FOMO Circles vs Alive
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
FOMO Circles
This app provides a private space to share photos and videos exclusively with invited groups. Create custom circles for different relationships, enjoy end-to-end encryption, and share content without saving it to your device. Relive past memories with the 'On This Day' feature.
- Private circles for family and friends
- End-to-end encrypted sharing
- Bump to share nearby contacts
- In-app photo and video capture
- On This Day memory feature
- Video calls up to 12 people
- Post to multiple circles at once
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Your best moments deserve better than a feed full of strangers. FOMO Circles™ is a private space for the people who actually matter: your family, your best friends, your gym crew, your travel group. No followers. No algorithm. No one you didn't invite. Make a circle for every part of your life. Share to one or several at once. That's it. That's the app. WHY IT FEELS DIFFERENT - End-to-end encrypted: photos, videos, messages and calls in your private circles can only be opened by the people in them. Not even we can see them. - Bump to share: tap phones with someone nearby and they're in your circle instantly. No usernames, no QR codes, no "what's your handle?" - Shoot inside the app: capture photos and video without ever saving them to your camera roll. What happens in the circle stays in the circle. - On This Day: see what your circles were doing one, two, five years ago today, right on your profile. Small groups make the best memories, and FOMO™ brings them back. - You choose who sees it: every post goes only to the circles you pick. Want to reach a little wider? You decide whether your profile is public, and you can make any circle you create public, then switch it back to private anytime. EVERYTHING ELSE YOU'D EXPECT, DONE RIGHT - Unlimited circles for family, friends, teams, the wedding party, whoever - Post one photo or video to several circles with a single tap - Video call up to 12 people at once, right from any group chat - React with emojis and keep the conversation going in comments - Chat 1-on-1 or as a group with anyone in your circles - Explore recently active people you already know WHAT YOU WON'T FIND No likes to chase. No suggested accounts. No ranked feed deciding which of your friends you get to see. Sponsored cards are clearly labeled, so you always know what's an ad. Just the people you chose, in the order things actually happened. WHO IT'S FOR - Families spread across cities who want more than a group text - Friend groups who are done posting for an audience - New parents who want to share every photo with grandparents, not the internet - Anyone who left the big social apps and misses their people, not the feed Download FOMO Circles™ and bring the people you love closer, one memory at a time.
Alive
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Alive is a social app for people who got tired of performing. No public feed. No followers. No algorithm. No AI. Just you, the moment you wanted to capture, and the friends you actually want to share it with. WHY ALIVE EXISTS Social media broke. We open a camera and we don't see the world anymore — we see the post. We compose for the audience before we've even noticed what's in front of us. We polish, we hesitate, we stop posting. Loneliness in a hyper-connected world. Alive flips the workflow. Capture first. Decide who sees it later. Share it with one person, or three, or your whole graph — your choice, every time. If you want, you can never share it at all, and the moment stays only on your phone. HOW IT FEELS — Open the app, hit the capture button. Voice. Photo. Video. Text on a colored background. Mix all four into one post if you want. — It saves to your own private feed first. Always. The decision of whether to share comes after. — When you do share, you pick the humans. Not "everyone." Not "followers." Specific friends, or a group you made (Family, Closest, Studio, Roommates — whatever you call yours). — Want a friend's friends to see this one too? Tap the link icon next to that one person, just on this one post. One hop only. No reposting. No virality machine. FRIENDS, NOT FOLLOWERS Connections on Alive are mutual. You ask. They accept. There are no asymmetric fans, no follow-back games. If you want out, you unfriend, mute, or block — and on Alive, block actually means block: pending requests cancel, shared posts disappear from their side, saved posts of yours leave their library. WHAT'S IN THE APP — Capture and posting in four mediums (text, voice, photo, up to 120-second video), in any combination. — A private feed that shows the moments you've shared and the moments shared with you, strictly chronological. Newest at the top. That's it. — Profiles with a Saved tab so anything beautiful can be kept. — 1:1 chat with the people you actually want to talk to. Persistent. Realtime. — A Founders Wall showing the first hundred thousand people who believed in this enough to back it. WHAT'S NOT IN THE APP — No AI. None. Not for captions, not for moderation, not for ranking. Your post is your post. — No public feed, no discovery, no "explore." — No streaks, no "you haven't posted in 3 days" nudges, no "on this day" memories that ambush you. — No ads. Founders get a lifetime ad-free guarantee. Even after the founder window closes, sharing will never cost money. — No third-party tracking. We're not selling your data, your face, or your friends list. PRIVACY YOU CAN ACTUALLY SEE Posts you create but don't share never leave your device. We literally can't see them — they never touch our servers. When you do share, the media goes encrypted in transit and at rest. The owner of a post is notified if you screenshot it. THE FOUNDER OFFER One dollar a week. A lifetime ad-free guarantee, for as long as Alive operates the account. A Founder badge that shows up everywhere you appear in the app. We're using it to fund building something honest, without ad money pulling at the design. WHO ALIVE IS FOR Alive is for the quiet ones. The people who used to post and stopped. The ones who never started because nothing felt private enough. The ones who only really share in DMs anyway. We made this for you. Welcome home. Privacy Policy: https://www.onlyvibeapps.com/alive/privacy-policy Terms of Use: https://www.onlyvibeapps.com/alive/terms Terms of use(EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: FOMO Circles at none against Alive's 2. FOMO Circles also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs weekly). Alive's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.6). On price and device support 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. Alive sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per 7 days. FOMO Circles asks for nothing beyond the download.
FOMO Circles ships an update every 2 days, Alive weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | FOMO Circles | Alive |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (8 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 8 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 days — better | Weekly |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Ad-supported | — |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.6 | 15.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 145 MB | 55 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | FOMO Circles, LLC | Aditya Gupta |
In-app purchases
FOMO Circles
No in-app purchases
Alive
- Early Members - Weekly$0.997 Days
- Early Members - Monthly$2.991 Month









