Best Bowling

Review by eFreeware

Most bowling scores disappear the moment the session ends. The alley's screen resets, the paper sheet gets crumpled into a bag, and by the next league night you have a number in your head and little else. Best Bowling is built for bowlers who would rather keep that record and do something with it. It comes from Wasabi Applications (わさびアプリ), sits in the Sports category, and costs $4.99 with no ads and no in-app purchases.

The pitch is straightforward: enter your scores as you bowl, then look back at the patterns later. That sounds modest, but the depth is in what gets recorded. This is not a simple running total that spits out an average. It is a notebook, a score sheet and a statistics tool rolled into one, and the question is whether that level of detail matches how you actually bowl.

It has been on Google Play since December 20, 2017, and the developer pushed an update in August 2026 that refreshed internal libraries for stability. The install base is small — over 1,000 installs — and it holds a 4.0 average from 72 ratings. That is a niche audience, which fits a tool this specific.

Frame-by-frame scoring, not just a total

The core of the app is the score sheet. For each frame you record the score and the state of the pins, so the record reflects what actually happened on the lane rather than the final figure alone. Alongside that you can note which bowling ball you used, your spare ball, your position and your spot. Over a season, that turns a list of numbers into something closer to a logbook.

Each entry can also carry the date and time of the event, a name for it — practice, league or whatever label you prefer — the place, free-form notes, your handicap and a tag. Tags are there for grouping and marking, which is useful if you want to separate league nights from open bowling without maintaining separate records.

The level of detail is the point. If you are the sort of bowler who wants to know how you scored and also which ball you were throwing, from which position, on which night, this is the structure for it. If you only ever want the final score written down, the input would be more work than the result deserves.

The statistics are where the value sits

Entering frames is the chore; the statistics are the payoff. The app produces a performance trend graph and a performance distribution graph, so you can see how your scores move over time and how they cluster. Those two views answer different questions — one about direction, one about consistency — and having both is more useful than a single average.

There is also pin-level analysis: percentages for each pin-down state and statistics on the pin patterns you leave standing. That is the part I find most interesting, because spare shooting is where most amateur scores are won and lost, and a record of which leaves keep appearing tells you what to practice. The summary rounds things out with total games, high game, games of 200 or better and split conversions.

None of this appears without input. The app analyzes what you feed it, so a handful of games will not reveal much. The graphs and percentages become meaningful across a stretch of sessions, which means the tool rewards the bowler who keeps entering scores rather than the one who tries it once.

Managing events, bowlers and records

The event list is sorted by date, and you can search and filter it, which matters once a season's worth of entries accumulates. Input history means repeated details do not have to be typed from scratch every time, a small thing that makes a real difference when you are entering frames between turns.

The app handles multiple bowlers, so one installation can cover a household or a team. You can save a score sheet as an image and share it, which is a neat way to settle a friendly argument or post a good series without transcribing anything. Data can be exported and imported, with Dropbox integration for moving records between devices.

It also supports the current frame scoring method, alongside the traditional way of calculating a running score. Bowlers who have switched to that system will find it accounted for rather than approximated. One practical note from the developer: emoticons cannot be used in the app.

What getting started involves

Setup is a matter of entering your details and then logging your first event. The app is designed for input while you bowl, so the fields are the ones you would expect to fill in at the lane: the event, the place, your handicap, the frame scores and pin states, the balls and your position. Nothing here suggests a long configuration process before the first game.

One feature worth flagging is Dropbox for the export and import features. That is part of the workflow for anyone who wants their records on more than one device or kept somewhere beyond the phone.

Because it is a paid download, there is no advertising to sit through. You pay once and the app is yours, which is a refreshing shape for a statistics tool. The trade-off is that you commit before you know whether the input rhythm suits you.

Who gets the most from it

This is a tool for bowlers who already keep some kind of record and want it to be more rigorous. League regulars who want to track a season, practice bowlers working on spare conversion, and anyone curious about which pin leaves keep costing them frames will all find something here. The pin-pattern statistics in particular are aimed at people who treat practice as something to measure.

It also suits households or teams where more than one person bowls, since multiple bowlers can be managed from one installation. The shareable score sheet image is a natural fit for that setting, and for anyone who posts results to a group chat after a good night.

The audience is narrow by design. A casual bowler who goes out a few times a year and just wants a score kept will find the frame-by-frame entry heavier than the benefit. That is not a flaw so much as a description of what the app is for: it is a record-keeping tool, and it asks for the record.

A worthwhile buy for the statistically minded bowler

What you get is a detailed score sheet, a set of graphs and pin statistics, event management with search and filtering, support for multiple bowlers, image sharing and Dropbox-based export and import. The current frame scoring method is supported too.

The caveats are the ones that come with any tracking tool. It needs your input to be worth anything, and the emoticon restriction is a small quirk. The install base is modest and the rating sits at 4.0 from 72 ratings, which is consistent with a specialist app that a small group of bowlers relies on.

If you bowl regularly and want to understand your own game through numbers, this is a sensible buy. If you want a scorecard and nothing more, the detail here will feel like effort for its own sake. For the bowler who already keeps a notebook, it is a clear upgrade.

What's new in version 1.5.4

Updated internal libraries to improve stability.