Comparison

Beeminder vs Cairn

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

Head to head
About

Beeminder

Easily log data for your Beeminder goals and receive timely reminders. Visualize your progress with a clear dashboard and integrate with Apple Health for automatic tracking of health metrics.

Highlights
  • Data entry for Beeminder goals
  • Goal progress dashboard
  • Customizable reminders
  • Apple Health integration
  • Automatic metric tracking
Features
Read full description

Add data to your Beeminder goals, get reminders, and see a dashboard of your progress on the Beeminder Data Entry Companion App. Beeminder is goal-tracking with teeth. We plot your progress along with a bright red line on your graph. Don't let your datapoints cross the red line! The Beeminder app also allows you to sync goals with your Apple Health data, so you can automatically track steps, distance, and other metrics without manually entering data.

About

Cairn

Features
Currently charting
Read full description

A cairn is a small stack of stones that marks the trail. Cairn does the same for your day: one good line each hour, right where you'll see it. Turn your iPhone on its side while it charges, and StandBy shows the hour's quote. The same quote is on your Home Screen, your Lock Screen, and in the app, so wherever you look, it matches. WORDS THAT FIT YOU • Choose what you need: Get Moving, You're Okay, Self-Kindness, Affirmation, Calm, Resilience, Growth, and Classics. • Pick a tone: gentle, direct, or reflective. • Some quotes keep to the morning, some to the evening. • Each morning, a short greeting by name. Just once a day. A LIBRARY WORTH KEEPING • 140 quotes written for Cairn: short, warm, and plain, with a little humor. • Classics from writers like Marcus Aurelius, Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman. • A few favorite lines from film and TV. WIDGETS FOR EVERY SPOT • Small and medium Home Screen widgets. • Lock Screen widgets in three shapes. • StandBy, with a dim look at night. SAVE WHAT SPEAKS TO YOU • Tap the heart to keep a quote in Favorites. • Now and then, Cairn asks if you'd like to look back at a few old favorites. You can say not now. ADD YOUR OWN • Write your own quotes, or save lines you find in Safari, Notes, and other apps from the share sheet. • Say "Save a quote in Cairn" to Siri, or set it up on the Action Button. • Your quotes join the hourly rotation, if you like. • Tidy up fixes capitalization, punctuation, and dictation slips without changing your words. It runs on your iPhone with Apple Intelligence, on supported devices. GENTLE REMINDERS • Choose how many reminders you'd like each day. • Nothing arrives during your quiet hours. • Save a quote to Favorites right from the notification. YOURS, AND ONLY YOURS Cairn has no accounts, no ads, and no tracking. It never connects to the internet. Your quotes, favorites, and settings stay on your iPhone.

Screenshots

Beeminder3 screens
Cairn4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Cairn at 100% against Beeminder's 51%. Cairn also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.2) and update cadence (every 5 days vs every 3 months). Beeminder's advantage is price (Free vs $2.99) and ratings volume (77 vs 2). On ads, in-app purchases and 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

Beeminder is free to download; Cairn costs $2.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Cairn holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Beeminder has 77 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 51% of Beeminder's written reviews are positive against 100% of Cairn's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Beeminder ships an update every 3 months, Cairn every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 4 level
Beeminder versus Cairn: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBeeminderCairn
PriceFree — better$2.99
Rating4.2 (77 ratings)5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews51.4% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings77 — better2
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsEvery 5 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
Best chart rank—#195 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS18.0 — better27.0
Further details — not scored
Size7 MB36 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMaker and Baker LLCJared APPERSON

Customer experience

Beeminder

All ratings77 ratings
Positive80.5%
Neutral1.3%
Negative18.2%
Written reviews107 reviews
Positive51.4%
Neutral7.5%
Negative41.1%

Cairn

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Beeminder

Reported bugs

10 issues
  • Login failures with 'Invalid credentials' error
  • App crashes on startup or after data entry
  • Goals not displaying after update
  • Graphs taking excessive time to load
  • Data entry freezing or hanging
Show 5 more
  • Keyboard not dismissing after entering values
  • Facebook, Google, and Twitter login failures
  • Syncing issues with Apple Health causing false derailments
  • App crashes on iPhone SE and older devices
  • Blank screens and placeholder text on first page

Requested features

10 requests
  • Widget feature for at-a-glance progress data
  • Ability to create and manage goals within the app
  • Ability to sign up for accounts directly in the app
  • URL minder trigger button for word count checks
  • Easy access to goal fine print details
Show 5 more
  • Ability to set breaks within the app
  • Dark mode option
  • Modern UI/UX redesign
  • Improved home menu for single-graph users
  • Better integration with automatic data sources

Cairn

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Beeminder

No in-app purchases

None

Cairn

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Beeminder free?
Beeminder is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Cairn free?
Cairn costs $2.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Beeminder or Cairn?
Cairn is rated higher. Beeminder averages 4.2 out of 5 from 77 ratings, while Cairn averages 5.0 from 2 ratings.
Do Beeminder or Cairn have ads?
Neither Beeminder nor Cairn shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Beeminder or Cairn?
Beeminder ships an update every 3 months, and Cairn every 5 days. Most recently, Beeminder was updated on October 23, 2026 and Cairn on October 29, 2026.

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