Comparison

How Long vs Portbase

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

Head to head
About

How Long

Automatically track time spent at important locations like the gym or office using geofencing and Wi-Fi. Set weekly goals, view detailed statistics, and receive smart suggestions for new places. Enjoy battery-friendly background tracking.

Highlights
  • Automatic location time tracking
  • Geofencing and Wi-Fi detection
  • Weekly goal setting and progress tracking
  • Detailed visit statistics
  • Smart place suggestions
  • Battery-friendly background operation
  • Home screen widgets
Features
Read full description

How Long answers one question: how much time do you actually spend at the places that matter? Save your gym, office, coffee shop, or a friend's house, and How Long quietly notices when you arrive and leave. No check-ins, no timers. FOR FAMILIES, WITHOUT THE TRACKING Know when your kid gets to school, when Grandma is home again, when your partner has left the office. Share just the places that matter with the people who matter, and they'll see arrivals and departures there and nothing else. No live map, no history of everywhere someone went. One Pro purchase covers your whole family through Family Sharing. BUILT TO BE TRUSTED • Detects arrivals and departures with geofencing, Wi-Fi, and Apple's visit monitoring, then double-checks before recording anything • Always watches the places closest to you and keeps that up to date as you move • Battery friendly: no constant GPS polling SEE WHERE YOUR TIME GOES • Total hours, visit counts, average session, and streaks for every place • Charts by day, week, month, or year, switchable between places and categories • A heatmap of which hours and days you tend to be there • Year in Review and Trip Recap cards you can share GOALS AND REMINDERS • Weekly goals: specific days or a number of visits per week, with streaks • Reminders when you've been somewhere longer than you meant to • Nudges when it's been too long since your last visit ORGANIZE • Categories for anything: Home Town, Paris 2024, Clients • Notes, ratings, and photos on every place • Smart suggestions for places you visit often but haven't saved • Share places or whole categories with a link FRIENDS (optional) • Share a place with a friend and see when they arrive and leave • A widget showing where a friend is right now • Everything goes through your own iCloud account; we never see it WIDGETS • Streak and weekly progress widgets for any place • Friend status widget HOW LONG PRO (one-time purchase, Family Sharing included) • Unlimited places (3 are free) • Travel Mode: automatically saves restaurants, trails, and sights you spend time at on a trip, with a photo you took there • Hiking detection for places you wander through without stopping • Place photos, and browse your photo library by place • Smart cadence reminders • iCloud backup and CSV export • Automations: send arrivals and departures to Zapier, IFTTT, or Home Assistant PRIVACY Your places and visits are stored on your device. Backup and friend sharing are optional and use your own iCloud account. We do not collect personal information, run analytics, or sell data. How Long needs "Always" location access to detect visits while it is in the background.

About

Portbase

A versatile database client for managing SQL and NoSQL databases on iOS devices. It offers robust tools for querying, editing, and visualizing data across various database engines.

Highlights
  • SQL consoles with autosaved drafts and completion
  • Browse and edit MongoDB documents and aggregations
  • Manage Redis keys and data types
  • Query ClickHouse and Elasticsearch
  • Create and import local SQLite databases
  • Save unlimited connections and queries
  • TLS and SSH connection options
Features
Read full description

Portbase is a database client for MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, SQLite, Redis, ClickHouse and Elasticsearch on iPhone and iPad. • SQL consoles with autosaved drafts, completion, formatting, Explain and execution at the cursor. • Browse supported schemas, views, indexes, keys and DDL; follow related SQL rows. • Resize, pin, hide and sort result columns. Select and copy cell ranges. • MongoDB Find, Aggregation and Command editors with typed BSON document editing, table views and charts. • Create local SQLite databases or import a consistent snapshot. Files stay on this device. • Browse Redis keys with SCAN; inspect strings, hashes, lists, sets, sorted sets and streams; manage expiration and reviewed writes. • Query ClickHouse over HTTP(S). Inspect Elasticsearch mappings, search documents and aggregations. • Inspect chart points, filter dates, open matching loaded rows and export PNG/PDF. • Save unlimited connections, queries and charts, with Trash and recovery. • TLS and SSH connection options. Connection secrets stay in this device’s Keychain. Operations vary by engine. Manual Commit/Rollback is available for MySQL, MariaDB and PostgreSQL. CSV/JSON import and full query export are available for MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MongoDB and SQLite; other engines export loaded results. Tables display up to 10,000 rows. Charts inspect loaded results; full exports respect the query’s filters and limits. MongoDB document editing requires MongoDB 4.2 or later and a transaction-capable replica set or sharded cluster. Redis supports standalone endpoints, without Cluster/Sentinel discovery or scripting. SQLite commands commit individually; manual console transactions and temporary objects are unavailable.

Screenshots

How Long4 screens
Portbase4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: How Long at 5.0 against Portbase's 4.0. How Long also leads on ratings volume (3 vs 1). Portbase's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 4) and device support (3 vs 1). On price, update cadence, ads and iOS requirement 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. How Long sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Portbase asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

How Long holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3 and 1 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

How Long ships an update fortnightly, Portbase every 2 weeks. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
How Long versus Portbase: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHow LongPortbase
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (3 ratings) — better4.0 (1 ratings)
Positive reviews—33.3% of reviews
Number of ratings3 — better1
Update frequencyFortnightlyEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad, Mac — better
Requires iOS18.018.0
Further details — not scored
Size9 MB41 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperGDW Entertainment, LLCKitta Co.

Customer experience

How Long

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Portbase

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive33.3%
Neutral66.7%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

4 purchases

How Long

One-time4
  • Small Tip$0.99
  • Medium Tip$2.99
  • Large Tip$4.99
Show 1 more
  • How Long Pro$5.99
None

Portbase

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is How Long free?
How Long is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Portbase free?
Portbase is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, How Long or Portbase?
How Long is rated higher. How Long averages 5.0 out of 5 from 3 ratings, while Portbase averages 4.0 from 1 ratings.
Do How Long or Portbase have ads?
Neither How Long nor Portbase shows ads.
Which is updated more often, How Long or Portbase?
How Long ships an update fortnightly, and Portbase every 2 weeks. Most recently, How Long was updated on October 31, 2026 and Portbase on October 31, 2026.

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