Vesper vs DOTS
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Vesper
This app helps users, particularly women, reduce mindless scrolling and regain calm with their phones. It offers gentle pauses before opening distracting apps and allows for scheduled quiet windows to promote focus and intentional usage.
- Screen time protection for distracting apps
- Morning and Night Quiet Windows
- Earn 'Glow' for keeping promises
- Two-minute breathing ritual
- Intentional app access
- Calm reward moments
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Vesper helps you turn the urge to scroll into a reason to move. Choose the distracting apps you want to protect with Apple Screen Time. When you reach for them, Vesper creates a calm pause and guides you toward a verified live walk before granting a bounded opening. When the opening ends, your selected apps return to protection automatically. See your verified daily steps and walking goal on Home, start a live walking session, and follow your progress as you move. If walking is not available, Box Breathing offers a limited fallback. Vesper is designed for women who want less automatic scrolling, more movement, and a softer way to protect their attention—without shame, punishment, or productivity pressure. Features: • Screen Time protection for selected distracting apps • Verified live walking for bounded intentional access • Daily iOS Health step progress and walking goals • Clear protection status and next actions on Home • Automatic re-protection after each opening • Limited Box Breathing fallback • Calm celebrations and a warm star companion Your attention belongs to you. Stop scrolling. Step into her. Vesper offers free onboarding. Additional features require a lifetime purchase or subscription. Terms of use: https://xcompass.ai/terms-of-service
DOTS
Visualize your finite time and protect it from distractions. Set daily app limits, schedule downtime, and track reclaimed hours to live more intentionally. Features include a life grid, focus mode, and weekly reflections.
- Life grid visualization
- Focus mode to block distractions
- Daily app time limits
- Scheduled downtime
- Weekly reflections
- Time reclaimed tracking
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You have one life. About 4,000 weeks, if you're lucky. DOTS shows you every single one - as a grid of dots - so the time you have stops being an abstraction and starts feeling real. Then it helps you protect it. THE LIFE GRID Each dot is one week of your life. See the weeks you've already lived, the one you're in right now, and the ones still ahead. It's a quiet, powerful reminder that your time is finite - and worth defending. FOCUS MODE Start a focus session and DOTS shields the apps that pull you away. No willpower battles, no endless scrolling. Just the space to do what actually matters to you. DAILY LIMITS Set a daily time budget for the apps that eat your hours. When you hit your limit, DOTS steps in with a calm reminder of the commitment you made to yourself not a guilt trip, just a nudge back to your intentions. MINDFUL BLOCKING Choose the apps and categories you want to manage. DOTS uses Apple's Screen Time technology to block them on your terms, for the time you decide. Everything is opt-in and fully in your control. WEEKLY REFLECTIONS Look back on how you spent your time, notice your patterns, and set intentions for the week ahead. Small, honest check-ins that compound into real change. BUILT FOR YOU, AND ONLY YOU DOTS manages your own device, for your own goals. It is not a parental-control or tracking app. Your usage data stays private - stored on your device and synced only to your personal iCloud. We don't collect it, sell it, or share it. WIND-DOWN The "just ten minutes" that becomes two hours, fixed. Set a bedtime window and a short allowance. You get your few minutes, a gentle heads-up as the time runs low, then your apps wind down until morning. Keep it and your sleep streak grows. SCHEDULED DOWNTIME Block the apps that pull you away on a schedule that fits your life - work hours, school, dinner, deep work. Set it once and it runs every day, on its own. PER-APP LIMITS Give each app its own daily budget instead of one shared timer. Keep essentials like Maps, your bank, and Messages always allowed, and get a heads-up a few minutes before a limit is reached. TIME WON BACK See the hours you reclaim from focus sessions and protected nights add up as a growing field of green dots. The cost of a screen is easy to feel - now the winnings are too. LIFE LIVED A ten-second daily check-in: did you actually use the time you saved the way you meant to? It builds a quiet record of the days you showed up for your own life, not just the time you saved. MILESTONES Count down to the dates that matter - a birthday, a goal, a someday - in weeks. Seal a letter to your future self that opens on the very day it arrives. ON YOUR LOCK SCREEN AND WITH SIRI Follow your focus countdown live on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island, and start or end a session hands-free with a Shortcut. WHY DOTS IS DIFFERENT Most screen-time apps treat the symptom. DOTS starts with the why: a clear, visceral picture of how precious your time is. Once you feel that, blocking an app stops feeling like a restriction and starts feeling like a choice - your choice. Privacy Policy: https://novarch.lol/dots-privacy Terms of Use (EULA): https://novarch.lol/dots-terms Your life. Your time. Your choice. Download DOTS and start protecting the weeks you have left.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is iOS requirement: Vesper at 15.1 against DOTS's 26.1. On price, rating, ratings volume 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
Both are free to download. Vesper sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $12.99 per 7 days and DOTS sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per 7 days. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Vesper against 5.0 for DOTS. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 1 respectively.
Vesper ships an update every 2 weeks, DOTS every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on September 8, 2026 and August 12, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Vesper | DOTS |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 2 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 8 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 26.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 64 MB | 53 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | xCompass, LLC | Novarch LLC |
Customer experience
Vesper
DOTS
In-app purchases
Vesper
- Vesper Weekly$12.997 Days
- Vesper Yearly7 Days trial$59.991 Year
- Believer$99.99
DOTS
- Weekly Premium$1.997 Days
- Monthly Premium$4.991 Month
- Yearly Premium$29.991 Year
- Lifetime$49.99









