Ethereal vs Oscilluma
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Ethereal
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Ethereal is a calm, interactive art toy: a whole gallery of living worlds of light that answer your touch. And when the day is done, it becomes something new: a glowing bedside clock that keeps you gentle company all night. It plays on the biggest screen in the house too, cast from your phone. Open a world, reach out with a finger, and watch it respond. Stir a river of stars into a slow vortex. Fling a planet around a burning sun. Gather a swarm of fireflies to your fingertip like a lantern. Set paper lanterns adrift on a midnight river. Strum luminous strings into singing waves. Every world is generative and endlessly re-playable: no levels, no score, no way to lose. Just light, motion, and you. Every world sounds like itself, too. A warm, steady rain-wash soundscape rests under everything, and each world speaks the moment you see it: balloons pop, thunder cracks with the bolt, fireworks boom on the burst, candles light and snuff under your finger, the lava lamp glorps. Sounds pitch with where and what you touch, so nothing ever feels stamped out, with soft haptics and tilt-gravity for the worlds that obey your hands. NIGHTSTAND Turn any charging phone, or the old one in a drawer, into a living bedside clock. • An elegant clock floats over the world of your choice, tinted to match its light • It breathes softly and drifts, or fades and reappears somewhere new each minute, designed to protect your screen from burn-in • Dim the whole scene with a two-finger drag, right down to almost-dark • The screen stays awake while you charge; brightness and sound are one tap away • The calmest worlds keep the night: fireflies blink, candles breathe, rain runs down the glass, lanterns drift downriver, and Fireworks stages its own lazy show while you sleep ON THE BIG SCREEN Cast Ethereal to the TV and take the couch. • Switch worlds, place the clock and change the sound from your phone: it stays the remote • Worlds that live and move on their own play on the TV; the touch-painting worlds stay in your hands, where your fingers are • Pure black by default, made for OLED Made for quiet moments: winding down, finding focus, letting your mind wander somewhere beautiful, and watching over you until morning. FREE, FOREVER • Ripples: send rings rippling across a still pool • Solar: fling planets from a living solar system; hold the sun to charge a flare • Nebula: a flowing river of silken star-trails; stir it into a vortex • Starlines: trace your own constellations between the stars • Trails: draw with a glowing, colour-shifting ribbon • Bloom: grow unfolding mandalas of light • Frost: grow branching crystals of frost Nightstand is free too, with Ripples, Solar and Nebula keeping the night. THE FULL GALLERY, WITH PRO Bounce a festival of Balloons. Pop rising Bubbles. Wipe Rain from night glass. Light a row of Candles. Send lanterns down a midnight River, or release sky Lanterns into the stars. Warm a neon Lava lamp. Startle a Reef of glowing fish. Bend the Aurora. Gather Fireflies. Hatch Jellyfish from the deep. Call down Starfall. Stage Fireworks. Pop drifting Orbs. Pump the Spectrum equaliser. Paint in Kaleido symmetry. Fork Tempest lightning. Stir molten Plasma. Weave points of light into Orbit. Strum the Harp. Drop Ink into water. Reshape Ferro's magnetic field. Ethereal Pro is a single one-time purchase, yours for good, every future world included, one unlock across iPhone and iPad. CALM BY DESIGN • No ads · No accounts · No subscriptions Ethereal uses the network for the store's billing for the one-time purchase, and for casting to your TV if you use it. Best with the sound on and the lights low, and when you close your eyes, let the light keep watch.
Oscilluma
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Turn your screen into living art. Drift through glowing tunnels, flowing glass, unfolding forms and cosmic landscapes. Oscilluma creates its visuals in real time on your device, bringing color and movement to quiet evenings, creative spaces and time with friends. Open a visual world, find a look you love and let it move. No account or phone pairing is required. START FREE Explore Vortex with four included looks. Preview Pro worlds before deciding to unlock more. ONE PURCHASE, MORE WORLDS Oscilluma Pro is an optional one-time purchase that unlocks all 21 visual worlds and 126 authored looks: 20 more worlds and 122 more looks beyond the free collection. No subscription or ads. Each world has its own visual character. Looks are carefully chosen variations within those worlds, rather than separate effects. MADE FOR YOUR SCREEN On iPhone and iPad, explore the world and look library with a live canvas. Pro lets you adjust Palette, Motion, Energy and Detail for your selected look. On Apple TV, browse with the Siri Remote, choose a world and hide the controls for full-screen art. Select a palette to apply it; moving focus between palette cards keeps your current colors. Pro includes 17 curated color palettes alongside each world's default. Turn on Autoplay to move through the worlds available to you. On Apple Vision Pro, explore and tune the art in a spatial window. Pro also lets you save and recall your own Rooms. Oscilluma runs as an app you open. It does not replace the Apple TV system screen saver. The visuals move independently; music and sound response are not included.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is device support: Oscilluma at 4 against Ethereal's 2. On price, ads, in-app purchases and iOS requirement 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
Both are free to download. Ethereal sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Oscilluma sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
| Parameter | Ethereal | Oscilluma |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 10 days | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Vision Pro — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 49 MB | 54 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Zone7 Studios | PETALUMAPALMER LLC |
In-app purchases
Ethereal
- Ethereal Pro$2.99
Oscilluma
- Oscilluma Pro — Lifetime$6.99
Questions
Is Ethereal free?
Is Oscilluma free?
Do Ethereal or Oscilluma have ads?
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