Comparison

Dots vs Vane

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

Head to head
About

Dots

This is a free habit tracker focused on simplicity and visual progress. It offers clean design and customizable home screen widgets to help users build consistency and stay motivated with their daily routines.

Highlights
  • Free habit tracking
  • Customizable home screen widgets
  • Visual progress tracking with dots
  • Clean and focused design
  • Weekly and monthly heatmaps
Features
Read full description

Dots. is a habit tracker and daily routine planner designed for simplicity, clarity, and consistency. Build better habits with a clean, simple tracker and beautifully designed home screen widgets that make your progress instantly visible. Turn small daily actions into lasting routines — a lightweight habit tracker and productivity widget, all in one simple app. [Why Dots?] • Simple Habit Tracker Start tracking your daily habits with an intuitive, distraction-free habit tracker built around ease of use. • Beautiful Home Screen Widgets Add a minimal widget to your Home Screen and track habits at a glance. Monthly and weekly heatmap widgets make progress clear and motivating. • Visual Habit Tracking Every action becomes a dot. Watch your streaks grow with a simple visual tracker that highlights consistency. • Clean & Focused Design A simple habit tracker with no clutter — just the tools you need to build better routines. • Gentle Motivation A calm, simple tracking experience designed to support long-term habits without pressure. • Stats & Yearly Recap Your whole year at a glance — a heatmap of every habit, monthly charts, your records, and a recap you can share. [Dots Pro] Dots lets you track 3 habits for free. Dots Pro lifts the limit — monthly, yearly with the first month free, or a one-time lifetime purchase. Subscriptions renew automatically until cancelled and can be managed or cancelled in the App Store at any time. Everything else stays free for everyone: widgets, the Apple Watch app, reminders, recaps, icons and colours. People who were already using Dots keep unlimited habits, for good. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Vane

This app helps you build positive habits with a focus on privacy and simplicity. Track daily or weekly goals, visualize your progress with beautiful statistics, and stay motivated with streaks and reminders. It includes a focus timer for dedicated work sessions.

Highlights
  • Daily & weekly habit tracking
  • Daily dashboard view
  • Calendar view for habit completion
  • Last 4 weeks consistency visualization
  • Streak counter
  • Built-in focus timer
  • Reminders
Features
Read full description

Vane is a calm, no-account, privacy-first habit tracker built around two simple ideas: log your day, watch your progress. No leaderboards. No social feed. No accounts. Just you and the habits you care about. Whether you want to drink more water, work out, read every night, meditate, or finally start journaling, Vane gives you a clean daily dashboard and beautiful statistics that make showing up feel rewarding. FEATURES DAILY & WEEKLY HABITS Track habits that should happen every day, or X times per week (e.g. "Run 3x/week"). Each habit can be a simple check-off or a counter with a target value. DAILY DASHBOARD Your day at a glance. Log progress, edit any day, all in one place. CALENDAR A month-at-a-glance view for each habit, color-coded by completion. LAST 4 WEEKS A pretty visualization of your consistency across the past month, with a percentage so you know exactly how you're doing. STREAKS Keep your fire alive, counted strictly on consecutive successful days. No fudge factor. FOCUS TIMER Built-in Pomodoro timer for habits that need dedicated time, like meditation, study, or deep work. Rings even when the app is in the background. REMINDERS Pick a time and Vane will nudge you. 100% PRIVATE Everything stays on your device. No accounts, no servers, no syncing your data anywhere. VANE PRO Unlock everything Vane has to offer: • Unlimited habits • 6 home-screen widgets in multiple sizes • Yearly statistics • Multiple reminders per habit • Import & export your full history • Restore archived habits • Family Sharing, share Pro with up to 5 family members • Support an independent developer Vane Pro is available as a monthly or annual auto-renewing subscription. The annual plan starts with a 7-day free trial for new subscribers; you won't be charged until the trial ends. Payment is charged to your Apple ID at confirmation of purchase (or at the end of the free trial). The subscription auto-renews unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can manage or cancel anytime in Settings, [your name], Subscriptions. Privacy Policy: https://vaneprivacypolicy.carrd.co/ Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Dots4 screens
Vane4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is monetization model: Dots at free against Vane's freemium. Dots also leads on ratings volume (219 vs 1). Vane's advantage is iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.6). On price, rating, review sentiment 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. Dots sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and Vane 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 — 4.9 for Dots against 5.0 for Vane. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Dots has 219 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 98% of Dots's written reviews are positive against 100% of Vane's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 18, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Dots versus Vane: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDotsVane
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.9 (219 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews98.2% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings219 — better1
Update frequencyWeeklyWeekly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree — betterFreemium
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPod
Requires iOS17.615.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size24 MB44 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJuyong BakFINLEY ALSCHWEIG

Customer experience

Dots

All ratings219 ratings
Positive99.5%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.5%
Written reviews55 reviews
Positive98.2%
Neutral1.8%
Negative0.0%

Vane

Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Dots

Subscriptions2
  • Dots Pro — Monthly$1.991 Month
  • Dots Pro — Yearly1 Month trial$11.991 Year
One-time1
  • Dots Pro — Lifetime$24.99
3 purchases

Vane

Subscriptions2
  • Vane Pro monthly$1.991 Month
  • Vane Pro annually7 Days trial$17.991 Year
One-time1
  • Vane Lifetime Pro$29.99

Questions

Is Dots free?
Dots is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Vane free?
Vane is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Dots or Vane?
Vane is rated higher. Dots averages 4.9 out of 5 from 219 ratings, while Vane averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Dots or Vane have ads?
Neither Dots nor Vane shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Dots or Vane?
Dots ships an update weekly, and Vane weekly. Most recently, Dots was updated on October 18, 2026 and Vane on October 14, 2026.

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