Comparison

Hourly vs Alarm Clock ◎

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

Head to head
About

Hourly

This app provides customizable hourly chimes and notifications, functioning like a personal wristwatch that alerts you at specific intervals. You can select unique sounds, display custom messages, and choose which times to be notified.

Highlights
  • Customizable hourly chimes
  • Selectable notification sounds
  • Display custom messages
  • Flexible notification scheduling
  • No ads or tracking
Features
Read full description

Hourly helps you keep track of time. It's just like having a wristwatch that beeps on the hour, except it's much more personal! You can choose: * The sound to play (from a simple wristwatch beep, to the legendary Greenwich Pips, to a spoken voice, or the chime of an old clock) * A message to display on the screen * Which hours, half hours, or any other times to notify you about We think it's the best hourly chime app on the App Store, and we're always listening for your feedback if you think we can do better! No ads, no tracking, no In-App Purchases. Ever.

About

Alarm Clock ◎

This app provides a robust alarm clock experience with customizable wake-up challenges, multiple alarm types, and smart features to ensure you get out of bed. It offers a variety of sounds, weather integration, and task-based reminders to help even heavy sleepers start their day.

Highlights
  • Multiple alarm creation
  • Wake-up challenges (math, shake, text)
  • Customizable snooze settings
  • Weather and temperature display
  • Adjustable volume increase/decrease
  • Quick alarm for short tasks
  • Customizable themes and backgrounds
Features
Read full description

Get a loud wake up sound with smart alarm settings, weather settings, morning missions, math alarms and more, all from this single full-featured alarm clock app! Alarm Clock is a smart and powerful tool that can help even the heaviest sleepers get up in the morning. Create multiple alarms, each with loud ring tone sounds and alerts, then customize each one with features that help you wake up on time. Need a talking alarm clock with sleep timer? How about a shake-to-wake alarm? A wake-up app with puzzles and math problems that make it harder to hit the snooze button? Alarm Clock has all of these, and much more! If you find it difficult getting up in the morning and need a good puzzle alarm to get you out of bed, Alarm Clock is the app for you. There are six unique wake-up motivational challenges that keep you from turning the alarm off without being fully awake. It's perfect for heavy sleepers! Wake-up missions and alarm types: • Simple - Easy one-tap to dismiss the alarm. • Shake - Shake your device to stop the alarm. • Math - Solve a math problem to turn off the alarm sound. • Text - Unscramble the randomly generated text. • Walk - Get up and take a few steps to switch off the alarm. • Hold - Press & hold the button to terminate the alarm. Alarm Clock has all the features you need from a loud smart alarm app. It includes the wake-up missions and alerts described above, plus the ability to create multiple repeating alarms, quick-set non-recurring alarms, customize tons of settings, and more. The best features in Alarm Clock: • Create multiple alarms for a variety of uses. • Customize the number of times you can hit the snooze button. • Set the snooze time longer or shorter. • Display weather and temperature next to your alarm clock. • Smoothly increase or decrease the volume for a gentle wake-up. • Quick alarm to set a time limit for power naps and other short tasks. • Set a custom theme or photo as your clock background. • Add notes or a to-do list as wakeup reminders. • Lots of free music and loud sounds for an alarm ringtone. • Never oversleep when you use these smart alarm features! A simple but attractive interface makes Alarm Clock pleasing to use, even when you're staring at it through sleepy eyes! Use it to help you or people in your family get up in the morning, even if they're heavy sleepers. Alarm Clock is definitely not your ordinary alarm app. It's better! Alarm Clock offers premium subscription which is available on a yearly tier, auto-renewable. The yearly subscription is priced at 14.99 USD (or local equivalent) per year. Subscribe to the premium program to get access to alarm sounds, wake-up tasks, wallpapers and more... Payment will be charged to iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase. Subscription automatically renews for the same price and duration period as the original package unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current period. An account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period at the cost of the chosen package. Subscriptions may be managed by the user and auto-renewal may be turned off by going to the user's iTunes Account Settings after purchase. No cancellation of the current subscription is allowed during the active subscription period. You may cancel a subscription during its free trial period via the subscription setting through your iTunes account. This must be done 24 hours before the end of the subscription period to avoid being charged. You may turn off the auto-renewal of your subscription via your iTunes Account Settings. However, you are not able to cancel the current subscription during its active period. Unused portions of free trials, if offered, will be forfeited upon purchase of a subscription. Links to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service: Privacy Policy: http://www.rvappstudios.com/app-privacy-policy.html#privacy/ Terms of Use: http://www.rvappstudios.com/app-privacy-policy.html#terms/

Screenshots

Hourly3 screens
Alarm Clock ◎4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Alarm Clock ◎ at Free against Hourly's $0.99. Alarm Clock ◎ also leads on rating (4.5 vs 4.0) and update cadence (fortnightly vs every 6 months). Hourly's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 12) and ads (none vs shown). On device support 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

Alarm Clock ◎ is free to download; Hourly costs $0.99 up front. Alarm Clock ◎ sells 12 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per 7 days. Hourly asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Alarm Clock ◎ holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Alarm Clock ◎ has 3.5K ratings behind it against 127, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 73% of Hourly's written reviews are positive against 60% of Alarm Clock ◎'s, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Hourly ships an update every 6 months, Alarm Clock ◎ fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard9 real differences · 1 level
Hourly versus Alarm Clock ◎: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHourlyAlarm Clock ◎
Price$0.99Free — better
Rating4.0 (127 ratings)4.5 (3.5K ratings) — better
Positive reviews72.9% of reviews — better60.3% of reviews
Number of ratings1273.5K — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 monthsFortnightly — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple WatchiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS17.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size94 MB241 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperChris JonesRV AppStudios LLC

Customer experience

Hourly

All ratings127 ratings
Positive74.8%
Neutral7.9%
Negative17.3%
Written reviews129 reviews
Positive72.9%
Neutral6.2%
Negative20.9%

Alarm Clock ◎

All ratings3,472 ratings
Positive87.2%
Neutral4.5%
Negative8.3%
Written reviews438 reviews
Positive60.3%
Neutral12.3%
Negative27.4%

User reviews

Hourly

From 127 App Store ratings

What we love

  • ✅ Simple, straightforward functionality that works as advertised
  • ⏰ Effective hourly reminders help users stay on schedule
  • 🎵 Multiple sound options including BBC Greenwich Pips
  • ⚙️ Customizable time intervals and scheduling
  • 🔕 Non-intrusive notifications that don't interfere with calendar

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Unreliable notifications when phone is locked
  • 🐛 Notifications stop working after silencing phone
  • 🐛 Inconsistent functionality across iOS updates
  • ⌚ Limited Apple Watch integration and functionality
  • 🔊 Sounds are too quiet and difficult to hear

Alarm Clock ◎

From 3.5K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Alarm wakes up instantly
  • 👍 Unique features like tasks and power naps
  • 👍 Customizable sounds and backgrounds
  • 👍 Reliable and consistent
  • 👍 Helps deep sleepers wake up

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Alarm not always going off as set
  • 🔋 Drains battery when left on
  • 💰 Expensive subscription required for full features
  • 📢 Too many ads in free version
  • 🔍 Difficult to find settings and customization options

Bugs and requests

Hourly

Reported bugs

13 issues
  • Notifications don't work when phone is locked or in sleep mode
  • Notifications stop working after phone is silenced
  • App stops working after iOS updates
  • Settings fail to sync between iPhone and multiple Apple Watches
  • Duplicate notifications firing within 2-3 seconds
Show 8 more
  • Day-of-week selection not functioning correctly
  • Apple Watch notifications don't display the time, only logo
  • App doesn't work reliably in background
  • Chimes during phone calls and are audible to other party
  • 11 PM checkbox gets stuck on some devices
  • Notifications appear twice on Apple Watch
  • App stops notifying around midnight and restarts at 9 AM
  • Text display issues on Apple Watch with large text settings

Requested features

16 requests
  • More diverse sound options (cuckoo chime, gong, church bells, grandfather clock)
  • Ability to use system sounds and custom ringtones
  • Female voice option and multiple voice varieties (British, Australian accents)
  • Volume control for individual notifications
  • 24-hour continuous operation option
Show 11 more
  • iCloud sync with Apple Watch
  • Apple Watch standalone functionality without iPhone dependency
  • Ability to set different schedules for weekdays vs weekends
  • Customizable notification messages beyond 'it is X o'clock'
  • Quarter-hour chime intervals
  • Different sounds for hour vs half-hour vs quarter-hour
  • Haptic feedback option
  • Ability to select which device receives notifications
  • Profile/preset saving and restoration
  • Spoken time on Apple Watch notifications
  • Disable notifications without clearing history

Alarm Clock ◎

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Alarm changing on its own
  • Alarm not working when phone is locked or on silent
  • Inconsistent behavior with alarm sounds and settings

Requested features

5 requests
  • Ability to import own photos as backgrounds
  • More color options for display
  • Ability to adjust brightness and font size
  • Snooze button placement improvement
  • Weather information updates

In-app purchases

None

Hourly

No in-app purchases

12 purchases

Alarm Clock ◎

Subscriptions12
  • PRO Subscription3 Days trial$2.997 Days
  • Alarm Clock - Advanced Plus3 Days trial$7.991 Month
  • Alarm Clock - Advanced Gold$7.991 Month
Show 9 more
  • Advanced Subscription1 Month trial$7.991 Month
  • Diamond Monthly Pro3 Days trial$8.991 Month
  • Diamond Monthly Subscription$8.991 Month
  • Alarm Clock - Platinum$9.991 Year
  • Premium Subscription3 Days trial$14.991 Year
  • Alarm Clock - Ultimate Plus3 Days trial$19.991 Year
  • Ultimate Subscription3 Days trial$19.991 Year
  • Diamond Subscription7 Days trial$29.991 Year
  • Diamond Pro Subscription7 Days trial$29.991 Year

Questions

Is Hourly free?
Hourly costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Alarm Clock ◎ free?
Alarm Clock ◎ is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Hourly or Alarm Clock ◎?
Alarm Clock ◎ is rated higher. Hourly averages 4.0 out of 5 from 127 ratings, while Alarm Clock ◎ averages 4.5 from 3.5K ratings.
Do Hourly or Alarm Clock ◎ have ads?
Alarm Clock ◎ shows ads; Hourly does not.
Which is updated more often, Hourly or Alarm Clock ◎?
Hourly ships an update every 6 months, and Alarm Clock ◎ fortnightly. Most recently, Hourly was updated on October 23, 2026 and Alarm Clock ◎ on October 24, 2026.

Other comparisons