Comparison

Monster Mingle vs The Monsters by Tinybop

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

Head to head
About

Monster Mingle

Design and build your own unique, friendly monster by combining various body parts. Explore magical islands, discover creatures, and interact with the environment in a free-play imaginative landscape. This app encourages creativity and exploration without any goals or objectives.

Highlights
  • Combine diverse body parts (eyes, mouths, limbs, wings, etc.)
  • Explore land, sea, and sky environments
  • Discover and interact with creatures
  • Feed your monster
  • Free play sandbox environment
Read full description

Build your own friendly monster! Choose different body parts to help explore the world and uncover each unique island. Discover fun creatures, musical scenery and hidden surprises as your monster plays in this magical kingdom. A free play imaginative landscape helps children to be creative, building the creatures they want and learning what is needed to fly high, swim fast or simply walk around. Can you find all 40 body parts? Features: - Combine different eyes, mouths, noses, beaks, arms, legs, wings, fins, horns and bodies - Hop and walk on land, swim under the sea or fly in the sky - Find food to feed your hungry monster - Talk and sing to the other creatures - No goals or objectives, just a free play sandbox Child friendly app: - No in-app purchases - No third-party advertising - No social media Created by Cowly Owl, a British micro-studio creating playful digital toys and educational games. http://www.cowlyowl.com/

About

The Monsters by Tinybop

Transform shadows into unique, imaginative creatures. Customize their features, bring them to life with emotions, and interact with them through play, sound, and even selfies. This open-ended building app encourages creativity for children.

Highlights
  • Create unique monsters from shadows
  • Customize monster features and appearance
  • Animate monsters with emotions
  • Feed monsters and make them sing/dance
  • Take monster selfies
  • Explore different rooms and play areas
  • Record custom monster sounds
Features
Read full description

Turn shadows on the wall into wild and wooly creatures. Give them googly eyes, tiny arms, too many horns, spotted tails, or sparkly fur — any assortment of fantastical features that you like. Bring your monsters to life! Make them happy or sad, nervous or bad, lovely or mad. Feed them radioactive snacks and make them sing and dance. Take a monster selfie and decorate with stickers. Make the monsters of your dreams! “Weird, but in a good way” — Geeks with Juniors "A wonderful aesthetic experience" — Warren Buckleitner, Children's Technology Review The Monsters is the third app in Tinybop’s Digital Toys, a series of open-ended building apps that let kids ages 4+ create, play with, and collect whatever they can imagine. The second is The Everything Machine, an App Store Editors’ Choice and Children’s Technology Review Editor’s Choice. The first, The Robot Factory, is a Parents’ Choice Gold Award winner and the iPad App of the Year. FEATURES + Make monsters! Turn shadows into the creatures of your dreams...or nightmares. Millions of monsters are possible. + Give your monsters lots of arms and legs. Stretch or shrink their limbs as you like. + Add all kinds of eyes, mouths, and horns to your monsters. Give them scales or fur, feathers or hair. + Paint your monster with different colors, sparkles, spots, scales, and more! + Make happy, sad, scared, or mad monsters. What will yours be like? + Explore different rooms. In the closet, turn shadows into monsters. Keep and play with all your creations in a haunted hall. + Pop into the photo booth and take selfies with your monsters. + Have a monster battle! + Make your monsters speak. Explore the sound library or record your own monster sounds. + Intuitive, safe, and kid-friendly design. + Multi-user system: each child can create and save their own monsters. + Entertaining for kids and adults alike. + No in-app purchases or 3rd party advertising. + Original artwork by Tianhua Mao. + Original sound design. Privacy Policy We take your and your child’s privacy seriously. While none of our apps collect personally identifiable information, Monsters does not collect any analytics data, including usage data. We do not include third-party advertising or have in-app purchases in this app. If the camera, microphone, and other services are used in an app, your information is not collected or distributed outside of your device. The images are not transmitted to us, Tinybop has no access to them. Read our complete privacy policy at tinybop.com. About Tinybop is a Brooklyn-based studio of designers, engineers, and artists. We make toys for tomorrow. We’re all over the internet. Visit us: www.tinybop.com Follow us: twitter.com/tinybop Like us: facebook.com/tinybop See us: instagram.com/tinybop We love hearing your stories! Reach out: hi@tinybop.com. Psst! It's not Tiny Bop, or Tiny Bob, or Tiny Pop. It's Tinybop.

Screenshots

Monster Mingle4 screens
The Monsters by Tinybop4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: The Monsters by Tinybop at 4.5 against Monster Mingle's 4.0. The Monsters by Tinybop also leads on price ($2.99 vs $3.99) and iOS requirement (9.0 vs 12.0). Monster Mingle's advantage is review sentiment (89% vs 75%). On ratings volume, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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

Monster Mingle costs $3.99 and The Monsters by Tinybop $2.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

The Monsters by Tinybop holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 28 and 62 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 89% of Monster Mingle's written reviews are positive against 75% of The Monsters by Tinybop's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 6 months. The most recent releases landed on October 22, 2026 and October 20, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Monster Mingle versus The Monsters by Tinybop: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMonster MingleThe Monsters by Tinybop
Price$3.99$2.99 — better
Rating4.0 (28 ratings)4.5 (62 ratings) — better
Positive reviews89.2% of reviews — better74.6% of reviews
Number of ratings2862 — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 monthsEvery 6 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree — betterPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS12.09.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size300 MB175 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperCowly Owl LtdTinybop Inc.

Customer experience

Monster Mingle

All ratings28 ratings
Positive75.0%
Neutral10.7%
Negative14.3%
Written reviews37 reviews
Positive89.2%
Neutral2.7%
Negative8.1%

The Monsters by Tinybop

All ratings62 ratings
Positive82.3%
Neutral9.7%
Negative8.1%
Written reviews63 reviews
Positive74.6%
Neutral6.3%
Negative19.0%

In-app purchases

None

Monster Mingle

No in-app purchases

None

The Monsters by Tinybop

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Monster Mingle free?
Monster Mingle costs $3.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is The Monsters by Tinybop free?
The Monsters by Tinybop costs $2.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Monster Mingle or The Monsters by Tinybop?
The Monsters by Tinybop is rated higher. Monster Mingle averages 4.0 out of 5 from 28 ratings, while The Monsters by Tinybop averages 4.5 from 62 ratings.
Do Monster Mingle or The Monsters by Tinybop have ads?
Neither Monster Mingle nor The Monsters by Tinybop shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Monster Mingle or The Monsters by Tinybop?
Monster Mingle ships an update every 6 months, and The Monsters by Tinybop every 6 months. Most recently, Monster Mingle was updated on October 22, 2026 and The Monsters by Tinybop on October 20, 2026.

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