Comparison

Glow Stride vs StepQuest

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

Head to head
About

Glow Stride

Features
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GlowStride turns every walk, run, and hike into something you actually look forward to. Set a goal, tap START, and watch your route light up on the map as you collect glows scattered around you. No tracking. Total Free to use. ONE TAP TO START Pick your activity โ€” Walk, Run, or Cycle. Set a distance, step, or calorie goal. A 5-second countdown and you're off. No complicated setup, no friction. COLLECT GLOWS ON YOUR MAP Glows spawn near your location before each session. Walk close enough and they're yours. Every glow collected adds to your total and fuels your progress through quests and badges. LIVE SESSION TRACKING See your time, distance, pace, and calories in real time. Your route draws on the map as you move. Pause, resume, or swipe to end โ€” you're in full control. DAILY QUESTS AND LIFETIME BADGES Complete daily quests like hitting step targets or collecting a set number of glows. Earn lifetime badges across categories โ€” distance milestones, streak records, glow collections, and more. STREAKS THAT KEEP YOU MOVING Build your daily streak by staying active. Track your current and longest streaks at a glance. Miss a day and start fresh โ€” simple, honest motivation. STATS AND WEEKLY CHARTS Review your steps, distance, and calories across the week with clean bar charts. Browse your full session history and tap into any past session for a detailed summary. OFFLINE-READY WITH CLOUD SYNC All your data is stored locally on device. Sessions, profiles, and progress sync seamlessly through iCloud โ€” no account required, no sign-up walls. PRIVACY FIRST GlowStride does not collect personal data on external servers. Your health and location data stays on your device and in your private iCloud container. Built for people who want to move more without the noise. GlowStride is simple, focused, and designed to make every step count. GlowStride reads active energy burned to show accurate calories after your sessions, and saves your completed workouts to Apple Health. For more information, please visit https://mecapps.fun

About

StepQuest

Features
Read full description

Your hero is only alive while you keep walking. StepQuest exists to make a daily walking habit something you actually keep. Not with another streak badge or a reminder you learn to ignore, but by turning your step count into a roguelite RPG where a character's survival is the thing at stake. -= How It Works =- You pick a daily step goal, and it locks in for the whole adventure, so you set your own difficulty. Every day you hit it, your character earns XP and levels up. Every day you miss, you lose a heart. Run out of hearts and the run is over. Steps come straight from Apple Health, so there is nothing to log by hand. You walk, the game keeps score. -= Missing a Day Is Survivable, Not Free =- Six days in a row earns a rest day, and your next miss is forgiven automatically. A full seven day streak regenerates a heart. Blue hearts, earned only from the hardest quests, absorb a missed day as a last resort. Use all of it and a run can last months. Ignore it and five bad days end everything. -= Death Is Not a Reset =- When the last heart goes, your level resets, but your gold and your avatar collection are permanent. You cash out gold based on how long you survived, spend it on cosmetics, and start the next run with everything you have collected. A bad run costs you progress, never your collection. -= Your Steps Are the Currency =- More than 140 avatars across five styles: standard, casual, edgy, fantasy, and cyberpunk. Every one of them is priced in gold, and walking is what earns it. The rarest take real distance to reach, so your character ends up wearing the ground you covered. -= Quests Worth Chasing =- Daily, weekly, monthly and legendary quests. A perfect month. Half a million steps in a single run. A hundred consecutive days. -= On Your Wrist and Home Screen =- An Apple Watch app, a Watch complication, Home Screen widgets and Lock Screen widgets keep today's steps and your remaining hearts one glance away, so you always know how close the day is to costing you a heart. Raise your wrist or glance at a locked phone, no need to open the app. No accounts. No sign up. Just your steps. Disclaimer: StepQuest is free to play and shows ads. Optional in-app support tiers grant bonus gold and remove ads. Nothing you can buy affects your hearts, your step goal, or your progress.

Screenshots

Glow Stride4 screens
StepQuest4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Glow Stride at none against StepQuest's 5. Glow Stride also leads on ads (none vs shown). StepQuest's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs every 3 weeks) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.6). On price and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. StepQuest sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. Glow Stride asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Glow Stride ships an update every 3 weeks, StepQuest every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on September 8, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences ยท 2 level
Glow Stride versus StepQuest: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGlow StrideStepQuest
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeksEvery 3 days โ€” better
AdsNo โ€” betterYes
In-app purchasesNo โ€” betterYes
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPod, Apple Watch โ€” better
Requires iOS17.615.1 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size4 MB60 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperLuu Thi Tuyet MinhAdam Golczak

In-app purchases

None

Glow Stride

No in-app purchases

5 purchases

StepQuest

One-time5
  • Toss a Coin$1.99
  • Tavern Round$2.99
  • Squire's Tribute$4.99
Show 2 more
  • Royal Benefactor$9.99
  • Legendary Patron$19.99

Questions

Is Glow Stride free?
Glow Stride is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is StepQuest free?
StepQuest is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Glow Stride or StepQuest have ads?
StepQuest shows ads; Glow Stride does not.
Which is updated more often, Glow Stride or StepQuest?
Glow Stride ships an update every 3 weeks, and StepQuest every 3 days. Most recently, Glow Stride was updated on September 8, 2026 and StepQuest on September 24, 2026.

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