Comparison

Phaseboard vs Rota

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

Head to head
About

Phaseboard

Features
Read full description

For the moments when products, prototypes, side projects, and late-night ideas are all alive at once. Phaseboard is a quiet, beautiful place to keep them, with each one's current stage, progress, and the one thing to do next. Every project breaks down the same way. From outermost to innermost: project, stage, task, subtask. Statuses roll up automatically as you check things off, so the dashboard always shows which projects deserve your time today. Projects now support deadlines, with a countdown on Home and on the project page. The Calendar page lists every deadline and task due date by month. Three new free widgets show the calendar and upcoming deadlines on the Home Screen. Two styles are available: Quiet, with soft lines and plenty of room, and Classic, the original engineering-manual look. Switch between them any time from the side menu. Phaseboard is built natively for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Your projects sync privately through your own iCloud, with full offline support. Home Screen widgets, Lock Screen views, and a Mac menu bar tile keep what you're working on always in sight. Available in English, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://phaseboard.app/privacy Subscription and refund terms: https://phaseboard.app/terms

About

Rota

Features
Read full description

Rota is a private, offline-first shift scheduling app for people who work shifts. Keep your roster on your own device, whether you work in healthcare, hospitality, security, manufacturing, or another rotating schedule. IMPORT AND VIEW YOUR ROSTER • Import PDF, Excel, CSV, PNG, JPEG, and WebP roster files with a guided mapping flow. Text PDFs are read on device; scanned PDFs and images can use on-device OCR. • See colour-coded shifts in month, week, list, and roster-overview views. • Set your own shift names, colours, and times, then focus the calendar on your own shifts or view the whole team. • Add optional pre-shift reminders and sync shifts to a calendar you choose. • Add Home Screen widgets for Today & Tomorrow, This Week, Two Weeks, Weekly Timeline, or List, with optional event details. FREE MANUAL SCHEDULING • Create any number of blank rosters and edit assignments day by day. • Maintain separate member libraries, reuse members across rosters, and choose when changes are synchronized. • Keep every roster, member, and shift editable on your device. SHIFT ALARMS • On iOS 26 and later, create system alarms from a roster and shift that can alert through Silent Mode and Focus. • Follow the shift start or end time, then choose a before, on-time, or after offset and an optional snooze duration. • The first persistent alarm rule is free; the one-minute test alarm uses no slot. HANDLE REAL-WORLD CHANGES • Record covers, same-day or cross-day swaps, repayments, and overtime locally. • Keep a local swap history and compare suggested swaps. • Review your shift mix and hours trend. ROTA PRO — ONE-TIME PURCHASE Rota Pro permanently unlocks rotation scheduling, rule-based generation, auto-extension to a chosen date, roster merge and comparison tools, PDF/Excel/CSV export, and unlimited persistent shift-alarm rules. Every generated roster remains editable. PRIVACY No account is required. Rota has no business backend and no ads. Rota does not upload or collect rosters, names, imported files, settings, alarm rules, or local .rota backups. User-directed exports go only to the selected destination, and calendar events follow the provider of the system calendar you select. The core app works offline; the optional one-time Rota Pro purchase needs a network connection to process and restore your purchase.

Screenshots

Phaseboard4 screens
Rota4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Rota at weekly against Phaseboard's every 2 months. Rota also leads on iOS requirement (15.1 vs 18.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases 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. Phaseboard sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and Rota sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Phaseboard ships an update every 2 months, Rota weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 28, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 4 level
Phaseboard versus Rota: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPhaseboardRota
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
DevicesiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS18.015.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size15 MB34 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developer东堃 许礼源 杨

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Phaseboard

Subscriptions2
  • Pro · Monthly7 Days trial$1.991 Month
  • Pro · Yearly7 Days trial$8.991 Year
One-time1
  • Pro · Lifetime$14.99
1 purchases

Rota

One-time1
  • Rota Pro$2.99

Questions

Is Phaseboard free?
Phaseboard is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Rota free?
Rota is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Phaseboard or Rota have ads?
Neither Phaseboard nor Rota shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Phaseboard or Rota?
Phaseboard ships an update every 2 months, and Rota weekly. Most recently, Phaseboard was updated on October 25, 2026 and Rota on October 28, 2026.

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