Comparison

Countdown Widget & Counter vs Up Ahead

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Countdown Widget & Counter

Create customizable widgets to track upcoming events directly on your home screen. Visualize your countdowns with beautiful designs, icons, and color gradients. Receive real-time notifications for important dates.

Highlights
  • Live countdown widgets
  • Customizable widget templates
  • Event editor with live preview
  • Color gradients
  • Over 50 icons
  • Real-time push notifications
Features
Read full description

Keep an eye on your upcoming events - directly on your Home Screen! Create minimalistic widgets that countdown to the big day.   The widgets in Widget Studio are highly customizable and clean-designed, so that nothing distracts your focus from the concert, your best friend‘s birthday or whatever you‘re currently looking forward to! It‘s quick, easy, and looks awesome. Welcome to Widget Studio. So, what do we have here? - Powerful event editor with live preview - Multiple customizable widget templates for iPhone & iPad - Beautiful color gradients for your Home Screen - Over 50 different icons to choose from - Real time push notifications for your events - Full support for Voice Over and Dynamic Type - Live countdown widgets Info: Most of the app's content is free. Some selected features require the purchase of a full version in the app (recurring annual subscription). We rely on your support to make development possible. Thank you for your understanding! :) Terms of Use (EULA) & Privacy Policy: https://cranberry.app/legal We have put a lot of love into the development of Widget Studio and hope you enjoy it. However, if you have something to complain about, or an exciting idea for future updates or additional apps of Widget Studio, please feel free to contact us at any time via support@cranberry.app. We are looking forward to your message. Take care!

About

Up Ahead

A visually appealing app to track upcoming events with customizable countdown widgets for your Home and Lock Screens. Create events in seconds and personalize them with unique patterns. Stay organized with reminders and attachments.

Highlights
  • Customizable countdown widgets
  • Event timeline view
  • Unlockable decorative patterns
  • Flexible reminders
  • Event attachments (notes/links)
  • Recurring and multi-day events
  • iCloud backups
Features
Read full description

Up Ahead is a playful, beautiful way to keep track of everything you’re looking forward to. Create events in seconds, and build yourself an eclectic timeline full of birthdays, weddings, holidays, vacations, game releases, sporting events, or anything coming up that brings you joy. As your timeline grows, you’ll unlock themed patterns that can be used to give your events personality. Keep your countdowns top of mind with customizable widgets for your Home Screen or Lock Screen. --- CREATE EVENTS Up Ahead events are quick and simple to create — just give your event a name, a date (with optional time), a category icon, and a color. EVENT TIMELINE View your events in a unique timeline format that gives you visual information about how much time is passing between events, and allows you to easily look back on your entire event history. PATTERNS As you create events, you’ll start to unlock decorative patterns that can be applied to any of your events and appear in both your in-app timeline and your widgets. Patterns are unlocked based on the content of your events, or as weekly gifts. How many can you find? REMINDERS Schedule flexible reminders to get notified about the events you don't want to miss. ATTACHMENTS Keep all your event information in one place by attaching short notes or links to your events. HOME SCREEN WIDGETS * "Countdown" widgets are simple widgets for counting down to a specific event. * "Coming up" widgets come in multiple sizes and will dynamically count down to whatever event is coming up next. They can be customized with filters and display names, allowing you to create widgets such as “Next Raptors game” or “Upcoming game releases”. * "Timeline grid" widgets give you a colorful high-level overview of all your upcoming events. LOCK SCREEN WIDGETS Simplified versions of “Countdown” and “Coming up” widgets are available to place right on your Lock Screen. SIRI SHORTCUTS Automate event creation or ask Siri about your events with Siri Shortcuts. TIMELINE FILTERING Quickly filter your events temporarily so that you can get a clean look at just the film releases you’re looking forward to, or the birthdays you want to remember. RECURRING EVENTS Mark an event as recurring — weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or yearly — to have it automatically replace itself in your timeline when an instance of the event has passed. MULTI-DAY EVENTS Give an event an optional end date to countdown to both an event’s beginning and its end. ICLOUD BACKUPS Automatically back up your events and pattern unlocks to iCloud Drive to ensure you never lose access to your data. EVENT SHARING Lightweight event sharing allows you to export and share colorful images of any event. SOUND AND HAPTICS Delightful sound effects and haptics bring the app to life. ...and lots more fun stuff to discover. --- The free version of Up Ahead is free forever, and contains no ads. If you’re looking for the best way to simply pop a few good-looking countdown widgets onto your Home Screen or Lock Screen, downloading Up Ahead for free is a great place to start. With an in-app subscription to Up Ahead Plus, you’ll get all the bells and whistles: unlimited event creation, recurring and multi-day events, the full suite of widget types, and more. --- Payment will be charged to your Apple ID account at the confirmation of purchase. The subscription automatically renews unless it is canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your account will be charged for renewal within 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can manage and cancel your subscriptions by going to your App Store account settings after purchase. Cancellation of the current active subscription period is not allowed. Privacy policy: https://upaheadapp.com/privacy Terms of service: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Countdown Widget & Counter4 screens
Up Ahead4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Up Ahead at 4.9 against Countdown Widget & Counter's 4.6. Countdown Widget & Counter's advantage is device support (3 vs 1) and ratings volume (2.4K vs 684). On price, review sentiment, update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Countdown Widget & Counter sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and Up Ahead sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.49 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Up Ahead holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.6. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2.4K and 684 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 76% of Countdown Widget & Counter's written reviews are positive against 83% of Up Ahead's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Countdown Widget & Counter ships an update every 3 weeks, Up Ahead every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 12, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Countdown Widget & Counter versus Up Ahead: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCountdown Widget & CounterUp Ahead
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (2.4K ratings)4.9 (684 ratings) — better
Positive reviews75.8% of reviews83.1% of reviews — better
Number of ratings2.4K — better684
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeks — betterEvery 5 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — betteriPhone
Requires iOS17.616.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size160 MB37 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSovereign Apps LLCDaniel Gauthier

Customer experience

Countdown Widget & Counter

All ratings2,425 ratings
Positive90.9%
Neutral3.2%
Negative5.9%
Written reviews920 reviews
Positive75.8%
Neutral8.9%
Negative15.3%

Up Ahead

All ratings684 ratings
Positive96.6%
Neutral1.6%
Negative1.8%
Written reviews160 reviews
Positive83.1%
Neutral8.1%
Negative8.8%

User reviews

Countdown Widget & Counter

From 2.4K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Simple and easy to use
  • 👍 Fantastic for glancing at events
  • 👍 Cool app
  • 👍 Nice widgets
  • 👍 Good countdown app

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Extremely buggy
  • 🔕 NOT IMPRESSED (no sound)
  • 💰 Expensive price
  • 💰 Money
  • 💰 Only 2 for free

Up Ahead

From 684 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Great app with clean UI
  • 🎨 Simple and joyful design
  • 🕰️ Excellent countdown app
  • 🎨 Beautifully designed
  • 🎨 Lovely and intuitive

Room to improve

  • 💰 Overpriced subscription
  • 💰 Limited free version
  • 🔄 Abandoned by developers
  • 🔄 No updates in a long time
  • 🔄 Development paused?

Bugs and requests

Countdown Widget & Counter

Reported bugs

7 issues
  • Time calculation isn't correct
  • Widget and in-app display show different days remaining
  • Widget goes blank after phone restart
  • Countdowns freeze or count up unexpectedly
  • Paid version still shows ads
Show 2 more
  • Widgets disappear after iOS updates
  • App loses all user data after updates

Requested features

11 requests
  • Better integration with calendar and reminder API
  • Ability to rearrange events in the countdown list
  • Option to default 'What's Next' to user's choice
  • Larger photo frame in widget
  • Ability to group events into categories
Show 6 more
  • Option to change font
  • Ability to select an emoji for icons
  • Notification times for events
  • Ability to select the countdown unit (weeks/months)
  • Dark mode option
  • Advanced analytics dashboard

Up Ahead

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • Widget doesn't update automatically
  • Backup feature doesn't work
  • Sound effects stopped working
  • Login screen freezes
  • Incompatible with older devices

Requested features

11 requests
  • Unlock all patterns
  • More color options
  • More icons and customization
  • Calendar integration
  • Siri and reminder integration
Show 6 more
  • iPad app
  • Apple Watch complications
  • Ability to set end dates for recurring events
  • Periodic reminders for past events
  • Family sharing
  • Import events from other calendars

In-app purchases

10 purchases

Countdown Widget & Counter

Subscriptions8
  • Widget Studio PRO$1.991 Month
  • Monthly Subscription$3.991 Month
  • Widget Studio PRO$4.991 Year
Show 5 more
  • Widget Studio PRO$5.991 Year
  • Widget Studio PRO2 variants$7.991 Year
  • Widget Studio PRO$8.991 Year
  • Annual Subscription3 Days trial$12.991 Year
  • Widget Studio PRO$12.991 Year
One-time2
  • Widget Studio Pro Lifetime$9.99
  • Widget Studio Pro Lifetime$14.99
3 purchases

Up Ahead

Subscriptions2
  • Up Ahead Plus$1.491 Month
  • Up Ahead Plus$9.991 Year
One-time1
  • Up Ahead Plus$29.99

Questions

Is Countdown Widget & Counter free?
Countdown Widget & Counter is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Up Ahead free?
Up Ahead is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Countdown Widget & Counter or Up Ahead?
Up Ahead is rated higher. Countdown Widget & Counter averages 4.6 out of 5 from 2.4K ratings, while Up Ahead averages 4.9 from 684 ratings.
Do Countdown Widget & Counter or Up Ahead have ads?
Neither Countdown Widget & Counter nor Up Ahead shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Countdown Widget & Counter or Up Ahead?
Countdown Widget & Counter ships an update every 3 weeks, and Up Ahead every 5 weeks. Most recently, Countdown Widget & Counter was updated on October 16, 2026 and Up Ahead on October 12, 2026.

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