Comparison

Glimpse vs Orbit

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

Head to head
About

Glimpse

Share daily moments and photos with your closest friends and family through interactive home screen widgets. React, comment, and participate in photo challenges to stay connected without the pressure of traditional social media.

Highlights
  • Share photos or thoughts
  • Interactive sticker reactions
  • Daily photo challenges
  • Comment and edit messages
  • Weekly recap highlights
  • Shared history gallery
  • Home screen widget slideshow
Features
Read full description

HOW TO USE GLIMPSE: 1. Add the Glimpse widget to your home screen. 2. Share daily moments—a photo, a thought, or both—that land right on your friends' home screens (and theirs on yours!). 3. Jump into the Daily Photo Challenge. Capture today's to unlock your besties' takes. 4. React, comment, decorate. Make each glimpse yours together. KEY FEATURES ► Share What You Want Got something to say but no pic? Share the thought. Captured a moment but no words for it? The photo can stand alone. You're never stuck choosing, just share whatever feels right with your faves. ► Sticker Reactions That Stick Way more fun than regular old likes. Drop any emoji onto your friends' glimpses and let it live there forever. Move them around, pile them up, decorate the board together. It's playful, it's cute, it's yours. ► Daily Photo Challenge Every day, a new challenge drops for everyone. Capture it to see how your besties captured the same one. Same question, completely different points of view. ► Drop Comments Sometimes an emoji says it all. Sometimes you've got something to say or want to chime in. You can reply to glimpses with comments too, and edit or delete your own whenever you want. ► Weekly Recap Every Monday, your Weekly Recap drops with the highlights from your week. Tap to reveal your Top Glimpse, your #1 fan, your go-to reactions, and more. All the little moments you shared, in one sweet snapshot. ► A Shared History Your glimpses don't disappear into the void. Scroll back through a rolling gallery of your moments, a visual diary of all the small, silly, sweet things that make up a friendship. ► Your Widget Slideshow Your home screen becomes a rotating window to your favorite people. Glance down, feel connected, get on with your day. No scrolling required. ► Private & Cozy No followers. No strangers. No ads. No performance. Just your inner circle: the friends who feel like home, siblings, partners, the ones who get it. MADE FOR: - Busy seasons when you still want to stay close - Long-distance friendships that deserve more than the occasional catch-up - Moments too small to text, too sweet to miss - Anyone craving real connection without the whole social media song and dance - Closing the gap when "How are you?" starts to feel like a chore From the creators of PicCollage (trusted by 270M+ users), we built Glimpse because staying connected shouldn't feel like work. So we put your favorite people right where you'll actually see them, on your home screen. We hope you love it as much as we do :) Terms of service: http://cardinalblue.com/tos Privacy policy: https://cardinalblue.com/privacy If you have any questions or feedback, please reach out to us at glimpse@piccollage.com.

About

Orbit

Connect with your closest friends and partner through live widgets on your Home Screen. Share photos, doodles, notes, music, and even play games together in real-time without opening the app. Stay close, even when apart, with shared countdowns, distance, and weather.

Highlights
  • Live widgets for Home Screen
  • Share photos, doodles, notes, music
  • Play games like Tic-Tac-Toe and Connect Four
  • Real-time activity sharing
  • Countdown timers and distance tracking
  • Customizable widget designs
Features
Read full description

Your favorite people, one glance away. Orbit connects you with your partner and your best friends through live widgets. Whatever they send — a photo, a doodle, a note, a mood — appears right on your Home Screen, moments after they send it. No feed, no followers, no noise. Just the people you choose. HOW IT WORKS 1. Invite up to five friends, each with a private invite code 2. Add the Orbit widget to your Home or Lock Screen and pick whose it is 3. Send something — to one friend or several at once — and it lands on their screen in seconds SEND MOMENTS, NOT MESSAGES • Photos that show up right on their Home Screen • Hand-drawn doodles (bad drawings strongly encouraged) • Sticky notes, big-text notes, tiny love notes • Emoji moods with hundreds of style combinations • Voice mails they can play — and react to — from the widget • Songs from Apple Music, with the cover, title and artist • A remote shutter that snaps and prints straight onto their screen PLAY ON YOUR WIDGETS • Tic-Tac-Toe and Connect Four — take your turn without opening the app • Step races and Activity Ring battles, powered by Apple Health • Cheer each other on mid-workout, in real time • Playground: a table of photo cutouts you move around together — with one friend, or in a Circle of up to six STAY CLOSE, EVEN FAR APART • Count down to the days you share — trips, anniversaries, birthdays • My Day: today's events and reminders, one glance away • See the live distance between you • Peek at each other's weather • Share your heartbeat • Keep a shared list you can both check off from the widget • Schedule surprises to appear on their day, right on time MAKE IT YOURS 20+ widget types and hundreds of designs to mix. Browse the gallery, bookmark the looks you love, publish your own — and pick shared themes together, because their widget is half yours. For Me adds free clocks, calendars, the moon and more, just for your own Home Screen. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Orbit is for a few people, on purpose: up to five friends, each with a space of your own. What you share with one friend stays between the two of you — when you disconnect, that space is deleted, and if you ever delete your account, everything you shared goes with it. Permanently. FREE TO START Sending emoji widgets is free, forever. Orbit Plus unlocks every widget type and experience; subscriptions auto-renew until canceled and can be managed in your App Store settings. MADE BY ONE PERSON Orbit is an indie app, built with a lot of love and an unreasonable number of late nights. Something wrong? Email me from the app — I'll fix it. Your people are closer than you think. Pull them into Orbit. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Glimpse4 screens
Orbit4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Glimpse at none against Orbit's 2. Glimpse also leads on ratings volume (68 vs 1) and iOS requirement (18.0 vs 26.0). Orbit's advantage is update cadence (every 4 days vs fortnightly). On price, rating, ads 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Orbit sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Glimpse asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Glimpse against 5.0 for Orbit. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Glimpse has 68 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Glimpse ships an update fortnightly, Orbit every 4 days. Both last shipped on November 9, 2026.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Glimpse versus Orbit: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGlimpseOrbit
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.9 (68 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings68 — better1
Update frequencyFortnightlyEvery 4 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFreemium
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS18.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size117 MB267 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperCardinal BlueMayak Labs LLC

Customer experience

Glimpse

All ratings68 ratings
Positive97.1%
Neutral2.9%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews5 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Orbit

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Glimpse

No in-app purchases

2 purchases

Orbit

Subscriptions2
  • View Access3 Days trial$2.991 Month
  • Plus3 Days trial$6.991 Month

Questions

Is Glimpse free?
Glimpse is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Orbit free?
Orbit is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Glimpse or Orbit?
Orbit is rated higher. Glimpse averages 4.9 out of 5 from 68 ratings, while Orbit averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Glimpse or Orbit have ads?
Neither Glimpse nor Orbit shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Glimpse or Orbit?
Glimpse ships an update fortnightly, and Orbit every 4 days. Most recently, Glimpse was updated on November 9, 2026 and Orbit on November 9, 2026.

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