Survival Mode

In Survival Mode, which is unlocked when Adventure Mode is beaten for the first time, the player must survive multiple waves of zombies such as 5 or 10 ( or in endless infinite waves). He/she gets to choose new seed packets to defend against a different group of zombies, five in total, every 1 or 2 flags (depending on whether playing the normal or hard versions) to continue building up his/her defenses. For each group of zombies, the plants the player previously had on the lawn and your sun remain, but Lawn Mowers, Pool Cleaners, and Roof Cleaners are not renewed. At the end of the first completion of each Survival Mode level, a Trophy is received with a Diamond, and Gold Coins for any remaining Lawn Mower, Pool Cleaner or Roof Cleaner. Survival Mode does not appear in the iPod or iPhone Version, and the iPad version does not include any of the Hard levels. The Normal modes last 5 flags, Hard modes 10, and Survival: Endless does not have an end.

Normal Modes - Day through Roof
In each of these modes the player must survive 5 flags of zombies, with a new group after each one. The zombie concentration is the same as in Adventure Mode levels, so these levels should be pretty easy. Zombies from other areas may show up in some cases. The hardest zombie you should encounter is Football Zombie.

Zombies
These zombies may appear in these five levels.
 * Zombie
 * Flag Zombie
 * Conehead Zombie
 * Pole Vaulting Zombie
 * Buckethead Zombie
 * Newspaper Zombie
 * Screen Door Zombie
 * Football Zombie
 * Dancing Zombie (except Roof)
 * Backup Dancer (except Roof)
 * Ducky Tube Zombie (Pool and Fog)
 * Snorkel Zombie (Pool and Fog)
 * Zomboni (Fog and Roof)
 * Dolphin Rider Zombie (Pool and [[Fog])
 * Jack-in-the-Box Zombie (Fog and Roof)
 * Balloon Zombie (Fog and Roof)
 * Digger Zombie ([Fog]] only)
 * Pogo Zombie (Fog and Roof)
 * Zombie Yeti* (if you encountered yet)
 * Ladder Zombie (Fog and Roof)
 * Catapult Zombie (Fog and Roof)
 * Trash Can Zombie (Fog and Roof)

Hard Modes: Day (Hard) through Roof (Hard)
These levels, as the name states, are quite hard. This time, you must survive 10 flags, with the zombies changing every two flags. To win this, plants like the Twin Sunflower, Gatling Pea with Torchwood, Winter Melon, and Pumpkin are essential. As the groups are different every time you play a level, it is not possible to create a strategy based on exactly what was encountered. You will probably want to have your Sunflowers inside Pumpkins in the back with a row of Split Peas, Spikerocks, or a pair of Gloom-shrooms (one on the second row from the bottom, and one on the second row from the top) if Digger Zombies come, or a row of Cacti if there are Balloon Zombies, although Cattails work much better for this purpose in Survival: Fog, Survival: Pool and Survival: Fog (Hard). Even when you don't have any Balloon Zombies, you would quickly find out that Cattails are one of the best plants, and in both pool and fog levels, turn in to a must-have plant.

Blovers can also work, but you have to pay extreme attention. Survival: Day (Hard) and Survival: Pool (Hard) should be the easiest, with Survival: Night (Hard) slightly more difficult, Survival: Roof (Hard) still harder, and the hardest being Survival: Fog (Hard), though this is subjective. Cob Cannons come in handy on these levels, as there will probably be Gargantuars at some point (usually after flags 5 and 6), but they aren't necessary; instant kills such as Cherry Bombs, Jalapenos, and Squash should be sufficient. However, they make Survival: Roof (Hard) much less strenuous, and are very useful on Survival: Fog (Hard).

The Survival: (Hard) levels also introduce a new Trash Can Zombie in the Xbox Live Arcade, PS3, and DS versions. It is basically the equivalent of a Screen Door Zombie except slower.

Survival: Endless
Main Article: Survival: Endless

This time, the player attempts to survive as many waves of zombies as he/she can, choosing new seeds every two flags. At first, the zombie density is the same as in the Hard modes, but it quickly grows to over that of Column Like You See 'Em. In addition, upgrades for plants get progressively more expensive; for every upgrade plant that is on the screen, additional upgrade plants cost 50 more sun. Winter Melons and Pumpkins are essential here, and both Cob Cannon and Gloom-shrooms are a must in almost all builds. Instants are very good here, although not completely necessary with the Cob Cannons, and zombies come in such droves that playing a half-hour of this will earn you maybe 20 or 30 thousand dollars if you only click half or a third of the coins, given that you are at least 15 waves in. The high number of zombies also has the effect of generating many diamonds in a short time; at its best a diamond may appear every 4-5 seconds.

Alternatively, (depending on preference) you could use Potato Mines and Imitater Potato Mines combined with Cattails to hold the zombies back while you save up to go straight to Winter Melons, Cob Cannonsorotherpowerful plants. This mode also introduces the Giga-gargantuar, a red-eyed version of the normal Gargantuar that takes 4 instants' worth of damage before finally going down which means 100% more health compared to a Gargantuar.
 * Note: There can be more than one Survival: Endless - by playing a Survival: Hard game and modifying the save file name, it is possible to create Survival: Day (Endless), Survival: Night (Endless) and others. This article only discusses the original. However, these are only seen in the online version.
 * Spike_o'_Pea.png strategy by Hoanganhminh]]

For a more in-depth Survival: Endless guide, click here.

Online Version
In the online version, it takes place at Night. The player can only choose 4 plants and meets the Giga Football Zombie.

Modes
Some Survival modes are hidden in Limbo Page, there are: Via moddng you can also play Survival Night Roof.
 * Survival: Day
 * Survival: Night
 * Survival: Pool
 * Survival: Fog
 * Survival: Roof
 * Survival: Day (Hard)
 * Survival: Night (Hard)
 * Survival: Pool (Hard)
 * Survival: Fog (Hard)
 * Survival: Roof (Hard)
 * Survival: Endless
 * Survival: Day (Endless)
 * Survival: Night (Endless)
 * Survival: Fog (Endless)
 * Survival: Roof (Endless)

​Trivia

 * In Survival: Endless in Plants vs. Zombies DS, there is a mistake where it says Survival: Day (Endless), although it should say Survival: Pool (Endless).
 * In Survival: Fog/Roof, a Trash Can Zombie occasionally appears.
 * It is possible to complete all Survival Hard Modes by using only Sunflower/Twin Sunflower/Sun-shroom, Instants, Lily Pad and Flower Pots only.
 * After completing 9 of the 10 survival levels, the music tune that is played after beating a level changes.
 * It is possible to finish Survival: Pool (Hard) without using any Sun-producing plants [1].
 * There is an error in the GOTY edition that during the seed selection on Survival: Roof and Survival: Roof (Hard) the "View Lawn" button will still say "View Lawn" instead of "View Roof".
 * This is because there is no "View Roof" button in the game files.
 * Instead of saying game over it says you survived _ flag(s) before dying a GRUESOME ZOMBIE DEATH!
 * In normal levels, the Zombies in first flag are Zombie, Flag Zombie and Conehead Zombie. (Ducky Tube Zombie in Pool and Fog).
 * In hard and endless levels, the Zombies in first two flags are Zombie, Flag Zombie, Conehead Zombie and Buckethead Zombie. (Ducky Tube Zombie in Pool and Fog).
 * Zombie Bobsled Team never appears in Survival Mode, even though Zombonis and Ice Trails do appear
 * Zomboni and Gargantuar (with Imp) only appear after 4 flags. They will not appear in 3-4 flags.
 * Giga-gargantuar only appears after 10 flags.