Comparison

First Responders Cal vs Shift Alarm

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

Head to head
About

First Responders Cal

Manage your work schedule, court dates, and time off with this app. It helps track extra work pay, shift trades, and leave balances. Widgets provide a quick glance at your upcoming shifts.

Highlights
  • Shift rotation planning
  • Schedule overview (Month, Week, List, Agenda)
  • Next Work home screen widgets
  • Shift trade tracking
  • Extra work and pay tracking
  • Time off and leave balance management
  • Customizable event types and reminders
  • Apple Calendar and Reminders sync
Features
Read full description

Working today—or is it a day off? See the shifts, court dates, and details you’ve added to First Responders Cal with Next Work widgets. Plan your rotation, manage time off, track shift trades, and keep up with extra-work pay in one place. Built for fire, EMS, law enforcement, corrections, and dispatch. FREE TRIAL & FULL ACCESS Free to download and use with full access for 14 days. After the trial, a one-time $4.99 in-app purchase is required to continue using the app (U.S. price; pricing may vary by country or region). No subscription or recurring charges. One Full Access purchase covers iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Restore using the same purchasing Apple Account. SHIFT SCHEDULING Choose or create a rotation, such as 24/48, 48/96, or a custom working and off-day cycle. Set the date your cycle starts, then apply the pattern to generate your shifts without duplicates. Overnight shifts appear across both days, and vacations or extended leave can be added in one step. YOUR SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE Choose Month, Week, List, or Agenda, or open the yearly overview to plan ahead. See shifts, court dates, details, leave, and all-day events together. Agenda lets you browse consecutive days with month headings, move through dates with a date strip, and return to Today. NEXT WORK & HOME SCREEN WIDGETS Check whether you’re working today and see what’s next from the events recorded in the app. Small and medium Next Work widgets show your event names and colors. You can also use a month calendar, today’s event list, or a date card. SHIFT TRADES Keep a personal record of hours you owe and hours owed to you. Link return shifts and record partial repayments until a trade is settled. Your coworker doesn’t need the app. EXTRA WORK & PAY TRACKING Record overtime and off-duty hours, rates, pay multipliers, and expected pay dates. Track full or partial payments, outstanding balances, and overdue pay. Review entries by month or year and print reports. Use Repeat job to create another entry with a new date while keeping previous payments with the original job. TIME OFF & LEAVE BALANCES Track vacation, sick leave, personal days, and custom leave types. See starting balances, earned time, usage, and remaining leave. Choose yearly, quarterly, or custom tracking periods, with accruals, optional caps, and carryover. Link related leave types to a shared balance—for example, Family Sick can draw from Sick. REMINDERS THAT FIT YOUR SCHEDULE Set notifications globally or by event type. Choose how many days ahead to be reminded and at what time. Turn on Tomorrow’s Work for an optional reminder of the next day’s selected event types. APPLE CALENDAR & REMINDERS Sync with your chosen iOS Calendar using two-way or one-way sync. Display Calendar events and Reminders alongside your app schedule for a fuller view of your day. MAKE IT YOUR OWN Create custom event types with names, icons, and colors. Rename built-in types to match your department’s terminology and personalize dashboard stat cards. Choose light, dark, or automatic appearance. LOCAL STORAGE, ICLOUD & BACKUP App data is stored locally. Enable optional iCloud sync to keep app events, patterns, time-off balances, Extra Work pay records, and shift trades in your private iCloud database across iPhone, iPad, and Mac using the same iCloud account. Calendar and Reminders sync through their connected provider accounts. Appearance, permissions, and notification delivery preferences stay local. Use Export All Data for a manual CSV backup, then import a saved export to restore or transfer data. Export and import are available during the trial and with Full Access. Built for those who serve.

About

Shift Alarm

Features
Read full description

Work shifts and lost track of which days you're on or off? Shift Alarm is the alarm clock that turns itself on for your work days and off for your days off, automatically, based on your schedule. Built for anyone working 12x36, 6x2, 6x4, or rotating shifts: nurses, security guards, factory workers, or any job with a schedule that keeps changing. WORKS WITH ANY SCHEDULE Set up your shift cycle once (6x2, 6x4, 12x36, or any other combination of work days and days off) and the app figures out on its own, every single day, whether today's alarm should be on or off. ROTATING SHIFTS (MORNING / AFTERNOON / NIGHT) Work in a factory with shifts that rotate between morning, afternoon, and night? Set each shift with its own alarm time and the app switches the alarm time automatically based on the day's shift. VISUAL CALENDAR See at a glance, on a monthly calendar, which days will have the alarm on and which are your days off, before the day even arrives. WORKS OFFLINE, NO ACCOUNT NEEDED No login, no internet required. Everything stays saved on your own phone. A REAL ALARM Rings for real, with sound and vibration, even with the phone locked, and if you restart the phone, alarms are rescheduled automatically. No more forgetting the alarm on during your day off or off during a work day. Set it up once and let Shift Alarm handle the rest. Free 15 day trial. After that, choose an annual subscription or a one time purchase (lifetime). Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

First Responders Cal4 screens
Shift Alarm4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Shift Alarm at none against First Responders Cal's 1. First Responders Cal's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs weekly) and device support (3 vs 1). On price 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. First Responders Cal sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Shift Alarm asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

First Responders Cal ships an update every 3 days, Shift Alarm weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 9, 2026 and November 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 4 level
First Responders Cal versus Shift Alarm: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterFirst Responders CalShift Alarm
PriceFreeFree
Positive reviews0.0% of reviews—
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterWeekly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac — betteriPhone
Requires iOS18.6 — better26.1
Further details — not scored
Size24 MB19 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperPEDRO NIEVESJoao Paulo Ferreira da Luz

In-app purchases

1 purchases

First Responders Cal

One-time1
  • Full Access$4.99
None

Shift Alarm

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is First Responders Cal free?
First Responders Cal is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Shift Alarm free?
Shift Alarm is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do First Responders Cal or Shift Alarm have ads?
Neither First Responders Cal nor Shift Alarm shows ads.
Which is updated more often, First Responders Cal or Shift Alarm?
First Responders Cal ships an update every 3 days, and Shift Alarm weekly. Most recently, First Responders Cal was updated on November 9, 2026 and Shift Alarm on November 10, 2026.

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