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Best Idle Defense Apps for iPhone (2026)
Summoners Greed: Tower Defense is the top-ranked of 23 idle defense apps on iPhone, at S tier with 4.9/5 from 128,757 ratings.
- 1
Free + IAP · ★ 4.9 · 128,757 ratings · score 97 - 2
Free download · ★ 4.7 · 8,910 ratings · score 93 - 3
Free download · ★ 4.7 · 11,409 ratings · score 93 - 4
Free download · ★ 4.7 · 11,970 ratings · score 93 - 5
Free download · ★ 4.7 · 4,707 ratings · score 92
What belongs in this list
Defend a base or position against waves of enemies in a game that keeps progressing and earning while idle.
Not here: an idle clicker with no enemies to defend against alone (idle games); an idle RPG with hero quests alone; an idle tycoon or business builder alone; a tower defense with no idle progress alone; an evolution or merge idle game alone
How we pick
For this list we ask the App Store the same searches a person would, in several countries, and keep every app it returns. A model reads each app's listing and rejects the ones that only mention the use case. Every app that stays is scored out of 100 from four parts, each 0 to 100 and averaged with no weights: its App Store rating, how many people rated it, where the App Store itself ranks it for this list's searches, and how recently its current version shipped. An app showing Apple's Editors' Choice badge gets a fifth part of 100, which can only lift its score. Tiers follow fixed score bands: S from 90, A from 80, B from 70, C from 60, D from 50, F below. The list's leader is S if it scores 80 or more. On a list of 20 or more ranked apps, a tier from S to D takes in new apps only up to a quarter of the top 40: an app pushed out of a full tier falls to the next tier with room, and F takes the rest. An app already in a tier keeps its place while the tier is at most 2 apps over a quarter; past that, only the apps over that margin go down, lowest score first. Equal scores share a tier, and no app has a better tier than an app ranked above it. An app keeps its tier until its score passes the band edge by more than 1 point, or a full tier or the order above moves it. Only the top 40 of a list get a tier. Read the full method →
Compare every app
- 1Free + IAP · ★ 4.9 · 128,757 ratings · score 97 · best in class
- 2Free download · ★ 4.7 · 8,910 ratings · score 93 · best in class
- 3Free download · ★ 4.7 · 11,409 ratings · score 93 · best in class
- 4Free download · ★ 4.7 · 11,970 ratings · score 93 · best in class
- 5Free download · ★ 4.7 · 4,707 ratings · score 92 · best in class
- 6
Free download · ★ 4.7 · 9,053 ratings · score 92 · best in class - 7
Free download · ★ 4.6 · 4,601 ratings · score 91 · best in class - 8
Free + IAP · ★ 4.2 · 20,001 ratings · score 90 · excellent - 9
Free + IAP · ★ 4.9 · 8,521 ratings · score 87 · excellent - 10
Free download · ★ 4.9 · 8,388 ratings · score 84 · excellent - 11
Free download · ★ 4.9 · 4,530 ratings · score 79 · good - 12
Free download · ★ 4.6 · 8,393 ratings · score 79 · good - 13
Free download · ★ 4.6 · 21,125 ratings · score 72 · good - 14
Free + IAP · ★ 4.8 · 67,673 ratings · score 70 · good - 15
Free download · ★ 4.8 · 9,231 ratings · score 69 · situational · provisional - 16
Free download · ★ 4.9 · 4,173 ratings · score 69 · situational · provisional - 17
Free download · ★ 4.8 · 2,497 ratings · score 68 · situational · provisional - 18
Free download · ★ 4.8 · 2,646 ratings · score 68 · situational · provisional - 19
Free download · ★ 4.7 · 4,811 ratings · score 62 · situational - 20
Free + IAP · ★ 4.4 · 81 ratings · score 60 · weak · provisional - 21
Free + IAP · ★ 4.7 · 4,857 ratings · score 43 · avoid · provisional - 22
Free + IAP · ★ 4.7 · 2,555 ratings · score 42 · avoid · provisional - 23
Free download · ★ 4.6 · 2,510 ratings · score 42 · avoid · provisional
New in the last 30 days
- Days Bygone: Castle Defense (C)
- Harvest King: Farm Defense TD (C)
- Idle Monster TD (F)
- Idle Defense: Dark Forest (F)
Questions people ask
- What is the best idle defense app for iPhone?
- Summoners Greed: Tower Defense, S tier, ranked #1 of 23, rated 4.9 by 128,757 people.
- Which idle defense apps are free?
- 23 of 23 are free to download: Summoners Greed: Tower Defense (S), Boom Castle: Tower Defense TD (S), Archer Forest : Idle Defense (S), Zombie Idle Defense (S) and more. 7 of them sell in-app purchases.
- Which idle defense app has the best App Store rating?
- Summoners Greed: Tower Defense at 4.9 from 128,757 ratings.
- How many idle defense apps reach S or A tier?
- 10 of 23. Tiers follow fixed score bands: S from 90, A from 80, B from 70, C from 60, D from 50, F below. The list's leader is S if it scores 80 or more. On a list of 20 or more ranked apps, a tier from S to D takes in new apps only up to a quarter of the top 40: an app pushed out of a full tier falls to the next tier with room, and F takes the rest. An app already in a tier keeps its place while the tier is at most 2 apps over a quarter; past that, only the apps over that margin go down, lowest score first. Equal scores share a tier, and no app has a better tier than an app ranked above it. An app keeps its tier until its score passes the band edge by more than 1 point, or a full tier or the order above moves it. Only the top 40 of a list get a tier.
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