Flow Timer vs Hourglass
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Flow Timer
This app uses calming animations to help you focus and track time for various activities. Set custom durations, choose themes and sounds, and create interval timers for study or workouts. It offers a distraction-free experience for mindful timing.
- Peaceful countdown animations
- Customizable timer durations
- Named timers for specific uses
- Calming background and timer sounds
- Themed visual preferences
- Interval timers for Pomodoro/HIIT
- Timer session tracking and badges
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Water climbs. Sand falls. A picture appears. Flow Timer is a visual timer: it shows you time instead of telling you. Water that climbs the glass as you go, a sand timer whose grains really fall, or a picture that paints itself while you work. Glance at it and you know how long is left — no numbers to read, no arithmetic. BUILT FOR TIME BLINDNESS When minutes feel invisible — as they often do for people with ADHD — a shape you can watch beats a number you have to interpret. That is the whole design. Nothing flashes, nothing nags, nothing demands a decision. The timer simply keeps being visible until it is done. A TIMER WORTH LOOKING AT Most timers are ugly because nobody expects you to watch them. This one is made to be watched: hand-drawn scenes, five colour palettes, an hourglass with real falling sand, calming sounds, and a zen mode that clears away everything but the time. Leave it running on a desk or a second screen and it earns its place. IN THE CLASSROOM AND AT HOME Big enough to read from the back row, clear enough for a child who cannot read a clock yet. Transitions, tests, quiet reading, toothbrushing, screen time, bedtime wind-down. A visual countdown ends the "how long left?" question without anyone having to answer it. ALSO A GOOD STUDY TIMER Set any duration, name it, start it in one tap. Build interval sessions for pomodoro study blocks, workouts or circuits. Streaks, badges, a heatmap and monthly trends record where your focus actually went, from your very first session. OFFLINE, AND STAYS THAT WAY No account, no sign-in, no analytics, no ads. Flow Timer collects nothing about you because it has nowhere to send it — everything stays on your device unless you export a backup yourself. Available in 15 languages. ONE PURCHASE, NOT A SUBSCRIPTION Free covers the liquid mode, the sand timer, intervals, every duration, most sounds and your daily statistics. Flow Timer Pro is an optional one-time purchase — never a subscription — adding canvas timers with your own photos, binaural beats and focus tones, your complete history, and backup export. Buy it once and it is yours for good. Built by one person who wanted a timer worth looking at.
Hourglass
This app automatically tracks your productive time by monitoring how your phone is oriented. Place your device face down to enter focus mode and flip it over to log distraction time, providing clear data on your work habits without manual input.
- Automatic focus time tracking
- Distraction time monitoring
- Phone orientation detection
- Real productivity data
- No manual timers
- Simple interface
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Hourglass automatically tracks your productive time. Place your phone face down to start focus mode. When you flip it over, it tracks your time spent distracted. Get real data on your focus vs distraction patterns. No manual timers. No guessing. Just truth.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Hourglass at every 10 days against Flow Timer's monthly. Flow Timer's advantage is ratings volume (7 vs 1) and iOS requirement (16.4 vs 26.2). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Flow Timer against 5.0 for Hourglass. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Flow Timer has 7 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Flow Timer ships an update monthly, Hourglass every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Flow Timer | Hourglass |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (7 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 7 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Every 10 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 16.4 — better | 26.2 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 83 MB | 2 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Codejuno Ltd | PASHA MEHRANPOUR |
Customer experience
Flow Timer
Hourglass
In-app purchases
Flow Timer
No in-app purchases
Hourglass
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Flow Timer free?
Is Hourglass free?
Which has better reviews, Flow Timer or Hourglass?
Do Flow Timer or Hourglass have ads?
Which is updated more often, Flow Timer or Hourglass?
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