Tiny Text Terrarium vs Islo
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Tiny Text Terrarium
Cultivate a serene text-based garden that grows over time. Discover unique flora and fauna, track your garden's history through diary entries, and enjoy seasonal changes. Widgets provide a glance at your growing world.
- Plant seeds and watch them grow with real time
- Diary logs of garden events
- Discover 27 species and oddities
- Real weather and seasonal changes
- Home and Lock Screen widgets
- Time acceleration option
- Customizable appearance
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Plant a seed. Close the app. Come back to a little world that grew while you were away. Tiny Text Terrarium is a cozy garden built entirely from text. Every plant, puddle, and passing bee is an emoji living in a tiny grid. There's nothing to optimize, no timers to beat, and no way to lose. Just a quiet patch of soil that keeps growing while you live your life. • Plant seeds, sprinkle droplets, and let real time do the rest • Come back to a hand-written diary of everything that happened, "A bee stopped by the daisies and did a little happy dance." • Discover 27 species, visitors, and oddities for your Almanac • Learn the garden's secrets: something likes rainy mountains… • Real weather moods, day and night, snow in winter, and a few seasonal surprises • Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets: your garden at a glance, one tap away • Can't wait? The Sundial nudges time forward, a day's worth per day • Make it yours: five backdrop tints and a light/dark appearance switch • Wilted flowers forgive you. One droplet fixes everything • Nothing to buy, ever. A tip jar exists only if you'd like to say thanks Fully playable with VoiceOver. No ads, no accounts, no data collected, your garden never leaves your device.
Islo
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Tap an egg, meet a tiny baby and raise it right on your iPhone: in the Dynamic Island, on the Lock Screen, in StandBy and in widgets. Feed it, bathe it, play with it and watch it grow up. It never dies and never makes you feel guilty. HATCH IT AND WATCH IT GROW • Tap the egg until the shell cracks and your baby pops out • It grows from baby to child, teen and adult, celebrating each stage • As an adult it shows a personality shaped by your care: playful, cuddly, foodie or sparkly EVERYDAY CARE • Drag food right to its mouth and watch it munch with puffy cheeks • Clean up little poops with one tap • Rub it with bubbly foam at bath time • Pet it, tickle it, boop its nose • Tuck it in and turn the lights off for a starry night PLAY TOGETHER • Playroom mini-games: Which Way?, Catch the Snacks, Pop the Bubbles • Teach tricks with praise: a big jump, spin, bow and dance • It dances along when you play your music COINS, SHOP AND ALBUM • Earn coins with daily tasks and open a gift box every day • Buy treats, toys and decor for the room • A memory album keeps the hatching, every stage and each learned trick IT LIVES ON YOUR IPHONE • Sleeps on your schedule and wakes up with you • Celebrates your step goal and hides from the rain • Curls up on the charger and puts on a tie before a meeting • Feed, pet and play from the widget or the Live Activity without opening the app NO GUILT, EVER Your creature never dies and never runs away. A basic daily ration always refills, so it never goes hungry. On a frosty day it may catch a cold, which is just a sneeze and a cup of tea. Gentle reminders are cheerful, and skipping one changes nothing. PICK YOUR FRIEND Puff is a warm fluffy ball, Drop is a calm little slime philosopher, Chirp is a quick curious spark of a bird. Dress them in hats, scarves and new outfit packs, and preview every item on the Dynamic Island, the Lock Screen and widgets. VISITS Send your creature to a friend for an hour. They see it in their own Live Activity after they accept the visit. PRIVATE BY DESIGN • No sign-up • Steps stay on your device • Only the start times of calendar events are read, never titles or guests • Every data source is off until you turn it on, and Islo is complete without any of them • No ads ISLO PRO Pro grows your family: a second creature and new generations hatched from eggs, up to four together. It adds real-time weather and calendar reactions from our server, a livelier Live Activity, flip and roll tricks, a double daily gift, your own photos in the album and exclusive items. Item packs are one-time purchases. Coins and food baskets are optional purchases. Pro is an auto-renewing subscription, monthly or yearly. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. The subscription renews automatically unless it is canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can manage or cancel it in your Apple Account settings. Terms of Use: https://isloapp.web.app/terms Privacy Policy: https://isloapp.web.app/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
Tiny Text Terrarium and Islo are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.
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. Tiny Text Terrarium sells 3 one-off in-app purchases and Islo sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Tiny Text Terrarium ships an update every 5 weeks, Islo every 3 weeks. Both last shipped on October 29, 2026.
| Parameter | Tiny Text Terrarium | Islo |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better | — |
| Number of ratings | 1 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 17.2 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 2 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Antonio Gordillo Toledo | Yevhenii Bruchkovskyi |
In-app purchases
Tiny Text Terrarium
- Small Tip$0.99
- Kind Tip$2.99
- Generous Tip$6.99
Islo
- A handful of coins$0.99
- Animal pack$1.99
- Party pack$1.99
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- Sweet basket$1.99
- Spooky pack$2.99
- Story Heroes pack$2.99
- Tokyo & Seoul pack$2.99
- A pouch of coins$2.99
- Feast basket$3.99
- A chest of coins$5.99








