibition — each measuring your lifetime feats and paying in bench-scaled coin or galvani sparks. And when a jar truly brims, the Exhibition Gallery is waiting. Twelve plinths in three wings each ask for a cell of an exact tier presented at full charge — the leak itself guards the museum door. Donating retires that cell from the bench forever, but its exhibit answers with a permanent echo, full wings strike greater bonuses, and each wing unlocks a cosmetic bench finish — ebony, cherry, mahogany. The Bench Record keeps your whole career in one ruled column. It runs while you are away, but so does the leak. Come back to the welcome-back sheet and see the NET: sometimes a tidy gain, sometimes a low-charge warning that your bench nearly drained. • The leak is the hook — cells generate AND bleed, so neglect is punished • Drag-merge nine tiers of brass galvanic cells • Adjacency routing: cells next to the inverter output double • Sell charge for coin; buy acid, plates, insulation, a wider bench • New Pile prestige banks permanent galvani sparks; the Vault persists • Swear each pile to one of four Charter Schools — a boon, a price, and a permanent mastery track • A Commission Book of 28 patrons pays coin and galvani sparks for lifetime feats • The Exhibition Gallery: retire brimming jars to twelve plinths for permanent echoes and earned bench finishes • Offline net can be a gain OR a drain — tend the bench or lose charge • A once-a-day Morning Charge tops every cell and gifts coin — a missed day pauses your run of mornings, never resets it • Two optional extras extend the free 1-hour offline cap to 8h/24h — never pay-to-progress • Fully offline, no account, nothing collected Keep the current flowing.

About

Dev Idle

Tap to code and build your developer empire, from simple copy-pasting to advanced quantum compilation. Ship versions to earn reputation, unlock permanent upgrades, and eventually IPO for massive boosts. Enjoy an idle game experience with offline earnings and no ads.

Highlights
  • Tap to write code
  • Hire automated developers
  • Ship versions for reputation
  • Permanent upgrades via Lab
  • IPO for massive progress boosts
  • Offline earnings with reports
  • Live Activity for App Review countdown
Features
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You started by pasting an answer off Stack Overflow. Twelve tiers later you are running an autonomous agent fleet, a server farm and a quantum compiler, and the changelog has started calling the next one The Singularity. Dev Idle is an idle game about being an iOS developer, made by one. Tap to write code, hire the pipeline that writes it for you, then ship a version and do the whole thing again, faster. THE LOOP • BUILD — Twelve generator tiers, from "Stack Overflow copy-paste" to "The Singularity". Every 10, 25, 50 and 100 you own doubles that tier's output. Forever. There is no last milestone. • SHIP — Submit a version for App Review, wait out the thirty-minute queue like the rest of us, and bank Reputation for a permanent income multiplier. This wait is the game's clock, and yes, that is the joke. • LAB — Every ship also pays Commits, which buy permanent upgrades that survive every reset. A bad run still pays. No run is wasted. • SHOP — Conference Tickets buy time, never content: expedite a review, double an offline haul, or collect eight hours at once. • PASS — A four-week Sprint Pass season, 50 tiers, earned entirely by playing. THE PART THAT MAKES IT LAST Get big enough and you can IPO. Trade your whole Reputation for Shares, raise the level cap on every permanent upgrade, and watch the forty hours of progress you just gave up come back in four. Then the horizon moves again. BALANCED BY SIMULATION, NOT BY VIBES The economy runs in a harness that plays thousands of prestige cycles before a number ships. Tier 4 inside two minutes. Your first version out the door in about an hour. The Singularity considerably later. THINGS WE CARED ABOUT • Offline earnings, with a proper "while you were away" report when you come back. • A Live Activity that counts your App Review down on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island. • Unlockable editor themes. All of them dark, because it is that kind of game. • Every number monospaced, so counters tick without jittering. • No ads. Not between screens, not for a bonus, not ever — there is no ad code in the app at all. • Plays entirely offline. No account, no sign-up, nothing personal collected — no name, no email, no advertising identifier, no tracking. Your save syncs through your own iCloud. FREE TO PLAY, AND MEANT IT Optional purchases shorten the road. Not one of them unlocks content you cannot reach by playing, because a wall you cannot climb is a game you stop opening. Dev Idle Pro — $4.99 per month with a 7-day free trial: ×2 income, offline earnings at full rate with double the cap, a bigger daily Ticket bonus, an exclusive editor theme, and every season's premium Sprint Pass track included. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. The subscription renews automatically unless it is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period, and your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours of the end of that period. Manage or cancel it in Settings › Apple Account › Subscriptions. Any unused portion of the free trial is forfeited when you buy the subscription. Terms of Use: https://devidle.petrina.me/terms Privacy Policy: https://devidle.petrina.me/privacy-policy

Screenshots

Volta Battery Bench4 screens
Dev Idle4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Volta Battery Bench at none against Dev Idle's 10. Volta Battery Bench also leads on iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). Dev Idle's advantage is update cadence (daily vs every 2 months). On price, ads 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Dev Idle sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Volta Battery Bench asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Volta Battery Bench ships an update every 2 months, Dev Idle daily. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 6 level
Volta Battery Bench versus Dev Idle: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterVolta Battery BenchDev Idle
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Number of ratings—1 — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsDaily — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
Monetization—Free with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS17.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size1 MB6 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJordan WegnerDavid Petrina

In-app purchases

None

Volta Battery Bench

No in-app purchases

10 purchases

Dev Idle

Subscriptions1
  • Dev Idle Pro7 Days trial$4.991 Month
One-time9
  • Hotfix — 100 Tickets$0.99
  • Starter Pack$1.99
  • Sprint Pass Premium Track$2.99
Show 6 more
  • Monthly Card — 40 a Day$3.99
  • Overtime$4.99
  • Sprint — 600 Tickets$4.99
  • Release — 1,400 Tickets$9.99
  • Major Version — 3,200 Tickets$19.99
  • Enterprise — 9,000 Tickets$49.99

Questions

Is Volta Battery Bench free?
Volta Battery Bench is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Dev Idle free?
Dev Idle is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Volta Battery Bench or Dev Idle have ads?
Neither Volta Battery Bench nor Dev Idle shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Volta Battery Bench or Dev Idle?
Volta Battery Bench ships an update every 2 months, and Dev Idle daily. Most recently, Volta Battery Bench was updated on October 16, 2026 and Dev Idle on October 29, 2026.

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