Best Periodic Table Apps in 2026: An Honest Comparison

Search “periodic table app” and you get hundreds of results, most of which are the same 118 boxes with different colour schemes. The differences that actually matter are less visible: where the element data comes from, whether the app still works on a plane or in a basement lab, whether the tools you need are behind a paywall, and whether the app wants an account before it will show you the atomic mass of carbon.

This guide compares five well-known options against each other, and against the app we build. Everything below was checked against each app's own store listing or website in August 2026; sources are listed at the bottom of the page. We have deliberately not quoted star ratings or download counts, because those move constantly and tell you very little about whether an app suits your work.

How we compared them

Four questions decide most of it:

• Platforms. An app that only exists on one operating system is not a bad app — but it is a dead end if you switch phones or share a study group across iPhone and Android.
• Price model. Free, one-time purchase, and subscription are three very different relationships. None is inherently wrong; what matters is knowing which one you are entering.
• Works offline. Chemistry gets done in lecture halls, basements, and field sites with no signal. We only mark “yes” where the app itself states it.
• Account required. A reference table has no obvious reason to need your email address, so it is worth checking before you install.

Where a listing simply does not address a point, the table says not stated. That is not the same as a “no” — it means we could not verify it, and we would rather leave a gap than invent a fact.

The comparison at a glance

Periodic Table: Chemistry 2026 — the deepest data set

Nikita Chernykh's app is the one to beat on sheer coverage. Alongside the interactive table it carries more than 3,300 isotopes that you can search and filter, a molar mass calculator built for awkward formulas, a chemistry dictionary, a reactions and equations section with conditions explained, a solubility chart, orbital models, and comparison tools. The table itself is unusually configurable: filters, colour themes, selected properties, and both long and short layouts.

It is free to download on both iPhone and Android, with in-app purchases, and the developer's own description makes a point of the app carrying no ads. If you are a university student who wants one app to answer isotope, solubility, and molar-mass questions without switching tools, this is the most complete option in the list — more complete, on raw feature count, than ours.

EMD PTE (Merck PTE) — the best genuinely free reference

Published by Merck KGaA, this is the rare case of a large chemical company shipping a properly maintained free app and then leaving it alone. The element records are exhaustive: valence electrons, oxidation states, electronegativity on both the Allred-Rochow and Pauling scales, atomic radius, crystalline structure type, Mohs hardness, isotopic composition, percentage of mass in the Earth's crust, year of discovery, and more. There is a molar mass calculator with its own dedicated keypad, a direct two-element comparison view, visualised property rankings, and a museum mode.

Two things make it stand out. First, it is explicitly built for offline use — the listing states plainly that no internet connection is needed. Second, the Google Play listing shows no ads and no in-app purchases, which means there is no paywall waiting further in. If your priority is “free, credible, works everywhere, on both platforms,” this is our honest recommendation over our own app.

The Elements by Theodore Gray — the one worth paying for

The Elements is not really a reference tool and does not try to be. It is a photographic book about matter: every element is represented by a smoothly rotating sample, and behind it sit more than 500 individually photographed objects you can spin in three dimensions and zoom into. Each element gets an essay rather than a data card, and the whole book — stories, captions and all — switches between English and sixteen other languages.

At $9.99 it is the only paid-up-front app in this comparison, and it is worth saying clearly: if what you want is to fall in love with chemistry, or to hand a curious teenager something that will hold them for an hour, this is a better purchase than any of the free reference apps here, ours included. If what you want is electronegativity values in three seconds, it is the wrong tool.

Ptable — the web table that has outlived most apps

Michael Dayah has run Ptable since 1997, and it remains the fastest way to get a periodic table onto a screen that you do not control — a lab computer, a library machine, a shared classroom projector. It is a browser page, so there is nothing to install, but you can install it: add it to your home screen or desktop and its properties, isotopes, and compound mixing keep working offline.

The feature set is genuinely strong: an isotope overlay with a dozen properties including half-life, a complete orbital readout per element with a 3-D view, a compounds view linking through to Wikipedia articles, and a temperature slider that shows each element's state of matter. It is free, supported by a single ad banner that can be removed by supporting the project on Patreon or buying an item from the store, and it asks nobody to sign up. For teachers who need one link that works on every device in the room, this is the pick.

Atomic — the open-source Android option

Atomic, by developer J. Lindemann, is the answer for anyone who wants to read the code behind the data. It is published as an open-source project on GitHub with an Android build on Google Play, and it aims at a clean, uncluttered reading experience for chemistry and physics learners rather than a maximal feature list. The Play listing shows in-app purchases available on top of the free app.

Open source matters more here than it might sound. Element data is copied and re-copied between apps, and errors propagate; being able to inspect the source and the data files is a real advantage for teachers and developers. Its obvious limit is that it is Android-only, so it is not an option if your class runs on iPads.

Periodic Table – Chem — ours, and where it fits

Full disclosure: we make this one. Treat everything in this section as the developer's own account, not an independent review.

We built Periodic Table – Chem around one priority: data you can trust, available with no connection and no sign-up. All 118 elements carry atomic mass, electron configuration, melting and boiling points, density, electronegativity, ionization energy, and oxidation states, verified against IUPAC and NIST standards. A temperature slider runs from 0 K to 6000 K and shows states of matter shifting across the table in real time. The premium unlock — available as a subscription or a one-time purchase — adds the molar mass calculator, the equation balancer, quiz modes and flashcards, saved elements with collections, and an ad-free experience. Favorites, notes, and collections stay on your device; there is no account and no tracking.

Where we would not recommend it: it is iPhone and iPad only, so Android users should look at Chernykh's app or Atomic. If you need isotope tables or a solubility chart, we do not have them and Chernykh's app does. And if you want everything free forever with no upgrade prompt at all, EMD PTE is the more honest fit.

So which one should you install?

• You want free, deep, offline, on any phone: EMD PTE.
• You want the most features and you are at university: Periodic Table: Chemistry 2026.
• You want chemistry to be beautiful: The Elements by Theodore Gray.
• You are teaching and need one link for every device: Ptable.
• You want auditable, open-source data on Android: Atomic.
• You are on iPhone or iPad and want IUPAC/NIST-verified data with no account, plus a molar mass calculator and equation balancer: ours.

Most people will end up with two: a reference they trust for numbers, and something that makes the subject enjoyable. That is a perfectly good outcome, and it does not have to cost anything.