Comparison

Pendulum Wave 3D vs Vortis

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

Head to head
About

Pendulum Wave 3D

Features
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Eighteen pendulums, released at the same instant. A perfect line for a moment โ€” then a wave, a fold, then no pattern at all. Sixty seconds later, a perfect line again. None of that is luck. Every pendulum is given a length that makes it swing an exact whole number of times per cycle, so the scattered part was never really a mess. It was the middle of a return. It is not a looping video, and not an animation faked to look about right. It is a live physics simulation, computed frame by frame while you watch. NOBODY WROTE THE MUSIC Turn the sound on, and each pendulum rings a note once per full swing, as it crosses the bottom โ€” higher for the short ones, lower for the long ones. Only five notes of the scale are used (do, re, mi, so, la), spread across octaves, so they stay clear no matter how many sound at once. There is no composer here. The lengths are the melody. The moment everything lines up is the quietest one โ€” all eighteen are at the far end of their arc, none of them crossing the bottom. A breath later, eighteen notes come down in a run, high to low, in under a fifth of a second. You are hearing exactly what you are watching. ANY ANGLE YOU LIKE Drag to put the camera anywhere. From an angle, a row of swinging pendulums. From directly above, a wave running along the row. The motion never changes. The angle does all the work. Four layouts: a straight Line; a Circle, where the wave travels around the ring; a Spiral winding outward; and a Grid, where the swing spreads like woven mesh โ€” the more pendulums you add, the clearer the weave. Four color themes โ€” Cool, Neon, Mono, Sunset. The bobs glow softly. Turn on Light trails in the Display panel, and each one leaves a line of light hanging in the air behind it. CINEMA MODE One tap: the controls disappear, the camera begins a slow orbit, and the ad goes with them. A waiting room screen, a tablet on the edge of a desk, a dark room late at night. It becomes something to look at, and nothing else. ALSO INSIDE โ€ข Set the number of pendulums, the cycle length, the swing angle and the speed โ€ข Save any setup you like as a preset โ€ข A data panel listing every pendulum's swings, length and period โ€ข "How it works" โ€” the real explanation, in plain words, no equations โ€ข Available in 33 languages โ€ข No account, no sign-in. iPhone and iPad ABOUT THE ADS The app is free. There is one small banner at the bottom of the screen โ€” no full-screen ads, no video ads โ€” and in Cinema mode even that banner disappears. Ads are never personalized. The app itself never asks for your name or email. To show the banner, Google AdMob uses standard advertising data (an advertising identifier and approximate location derived from your IP). See our Privacy Policy for details. Don't stop watching while it is scattered. Stay until it lines up again.

About

Vortis

Features
Read full description

A relaxing fluid simulation you play with your fingers: a pool of color that answers every touch. Draw across it and you pull a band of color through the flow. Tap and a drop bursts open. Rest a finger and a glowing plume rises. Behind it runs a real fluid solver on the GPU, up to a hundred and twenty times a second. No video, no loop: what you see was computed a moment ago and will never come back quite the same. TWENTY LOOKS Ink on water, northern lights, marbled paper, smoke, neon, deep sea. One for every mood โ€” and if you would rather not choose, the dice hands you one. EVERYTHING IS A SLIDER Vorticity, color decay, resolution, pressure: the knobs of the method itself, not a few filters laid over it. The pool keeps painting while you drag them, so you see what you are doing straight away. MORE THAN FINGERS Let the music in the room drive the flow. Use your own photo or the camera as a color source. Paint walls the color has to flow around. And record what came out of it. No goal, no score, no progress. A pool that answers back. Every third roll of the dice plays a short video ad. Vortis Pro is a one-time purchase that unlocks the effects, your own image sources and the solver's own controls โ€” and removes the ads.

Screenshots

Pendulum Wave 3D4 screens
Vortis4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Pendulum Wave 3D at none against Vortis's 1. Pendulum Wave 3D also leads on ads (none vs shown) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). On price, update cadence 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

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Vortis sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Pendulum Wave 3D asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pendulum Wave 3D ships an update every 10 days, Vortis every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 20, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences ยท 3 level
Pendulum Wave 3D versus Vortis: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPendulum Wave 3DVortis
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 10 daysEvery 5 days โ€” better
AdsNo โ€” betterYes
In-app purchasesNo โ€” betterYes
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod โ€” betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.0 โ€” better17.0
Further details โ€” not scored
Size10 MB58 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTakashi NemotoInes Golub

In-app purchases

None

Pendulum Wave 3D

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Vortis

One-time1
  • Vortis Pro$2.99

Questions

Is Pendulum Wave 3D free?
Pendulum Wave 3D is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Vortis free?
Vortis is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Pendulum Wave 3D or Vortis have ads?
Vortis shows ads; Pendulum Wave 3D does not.
Which is updated more often, Pendulum Wave 3D or Vortis?
Pendulum Wave 3D ships an update every 10 days, and Vortis every 5 days. Most recently, Pendulum Wave 3D was updated on October 16, 2026 and Vortis on October 20, 2026.

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