Koku vs Alarmed
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Koku
This app helps you focus on tasks with customizable work and rest intervals. It offers a simple, distraction-free interface and integrates with your home screen and Apple Watch for easy access and control. Enjoy deep work without accounts, streaks, or subscriptions.
- Customizable focus and rest sessions
- Classic Pomodoro rhythm option
- Home Screen widget for quick access
- Live Activities on lock screen
- Apple Watch companion app
- Minimalist, distraction-free design
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Koku is a focus timer for deep work. Focus. Rest. Repeat. Set your own session lengths or use the classic rhythm - twenty-five minutes of focus, five minutes of rest, a longer break every four sessions. Each minute is a dot. Watch them fill. - No accounts. - No streaks. - No subscriptions. Just time, and the work in front of you. Add Koku to your Home Screen for quick access - start, pause, and skip sessions right from the widget. Keep the timer visible on your lock screen with Live Activities. Koku also includes an Apple Watch companion app that works with the iPhone app, so you can check your timer and control sessions from your wrist. Designed for iPhone, with an Apple Watch companion. Light and dark mode. Works in any language. Koku (刻) is the Japanese word for a moment of time.
Alarmed
This app helps you avoid oversleeping by requiring you to complete a challenge before the alarm stops. Choose from various missions like math puzzles or shaking your phone to ensure you get out of bed. It also provides simple statistics to track your wake-up habits.
- Mission-based alarm challenges
- Math puzzles
- Phone shaking challenge
- Memory challenges
- Wake-up statistics
- Snooze tracking
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Alarmed is for people who keep hitting the snooze button on normal alarm clocks. Say bye bye to endless snoozing and multiple alarms just to wake up on time. Create alarms, pick a mission, and complete it so the alarm turns off. Choose from math puzzles, shaking phone, or memory challenges to make waking up harder to ignore. Create alarms, pick a mission, and complete it so the alarm turns off. Choose from math puzzles, memory games, exercise challenges and more to make waking up harder to ignore. ALARMED PRO Unlimited alarms and the math, shake and memory missions are free. Alarmed Pro adds mission chains (up to three missions on one alarm), the premium missions — Workout, Scan, Steps and Tiles — and the wake-up checkup, a second alarm a few minutes later that proves you actually stayed up. Alarmed Pro is available as: • Monthly — $4.99 per month • Annual — $19.99 per year • Lifetime — $39.99, one-time purchase Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions renew automatically unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period; your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can manage or cancel your subscription in your Apple Account settings after purchase. Privacy Policy: https://alarmed-app.vercel.app/privacy Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Alarmed at 4.4 against Koku's 3.0. Alarmed also leads on ratings volume (25 vs 1) and iOS requirement (16.4 vs 26.4). Koku's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs every 2 months). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Alarmed holds the better App Store score, 4.4 against 3.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Alarmed has 25 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Koku ships an update every 3 days, Alarmed every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 11, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Koku | Alarmed |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.0 (1 ratings) | 4.4 (25 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | — | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 25 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 days — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, Apple Watch — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 26.4 | 16.4 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 10 MB | 102 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Rodolfo Alberto Lopez Terriquez | Agrima Pandey |
Customer experience
Koku
Alarmed
In-app purchases
Koku
No in-app purchases
Alarmed
No in-app purchases








