# Zen - Private Habit Tracker — Rounds, timers, and challenges

> Rounds, timers, and challenges (iPhone/iPad app by Donado Labs.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/zen-private-habit-tracker/id6760182618 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Donado Labs](https://appshunter.io/developer/1883010815)
- Category: Productivity, Lifestyle
- Price: $9.99
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 17.0 · 46 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2026-06-17
- Data updated: 2026-10-06

## What is Zen?

Habits, tracked locally. Shared only when you say so.

Zen works offline. No accounts, no ads, no tracking, no subscriptions. Every habit, day, and note lives in a local database on your iPhone, and the app reads and writes it without a network.

Start from 236 habits that are already worded, across 16 categories, or write your own. Pick the days it repeats, a start and end date, a reminder, an icon, and a color.

Three kinds of goal: run a timer, count reps, or work through a series of rounds. The day completes when the work does. A running timer keeps going on the Lock Screen, in the Dynamic Island, and from the app icon.

Habit strength turns your recorded history into a 0-100 estimate. Gains slow over time, misses lower it gradually, and skipped days stay neutral. Read it beside your current streak and a full year of completions.

Complete a habit wherever you are. Five Home Screen widgets carry today, weekly progress, strength, streak, and history. Apple Watch runs the work itself: a timer that counts down, a counter with its tally, and a series worked round by round, with today's tally on the watch face. Ask Siri to mark a habit done. iPad lays the app out for its own width.

Challenges are optional. Share a habit over iCloud with the people you invite. Everyone keeps their own habit, nothing is public, and there are no profiles.

There is no Donado Labs server to hold your data, so the device is where it is. Optional sync passes it between your own Apple devices through your iCloud account, and you can take a copy of everything as a JSONL file whenever you want it, once, or kept up to date in your iCloud Drive.

## Is Zen safe?

Not enough ratings yet to assess Zen.

## Is Zen legit?

Zen - Private Habit Tracker has limited verification signals. The AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for Zen is 58 out of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data.


## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 1.4.1 — 2026-09-15

Regular updates to Zen fix bugs, improve performance, and enhance your experience.

### 1.4.0 — 2026-09-08

Regular updates to Zen fix bugs, improve performance, and enhance your experience.

### 1.3.2 — 2026-08-26

- Get a notification when someone in a Challenge completes their day, even when the app is closed.
- Onboarding now explains what notifications are for before asking permission.
- Joining a Challenge creates a habit that matches the original: same goal, same schedule.
- Start a Challenge straight from a habit, without picking the habit again.
- Challenge hosts can rename a Challenge or change when it ends.
- A running habit timer now continues on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, and keeps counting when you leave the screen.
- Use the timer and counter on past days, so a day you forgot to log can still be filled in.
- Set a start date while creating a habit.
- Creating a habit moves step by step, and you can swipe back to change an answer.
- Adjust goals, Challenge targets, and Challenge duration with plus and minus, and hold either to move in bigger jumps.
- Tap a marked day again to clear it.
- Every habit action now lives in one menu on the habit screen.
- Swipe a progress card to look back through earlier weeks and months.
- The streak strip ends on today instead of starting on Monday, so a fresh week is no longer empty.
- Progress charts show every day, with a diagonal line marking the ones you skipped.
- Expanding rows like the date picker now open and close with the same motion.
- The inline calendar matches the app's colors instead of system blue.
- Empty screens are plain text instead of placeholder cards that looked like loading.
- Reorder your habits by holding a card and dragging it where you want.
- Hold a habit card for quick actions without opening the habit.
- Today's card shows how far along a running timer or counter is.
- Control a running timer from the app icon.
- The Lock Screen timer is built around a progress ring, and a session can be restarted from the habit screen.
- A Challenge now charts every participant's streak across the whole challenge, so you can see the runs, the breaks, and how much time is left.
- Each participant keeps one color across the Challenge chart and the standings.
- Open a Challenge's habit from the Challenge, and the Challenge from the habit.
- Challenge activity shows timer and counter progress, with a burst of taps kept to a single line.
- Challenge notifications name who completed, and no longer say it is your turn when you already finished your day.
- Reorder your Challenges the same way as habits.
- Fixed: joining a Challenge now keeps the original habit's goal.
- Fixed: editing a Challenge opens with its current settings.
- Fixed: a habit that fails to be created when joining a Challenge now says so instead of failing quietly.

### 1.3.1 — 2026-08-10

- Leave a Challenge and rejoin later from a valid invite. Your personal habit stays put either way.
- Challenge invites and sharing now work reliably on iOS 26.
- Menus across the app are now native controls, with clearer icons and status colors.
- Expanded progress views now fit properly on iPad.

### 1.3.0 — 2026-08-08

- Apple Watch: view and complete today's scheduled habits.
- Challenges: share an iCloud invite, connect your own habit, and follow participant progress.
- Habit strength now uses your completion history, with focused strength, streak, and full-year history views.
- Daily notes and activity entries now keep their dates in sync across habit details and Home.
- Improved reminder reliability, template browsing, habit editing, and iPad layouts.

## Apps similar to Zen

| App | Rating | Price | Category |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [outtimer - On-Time Voice Timer](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/outtimer-on-time-voice-timer/id6814711918) | — | Free | Productivity |
| [ShiftFlow: Rotation Calendar](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/shiftflow-rotation-calendar/id6818828064) | — | $0.99 | Productivity |
| [Finished: Done List & Wins](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/finished-done-list-and-wins/id6798391303) | 5.0 (1) | Free | Productivity |
| [And Many More: Birthday Alerts](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/and-many-more-birthday-alerts/id6765561665) | 5.0 (1) | $0.99 | Productivity |
| [PaceTimer - onTime](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pacetimer-ontime/id6740053131) | — | Free | Productivity |
| [Roast My Resume (AI Roaster)](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/roast-my-resume-ai-roaster/id6815114071) | — | Free | Productivity |

## More apps by Donado Labs

- [Dictate: Private Voice Notes](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/dictate-private-voice-notes/id6816413633)

All apps by Donado Labs: https://appshunter.io/developer/1883010815

---

*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-10-06.*
