Countdown Star vs Days to Christmas
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Countdown Star
Track time until or since important life events. Set custom timers for birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, and more. Personalize with your own photos and share progress with friends.
- Add custom events
- Customize event visuals
- Apple Watch display
- Today Widget integration
- Set exact event times
- Adjust time units
- Share event progress
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Countdown Star is the best way to countdown to — and count up from — all of your favorite events. Countdown to birthdays, holidays, an upcoming vacation, a wedding, the New Year, parties, sporting events, concerts and more. Count up from anniversaries, the day you were born, and other special events in the past. * How many seconds until your next birthday? * How many months since you were born? * How many days until you graduate from college? * How many hours until your anniversary? * How much time is left until your vacation starts? * How many days until Christmas? * How many minutes until your party begins? * How much time is left until your baby's due date? Countdown Star is the countdown app that lets you choose which events to add, then keeps them in sync across all of your devices. Features: * iCloud Sync — events and wallpapers sync automatically across all your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch devices * Celebration Animations — choose Confetti, Fireworks, Balloons, Stars, or Lasers when your countdown reaches zero * Repeating Events — annual events automatically advance to the next year so you never have to update them * Home Screen Widgets — Small, Medium, and Large widgets let you glance at your countdowns without opening the app * Apple Watch — view your events right on your wrist * Add Your Own Events — add as many events as you like * Custom Wallpapers — choose from 15+ built-in wallpapers or use your own photos * Time Zone Support — set each event in any time zone with localized city names * Sort and Search — sort by date, title, or your own custom order; events are sectioned into Countdown and Count Up groups * Favorites and Notifications — mark events as favorites to receive a notification when their countdown reaches zero * Interactive Slider — instantly switch between seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years to see your countdown exactly how you want it * Customizable Timer — choose timer position (Top, Middle, or Bottom), show or hide weeks, and toggle the leading zero * Multiple App Icons — personalize the app icon on your Home Screen Note: Countdown Star is available as a free version (with ads and an optional Remove Ads purchase) and as a paid ad-free version.
Days to Christmas
This app helps you count down the days until Christmas and plan your gift purchases. Add recipients and gifts, then mark them off as you buy them. Special gift ideas may appear as the holiday approaches.
- Christmas countdown timer
- Gift planner
- Add recipients and gifts
- Mark gifts as purchased
- Home screen widget
- Special gift suggestions
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Days to Christmas is the cozy, calm way to count the sleeps, and to make every day of December a little sensory adventure. A SNOW GLOBE YOU CAN SHAKE The countdown lives inside a glass snow globe with a real village in it. Shake your phone and the snow swirls, drag to spin the scene, tap to nudge the flakes, turn the phone over and watch them fall the other way. Hold the glass for the full-screen globe, and keep an eye on the cabin: an elf comes out to wave. A Snow Globe widget puts the number in the glass on your Home Screen, and the Mac gets the same globe with a Shake button. SENSORY ADVENT CALENDAR: FREE Behind each of the 24 doors is a simple activity for one of the senses: crunch fake snow, jingle bells, smell a clove orange, taste a candy cane, blow bubbles by the tree lights. Made with autistic and sensory-seeking children in mind, but every family loves them. Nothing to buy: every door is free, and a gentle daily reminder tells you when tonight's door is ready. SANTA TRACKER & LETTERS TO SANTA See where Santa is on Christmas Eve and, before that, how far the North Pole is from your country and what time he'll reach you (around 10 p.m., so be asleep). The workshop sends a daily report as the sleeps run down, you can replay the whole flight around the world, and children can write a letter to Santa by speaking or typing it. A few hours later, Santa writes back by hand, and the app can read his letter aloud. SANTA'S GLOBE, IN YOUR ROOM Put the world on your table and watch the sleigh fly the route, stop by stop, in augmented reality on iPhone and iPad, or as a globe you can spin with your hands on Apple Vision Pro. SELFIE WITH SANTA Pop a Santa hat, beard, glasses or reindeer antlers on everyone in the picture, stand Santa beside you, and share the photo. Faces are found on your device, and nothing is uploaded: the picture only exists if you save or share it. CHRISTMAS HITS FROM APPLE MUSIC Twenty-four Christmas hits, from Mariah and Wham! to Slade and Bublé, playing the moment the app opens. With an Apple Music subscription they play in full, even when the phone is locked; without one you hear 30-second previews. Reorder the list, add any song from Apple Music, and share it as a link. Friends with the app get it as a list of its own, and their own list is never changed. THE COUNTDOWN, EVERYWHERE • Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets that update at midnight • A Live Activity in the Dynamic Island on Christmas Eve • Apple Watch, Apple TV and Apple Vision Pro • Count in sleeps, days, hours, minutes, or heartbeats • Six scenes as a snow globe, painted or photographic: Classic, Midnight, Frost, Forest, Gingerbread and High Contrast, or a photo of your own tree behind the countdown (Premium) • Share a picture of the countdown with friends ACCESSIBLE BY DESIGN • Full VoiceOver support and a spoken countdown • Calm mode turns off snow, sparkle, parallax and haptics • Follows Reduce Motion and Dynamic Type • High Contrast theme, free for everyone GIFT LIST Keep a simple list of who you're buying for and tick things off as you go. Each Advent door suggests a matching sensory gift you can find on Amazon. PREMIUM The countdown and every Advent door are free, forever. Premium adds the pretty: all six scenes, painted or photographic, your own photo behind the countdown, extra snow and sparkle in the app and widgets, and unlimited people on the gift list. Choose Lifetime (pay once, every Christmas, on every device signed in to your Apple ID) or This Christmas Only (a season pass that runs until 1 January). No auto-renewing subscriptions. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Privacy: no accounts and no tracking. Your gift list stays on your device.
Screenshots
Verdict
Countdown Star and Days to Christmas both sit at 4.8 stars, but that hides the real split: 100% of Days to Christmas's written reviews are positive against 59% of Countdown Star's. Days to Christmas also leads on monetization model (free vs ad-supported) and device support (6 vs 3). Countdown Star's advantage is ratings volume (217K vs 16). On price, rating, 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
Both are free to download. Countdown Star sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Days to Christmas sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Days to Christmas holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Countdown Star has 217K ratings behind it against 16, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 59% of Countdown Star's written reviews are positive against 100% of Days to Christmas's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Countdown Star | Days to Christmas |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (217K ratings) | 4.9 (16 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 59.2% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 217K — better | 16 |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | Fortnightly |
| Ads | Yes | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Ad-supported | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Vision Pro — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 55 MB | 43 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Joseph Merrill | Accessible Resources Ltd |
Customer experience
Countdown Star
Days to Christmas
Bugs and requests
Countdown Star
Reported bugs
5 issues- Widget not displaying events
- Wallpaper not saving
- Countdown off by one day
- Notifications not working as expected
- Crashes and glitches after updates
Requested features
6 requests- Add weeks option
- Allow multiple countdowns on one screen
- Provide Apple Watch complications
- Add ability to export/backup data
- Improve wallpaper customization
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- Add option for annual/recurring events
Days to Christmas
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Countdown Star
- Remove Ads$1.99
Days to Christmas
- This Christmas only$2.99
- Lifetime$6.99
Questions
Is Countdown Star free?
Is Days to Christmas free?
Which has better reviews, Countdown Star or Days to Christmas?
Do Countdown Star or Days to Christmas have ads?
Which is updated more often, Countdown Star or Days to Christmas?
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