Scratch

Review by eFreeware

Scratch is one of the few creative tools where the name has become shorthand for the whole idea: children arranging colorful blocks of code to make something that moves, talks or plays. The official app comes from the Scratch Foundation, the nonprofit behind the platform, and it brings that same approach to Android and Chrome tablets. If you have a child who wants to build games rather than just play them, this is the most direct route I know of on a tablet.

The app is free, carries no ads and offers no in-app purchases, which matters when the intended audience is kids. It is rated for Everyone and has been downloaded over a million times. The rating sits at 3.7 from 16,253 reviews, a respectable but not glowing figure that suggests the tablet experience has room to grow. It was first released in November 2019 and last updated in June 2025, so the project is clearly still being maintained.

What makes Scratch distinctive is not any single feature but the combination: a full block-based programming environment, a library of ready-made art and sound, the ability to connect to physical hardware, and a global community where finished projects can be shared. Few free tools for children bring that much together in one place.

Coding stories, games and animations from blocks

The core of the app is the block editor. Instead of typing syntax, you drag and snap together blocks that control movement, sound, appearance and logic. The developer's pitch is that anyone can build interactive stories, games and animations this way, and the block model is what makes that plausible for a young beginner: there is no compiler to fight with and no missing semicolon to hunt down.

Scratch is used by millions of children both in school and at home, according to the developer, and the app is positioned as the official tablet version of that platform. That matters if your child already uses Scratch on a computer at school, because the projects and the way of working carry over.

The most recent update added a debugging assistance dialog, which is a small but telling addition. Beginners spend a lot of time confused about why a sprite is not doing what they expected, and any help the app can offer at that moment is welcome. Newer device compatibility and updated translations were part of the same release.

Art, sound and hardware you can wire into projects

A coding tool is only as interesting as what you can put on screen, and Scratch gives you a library of characters and backdrops to start from. You can also draw your own, which is where a lot of children spend their first happy hour. The same goes for audio: there is a library of sounds to drop in, and you can record your own voice or noises directly.

The feature I find most interesting is hardware support. Coding can also reach outside the screen: the app works with hardware like micro:bit, Makey Makey and LEGO MINDSTORMS, plus the tablet camera. That turns a screen-based toy into something that reacts to the room, and it is the kind of thing that keeps older children engaged once simple animations stop being enough.

The developer also points to tutorials on the Scratch site for getting started and going further, plus a set of free resources for educators who want to use Scratch in a classroom. A child working alone will need someone to point them at the tutorials first.

What the app asks of you

The price is the easy part: the app itself is free, there are no ads, and there are no in-app purchases. For a children's app that is close to ideal, and it removes the usual worry about a child tapping into a store.

The requirement worth planning around is the device. Scratch's own app targets Chrome and Android tablets, so that is where it makes sense to run it. The block editor needs screen space, and a phone would be cramped for dragging blocks around.

Sharing to the global Scratch community requires creating an account. Without one you can still work on projects, but the community side of Scratch, where children see what others have made and publish their own work, depends on signing in. Projects can also be exported and shared directly with friends and family, which is a simpler route for younger children.

One more practical point: projects can be created and saved without an internet connection. That is genuinely useful for a car journey, a waiting room or a classroom with unreliable Wi-Fi, and it means a child is not blocked from working just because the network is down.

Getting the most out of it with a child

The natural way in is to start small. A single character that moves when tapped, or a short animated greeting, is enough for a first project and gives a child a finished thing to show someone. The tutorials the developer links to are built for exactly this kind of gentle start.

Once the basics land, the library of characters, backdrops and sounds lets a child build something more personal without needing drawing or music skills. Recording their own voice is often the moment a project stops feeling like an exercise and starts feeling like theirs.

For a classroom, the educator resources are the obvious starting point, and the offline mode helps when the school network is unreliable. Parents who want to work alongside a child will find the block model easy enough to follow even without a programming background, which is not something you can say about most coding environments.

If your child already uses Scratch at school, the tablet app is a way to keep going at home without a computer. If they are new to it, expect the first sessions to be about exploring the blocks rather than finishing anything polished.

A free creative coding tool for tablet-owning families

Scratch does something unusual: it gives children a real programming environment, a stocked art and sound library, hardware tinkering and a global audience for their work, all without charging anything or showing an ad. For families with an Android or Chrome tablet, and for teachers who want creative coding in the classroom, that combination is hard to argue with.

The caveats are modest but real. Community sharing needs an account, and the 3.7 rating suggests the app does not delight everyone who tries it. A child working entirely alone will get further with a little guidance.

I would point this at children roughly in the later primary years and up, and at the adults who teach them. It is not a game to hand over and forget; it is a tool that rewards a bit of shared attention, and the free price means trying it costs nothing but time.

What's new

• New debugging assistance dialog • Updated SDK and libraries for compatibility with newer devices • Updated translations • Bug fixes & performance improvements