Packet Planet vs Build Your Datacenter
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
Packet Planet
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Start with one small data center. Finish as the backbone of the world's internet. Packet Planet is a world-map strategy game about building a cloud infrastructure empire โ and racing rival megacorps who are building theirs on the same map, by exactly the same rules. Pick a starting region. Cheap power, cool climate, huge demand, heavy regulation: every region is a different opening. Coverage spreads from your data centers along the links between regions. Contract bubbles pop where you have coverage โ tap one, read the terms, and sign it if you have the compute, storage and bandwidth free to serve it. Then spend the money on the next thing. WHERE YOU BUILD MATTERS Every contract is served by a real data center โ the nearest one with capacity to spare. Serve a customer from the other side of the world and latency eats the revenue while backhaul burns your bandwidth at home. Backbone links between regions carry that traffic, and an overloaded link throttles what you earn. Undersea cable cut? Your routes are severed until it heals, unless you paid for redundancy. 27 UPGRADES, THREE TRACKS Network buys reach: peering, ocean cables, edge PoPs, dark fiber, terabit backbone, LEO satellites. Hardware buys capacity: newer CPUs, 400G optics, GPU clusters, dense storage, immersion cooling. Ops buys survival: energy contracts, automation, dynamic pricing, lobbying, N+1 redundancy. Ten of them cannot be bought until the news announces them โ so the ticker is worth reading, and a player who ignores it is genuinely behind. FOUR MODES, FOUR DIFFERENT GAMES Same world, same tree, completely different strategy: โข STARTUP โ free, and complete. The full map, the full upgrade tree, the tutorial. Reach 30% world penetration before your rival does. โข GLOBAL BACKBONE โ the full-length race, at the real win bars, against the full rival roster. โข AI LABS โ train three successive AI models. Committed compute stops earning while it trains, so here money and victory pull against each other. โข STREAMING WORLD โ serve the world's streaming demand under a latency threshold. Only capacity close to people counts, and a cable cut disqualifies you before it churns you. Three difficulties on each paid mode, personal bests tracked per mode and difficulty, and a rival that plays by your rules โ no cheating AI, no hidden bonuses, every move it makes visible on the map. FREE TO PLAY, ONE PURCHASE, NOTHING ELSE Startup mode is free and it is the whole game, not a demo: no ads, no timers, no energy meter, no currency to buy. The Full Game unlock is a single one-time purchase that adds Global Backbone, AI Labs and Streaming World. There is no subscription and nothing else is ever sold. Family Sharing is supported. PLAYS ANYWHERE Fully playable offline โ a connection is only needed to buy or restore. Your run saves automatically when you leave and resumes where you stopped. Reduced motion, separate music and sound toggles, and haptics on or off. A run takes about 25โ30 minutes in Startup, 30โ45 in the paid modes. Built by one person.
Build Your Datacenter
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Turn a small server room into a growing data center business. Build Your Datacenter is an isometric management game about making the most of limited space, hardware and resources. Place racks, add CPU, GPU and storage capacity, and match your setup to the jobs your customers need. Every expansion brings a new decision. Keep equipment cool, balance electricity supply and demand, and choose from solar, wind and nuclear power as your operation grows. More hardware creates more opportunities, but it also means more costs to manage. RUN THE BUSINESS BEHIND THE MACHINES - Plan your layout and expand your server capacity. - Take on tenant contracts and balance workloads with available resources. - Hire staff to automate daily operations. - Maintain equipment and prepare for unexpected breakdowns. - Purchase land and develop your expanding facility. - Manage your budget and support the local community. Choose your next investment: more capacity, stronger infrastructure or a healthier budget. Your decisions shape the business.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: Packet Planet at none against Build Your Datacenter's shown. Packet Planet also leads on iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). Build Your Datacenter's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 6 weeks). On price, in-app purchases and device support 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
Both are free to download. Packet Planet sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Build Your Datacenter sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Packet Planet ships an update every 6 weeks, Build Your Datacenter weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Packet Planet | Build Your Datacenter |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks | Weekly โ better |
| Ads | No โ better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod โ better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 โ better | 17.0 |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 108 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 9+ |
| Developer | Hana Rajdlova | Pax Games |
In-app purchases
Packet Planet
- Packet Planet$4.99
Build Your Datacenter
- Starter Pack$3.00
- Lifetime Traffic 1.5ร$4.99
- Staff Pack$4.99
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- 10 Million Game Cash$9.99
Questions
Is Packet Planet free?
Is Build Your Datacenter free?
Do Packet Planet or Build Your Datacenter have ads?
Which is updated more often, Packet Planet or Build Your Datacenter?
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