Comparison

PlayBox vs Visual Pinball

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

Head to head
About

PlayBox

Discover a curated collection of classic mini-games, offering instant fun without long loading times. Perfect for quick breaks or extended play sessions, this app provides a variety of brain teasers, skill challenges, and dice games.

Highlights
  • Multiple classic games in one app
  • Brain teasers and skill games
  • Dice games
  • Instant play, no long loading
  • Clean, modern design
  • Ideal for on-the-go play
Features
Read full description

Welcome to PlayBox – your collection of popular classic games in a single app! Whether it’s a quick break or a long game night, with mini-games like Snake, Memory, Sudoku, Yatzy, and many more, you’ll always find the perfect game. Highlights - Many games in one app - Brain teasers, skill games & dice fun - Play instantly – no long loading times - Clean, modern design - Perfect for on the go and in between Whether you love puzzles, want to train your memory, or simply feel like playing a round of Snake – PlayBox has everything you need.

About

Visual Pinball

Enjoy a realistic pinball simulation with hundreds of community-created tables. Experience immersive haptic feedback and customize your gameplay with intuitive settings and controller support. Advanced options are available for power users.

Highlights
  • Hundreds of community-developed tables
  • Haptic feedback for immersive gameplay
  • Customizable settings and POV adjustments
  • Game controller support
  • External DMD and AltColor/AltSound support
  • Touch overlay and instructions
Features
Read full description

The official Visual Pinball app. Built by volunteers since 2000 and open source since 2010, Visual Pinball is the simulator the virtual pinball community has been playing for over two decades. More than 70 people have contributed to it, and this app runs the same engine as the desktop version, so every table plays with the physics, lighting and sound its creator intended. No ads. No in-app purchases. No tracking. Made by volunteers. Two years of work from the Visual Pinball volunteers, in one update. Thank you for your patience, and for playing! A FRESH NEW LOOK • Redesigned for iOS 26 with Liquid Glass • Favorites and recently played tables at the top of your list • Search, sorting and three tile sizes • Light, Dark or System appearance • New loading screen that shows progress THE FULL DESKTOP EXPERIENCE • The complete Visual Pinball in-game menu for graphics, sound, controls and table options • Remap every button on keyboards and game controllers • Save settings for every table, or just the one you're playing MORE TABLES, LOOKING BETTER • Show the backglass and score display (DMD, alphanumeric or reels) on screen, right where you want them • Support for PUP packs, FlexDMD, B2S backglasses, video playback and VNI colorizations • All the latest physics and rendering improvements from the desktop version • Much lower memory use: textures are compressed on first load, then cached EASIER TABLE MANAGEMENT • Import .zip files, along with .vpx and .vpxz • Share any table as a single .vpxz file • The web file manager can now upload whole folders, extract archives, edit scripts and settings, and show the log live AND MORE • Many stability and memory fixes This version requires iOS 26.6 or later.

Screenshots

PlayBox4 screens
Visual Pinball3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: PlayBox at every 3 weeks against Visual Pinball's every 12 months. PlayBox also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 79%). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

PlayBox ships an update every 3 weeks, Visual Pinball every 12 months. The most recent releases landed on October 21, 2026 and October 22, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
PlayBox versus Visual Pinball: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPlayBoxVisual Pinball
PriceFreeFree
Rating—4.3 (74 ratings) — better
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews — better78.6% of reviews
Number of ratings—74 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeks — betterEvery 12 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS26.0 — better26.6
Further details — not scored
Size14 MB120 MB
Age rating4+9+
DeveloperMycroAppsJason Millard

Customer experience

PlayBox

Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Visual Pinball

All ratings73 ratings
Positive80.8%
Neutral6.8%
Negative12.3%
Written reviews56 reviews
Positive78.6%
Neutral12.5%
Negative8.9%

Bugs and requests

PlayBox

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

Visual Pinball

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Tables don't load for some users
  • Certain complex/intensive tables error out or run at low FPS

Requested features

6 requests
  • List of most played tables
  • Ability to reposition DMD
  • Option to skip startup checks for some tables
  • Ability to edit table scripts on the app
  • Direct link to table depository
Show 1 more
  • iPad version with more screen space

In-app purchases

None

PlayBox

No in-app purchases

None

Visual Pinball

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is PlayBox free?
PlayBox is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Visual Pinball free?
Visual Pinball is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do PlayBox or Visual Pinball have ads?
Neither PlayBox nor Visual Pinball shows ads.
Which is updated more often, PlayBox or Visual Pinball?
PlayBox ships an update every 3 weeks, and Visual Pinball every 12 months. Most recently, PlayBox was updated on October 21, 2026 and Visual Pinball on October 22, 2026.

Other comparisons