Comparison

Soon vs Countdown Widget

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

Head to head
About

Soon

Create unlimited countdowns and widgets for your lock and home screens. Customize colors, fonts, icons, and backgrounds for any event. Schedule recurring events and sync across timezones.

Highlights
  • Unlimited countdown widgets
  • Lock screen and home screen widgets
  • Customizable colors, fonts, and icons
  • Recurring event scheduling
  • Background image support
  • Live timers
  • Timezone support
Features
Read full description

I built this app because I couldn't find what I needed. I hope you find it useful too. I was looking for a simple countdown app with widgets for iOS, but every app I found either required a subscription, charged money, or limited how many widgets I could create. So, I built Soon-ish, a completely free countdown app with unlimited widgets, no subscriptions, and no hidden fees. **Unlimited Widgets, Completely Free** Create as many countdowns and widgets as you want. Track birthdays, holidays, Twitch streams, or any important moment. All widgets are free, forever. **Types of Widgets** • Lock Screen Widgets: See your countdowns right on your lock screen • Home Screen Widgets: Small, medium, and large sizes • Live Timers: Real-time countdown that updates every second • Dynamic Island: pin a countdown to the Dynamic Island and Lock Screen as a Live Activity • Customizable Display: Choose to show days, hours, minutes, and/or seconds **Full-ish Customizability** • Custom Colors: Pick any color for text and backgrounds • Custom Icons: Choose from hundreds of icons (Ionicons & MaterialIcons) • Custom Fonts: Select from multiple font families • Background Images: Use your own photos as backgrounds • Background Overlays: Adjust brightness and contrast for perfect readability • Multiple Themes: Light, dark, and custom color schemes **Smart-ish Recurring Events** • Daily: Countdowns that repeat every day • Weekly: Set specific days of the week • Monthly: Same day each month • Yearly: Annual events like birthdays and holidays • Custom Schedule: Create complex recurring patterns with multiple time slots **Notifications** • Get alerted the moment a countdown completes • Optional reminders before and follow-ups after • Write your own notification message **Integrations** • Twitch: Countdown to your favorite streamers' next streams! • Holidays: Browse and add popular holidays and events! • Share Countdowns: Share your countdowns with friends via link! **Other Features** • Clock Mode: Full-screen countdown display • Timezone Support: Track events across different timezones • Granularity Control: Show exactly the time units you want • Sort & Organize: Customize the order of your countdowns • Background Sync: Automatic updates for imported countdowns **No Subscriptions, No Limits** Soonish is completely free with no in-app purchases required. Create unlimited countdowns, use all features, and enjoy beautiful widgets without ever paying a cent.

About

Countdown Widget

Visually appealing countdowns for all your important dates, displayed on your Home Screen, Lock Screen, Apple Watch, and more. Features AI-generated backgrounds and precise time tracking.

Highlights
  • AI-generated photo backgrounds
  • Countdown to exact time (days, hours, minutes, seconds)
  • Live Activity and Dynamic Island integration
  • Multiple widget placements (Home Screen, Lock Screen, StandBy)
  • Apple Watch app and complications
  • iCloud sync across Apple devices
  • Multi-event widget with progress bars
Features
Read full description

DayDrop is the countdown widget for iPhone that shows the days until everything you're looking forward to — Christmas, your wedding, a birthday, vacation, or the day your baby arrives — right on your Home Screen and Lock Screen. "Finally, a countdown app that actually looks good on my Home Screen." See your most important days counting down from everywhere: Home Screen widgets, Lock Screen, Dynamic Island, iPad, and StandBy. WHY PEOPLE LOVE DAYDROP • Beautiful AI-generated photo backgrounds — describe any event and get a stunning, one-of-a-kind photo backdrop in seconds. • Countdown to the exact moment — set a specific time on any event and watch days, hours, minutes, and seconds tick down live. • Your photo in the Dynamic Island — your event's background shows live in the Dynamic Island and Live Activity, with a progress ring. • 10 widget placements — Home Screen (small, medium, large, extra-large), multi-event widget, Lock Screen, StandBy, and Control Center. • Multi-event widget with progress bars — several countdowns at a glance. • iPad optimized — adaptive layouts, ExtraLarge widget, and a roomier overview. • iCloud sync — your countdowns move with you across iPhone and iPad. Always in sync, always private. • Share cards — send your countdown to anyone. • Badge countdown on app icon — glance at your Home Screen, see days left. • Liquid Glass, iOS 26 native — designed for Apple's latest design language. • Orbital year view — your whole year of countdowns in a single circular timeline. POWERFUL & PERSONAL • Count up and down from any date • 8 categories — Birthdays, Weddings, Anniversaries, Holidays, Vacations, Work, Fitness, Custom • Recurring events — annual, monthly, weekly, or biweekly • Milestone notifications — 30, 14, 7, 3 days before • Celebration confetti on the big day • Pin your most important events • Import birthdays from Contacts in one tap • Gyroscope parallax and tactile scroll animations A CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN, A NEW YEAR COUNTDOWN, AND EVERY DAY WORTH WAITING FOR How many days until Christmas? Until New Year's Eve? Until Halloween, the concert, your exam, retirement, or the trip you've been planning all year? DayDrop keeps the answer one glance away — as a widget, on your Lock Screen, or with Siri: just ask "how many days until my event in DayDrop." LOCK SCREEN, DONE RIGHT Category icons on your Lock Screen widgets, with desaturated backgrounds so your countdown stays glanceable. SPEAKS YOUR LANGUAGE Fully translated into 16 languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Russian, Turkish, Arabic, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Your countdowns stay on your devices and in your iCloud. We don't sell your data. DAYDROP PREMIUM Premium unlocks AI photo backgrounds, Live Activity and Dynamic Island, every widget placement, watermark-free share cards, unlimited pins, custom milestone notifications, iCloud sync, and the orbital year view. Plans and pricing are shown in the app. Questions? Email daydrop@beatroot.dev or visit daydrop.beatroot.dev. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Soon4 screens
Countdown Widget4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is monetization model: Soon at free against Countdown Widget's freemium. Soon also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 80%). On price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence 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

Both are free to download. Soon sells 4 one-off in-app purchases and Countdown Widget sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Soon against 4.8 for Countdown Widget. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 13 and 20 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 100% of Soon's written reviews are positive against 80% of Countdown Widget's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly weekly. The most recent releases landed on September 30, 2026 and October 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Soon versus Countdown Widget: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSoonCountdown Widget
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (13 ratings)4.8 (20 ratings) — better
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews — better80.0% of reviews
Number of ratings1320 — better
Update frequencyWeeklyWeekly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree — betterFreemium
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS17.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size53 MB9 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTHOMAS VAN DE CROMMENACKERHirak Banerjee

Customer experience

Soon

All ratings13 ratings
Positive92.3%
Neutral0.0%
Negative7.7%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Countdown Widget

All ratings20 ratings
Positive90.0%
Neutral10.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews10 reviews
Positive80.0%
Neutral20.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

4 purchases

Soon

One-time4
  • Small Tip$0.99
  • Remove Ads$2.99
  • Medium Tip$2.99
Show 1 more
  • Large Tip$4.99
3 purchases

Countdown Widget

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly Premium$1.991 Month
  • Annual Premium1 Month trial$12.991 Year
One-time1
  • Lifetime Premium$24.99

Questions

Is Soon free?
Soon is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Countdown Widget free?
Countdown Widget is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Soon or Countdown Widget?
Countdown Widget is rated higher. Soon averages 4.7 out of 5 from 13 ratings, while Countdown Widget averages 4.8 from 20 ratings.
Do Soon or Countdown Widget have ads?
Neither Soon nor Countdown Widget shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Soon or Countdown Widget?
Soon ships an update weekly, and Countdown Widget weekly. Most recently, Soon was updated on September 30, 2026 and Countdown Widget on October 10, 2026.

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