Comparison

ActivitySmith vs EmitSignal

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

Head to head
About

ActivitySmith

Stream real-time progress and outcomes of long-running tasks to your iOS device's Lock Screen and Dynamic Island. Receive high-signal alerts for critical events via push notifications. Integrates with various backend services and development tools.

Highlights
  • Live Activities for Lock Screen and Dynamic Island
  • Push Notifications for alerts
  • Update via HTTP requests
  • Track CI/CD, jobs, and events
  • Pair devices and create API keys
  • Widgets for lock screen metrics
Features
Read full description

ActivitySmith lets you send Live Activities and Push Notifications to your iOS device(s) from any backend. Keep long-running work visible at a glance: stream progress, step-by-step status, and outcomes to your Lock Screen and Dynamic Island. Use Push Notifications for high-signal alerts (failures, incidents, signups, sales, crashes, etc). Anything that can make an HTTP request can update a Live Activity or send a Push Notification - CI/CD, servers, cron, agents, webhooks, or plain curl. Use cases: - CI/CD deployments and build pipelines - Long-running jobs (migrations, backups, ETL) and background agents - On-call alerts and incident workflows - Business events (sales, signups, trial conversions) - Home Automation How it works: - Install ActivitySmith and pair your device - Create API key - Send custom Push Notifications with a simple API call - Trigger Live Activities to track deployments or any other long-running processes in a real-time - Target one or more paired devices as needed - Use widgets to track key metrics from your lock screen SDKs: Node.js, PHP, Ruby, Python, Go, CLI Integrations: GitHub, GitLab, Vercel, Railway, Netlify, Sentry, Linear, Zapier, n8n, and more...

About

EmitSignal

Features
Read full description

EmitSignal turns anything that can make an HTTP request into a push notification on your phone. No SDK, no client library. If it can run curl, it can send a signal. Built for developers, EmitSignal lets you pipe deploys, CI results, cron jobs, server alerts, and webhooks straight from your shell to your phone. Send it once and watch it show up in real time. HOW IT WORKS Publishers send a message to a named topic. Subscribers just subscribe to that topic โ€” no registration or setup on the publisher side. Messages arrive instantly as push notifications and in the live feed. curl -X POST https://api.emitsignal.com/publish/alerts -H "X-Title: Deploy finished" -H "X-Priority: high" -d "v2.4.0 shipped to production" WHAT YOU GET IN THE APP โ€ข Live feed โ€” messages show up in real time over a persistent connection โ€ข Push notifications โ€” every signal can land right on your lock screen โ€ข Topics โ€” subscribe to any topic and organize them by project, service, or environment โ€ข Priorities โ€” five levels, from quiet to critical, so important alerts stand out โ€ข Tags & actions โ€” add context and interactive actions to your messages โ€ข Publish from your phone โ€” send a signal to any topic in a couple of taps โ€ข Message history โ€” go back and find anything you've received โ€ข Attachments โ€” send files along with your messages โ€ข Light & dark themes โ€” follow your system or choose one yourself INTEGRATIONS Connect the tools you already use through webhooks. EmitSignal includes ready-to-use templates for GitHub, Grafana, Stripe, and Vercel, plus a custom format for anything else. SCHEDULING Don't need to send something right away? Schedule it for later with a relative delay like 30m, 2h, or 1d, or pick an exact time. Handy for reminders, maintenance windows, and anything that needs to happen later. SIGN IN YOUR WAY Use a magic link, Apple or GitHub. Pick whatever works best for you. OPEN & SELF-HOSTABLE EmitSignal is self-hostable. Use the hosted service, or run your own instance and keep your data under your control. Stop tailing logs and refreshing dashboards just to see if something happened. Send a signal. Know when it matters.

Screenshots

ActivitySmith4 screens
EmitSignal4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: ActivitySmith at weekly against EmitSignal's every 2 weeks. EmitSignal's advantage is iOS requirement (16.4 vs 18.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

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

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

ActivitySmith ships an update weekly, EmitSignal every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 9, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences ยท 6 level
ActivitySmith versus EmitSignal: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterActivitySmithEmitSignal
PriceFreeFree
Positive reviews100.0% of reviewsโ€”
Update frequencyWeekly โ€” betterEvery 2 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeโ€”
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.016.4 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size11 MB53 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAdam BardonKeven Leone

In-app purchases

None

ActivitySmith

No in-app purchases

None

EmitSignal

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is ActivitySmith free?
ActivitySmith is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is EmitSignal free?
EmitSignal is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do ActivitySmith or EmitSignal have ads?
Neither ActivitySmith nor EmitSignal shows ads.
Which is updated more often, ActivitySmith or EmitSignal?
ActivitySmith ships an update weekly, and EmitSignal every 2 weeks. Most recently, ActivitySmith was updated on October 14, 2026 and EmitSignal on October 9, 2026.

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