Solis vs SunNow
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Solis
Track the sun and moon's celestial paths with this precision almanac. Visualize daylight, twilight, and lunar phases with AR features and a 3D globe. Offers widgets for at-a-glance information.
- Sun and moon path tracking
- Twilight and golden hour visualization
- Realistic illuminated moon phases
- Celestial Sky AR for trajectory alignment
- Interactive 3D Earth globe
- Home screen widgets
- On-device calculations
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Solis is a precision sun and moon almanac for observing natural light. Follow the Sun, Moon, twilight, seasons, and celestial paths from one calm iPhone experience. TODAY See sunrise, solar noon, sunset, golden hour, civil twilight, current solar elevation, weather context, and the day’s changing light. MOON Explore a monthly moon calendar with realistic illuminated phases, zodiac transitions, rise and set times, and precise lunar ephemerides. YEAR Understand annual daylight rhythm, solstices and equinoxes, daily daylight change, solar paths, and seasonal light patterns. CELESTIAL SKY AR Open the camera to align Sun and Moon trajectories with the real sky. Use the Quick Time precision ruler to move through the day and inspect celestial positions at specific times. EARTHLIGHT Explore Earth’s day-and-night terminator and seasonal axial tilt with an interactive 3D globe. WIDGETS Keep useful solar and lunar context visible from the iPhone Home Screen. SOLIS FULL Try everything free for 7 days. Then unlock the full app with a single one-time purchase. No subscription. Existing Solis owners keep their unlock. PRIVACY No ads and no third-party analytics. Astronomy calculations, saved locations, and preferences are handled on device. Solis uses Apple services for weather, maps and geocoding, purchases, and system permissions when those features are used. Designed for photographers, travelers, astronomers, architects, and anyone who plans life around natural light.
SunNow
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# SunNow Product Introduction Have you ever imagined an astronomy model that runs directly on your phone? Without a network connection or cloud computing, you can still know the solar time for your location, when the sun rises, when it sets, and when the moon may be visible. SunNow is exactly that kind of app. It brings the sun, Earth, moon, and your location into one on-device model. Based on latitude, longitude, altitude, date, and time, SunNow calculates sun angle, daylight, twilight, moon phase, and clear-sky radiation locally. You can drag the Earth and moon models to explore how light changes through a day, a month, and a year. In SunNow, time is not just digits on a clock. It becomes the sun's height, the day-night boundary across Earth, the glow before sunrise, the fading light after sunset, and the changing shape of the moon. ## A Sky Inside Your Phone SunNow is not just a weather app or a sunrise lookup tool. It is a local astronomy calculator for daily light, sun, and moon awareness. SunNow uses your current location or a place you select to calculate sun position, local solar time, daylight state, and moon information. You can see whether it is daylight, night, dawn, or dusk, and view sunrise, sunset, and a light curve. These calculations do not depend on the network. With no signal, no mobile data, outdoors, or on a plane, SunNow can still work. ## See Light, Not Just Time We look at time every day, but in real life, light often matters more than the clock. When does the sky begin to brighten? When is the light strongest? How long after sunset can you still see clearly? What phase is the moon in tonight? SunNow turns these questions into something visible. You can check sunrise and sunset, watch the twilight boundary move across Earth, observe clear-sky radiation, and scrub through time. ## Earth, Moon, and Your Location SunNow does not only give you a number. You can drag the Earth model to observe the day-night boundary, switch locations to compare solar states across cities, and save places you care about. The moon is part of the model too. SunNow shows moon phase changes and moon information, helping you see waxing and waning as a continuous process. ## Sunrise and Sunset Alarms For some people, sunrise and sunset are part of a daily rhythm. Regular alarms ring at a fixed clock time, but the sun changes with location and season. SunNow's sunrise and sunset alarms adjust based on your location and date. You can set reminders before sunrise, before sunset, or around specific solar events. For people who live, work, run, travel, photograph, or rest with the sun, this is an alarm that follows the sky. ## Offline, By Design The core features of the current version of SunNow do not require a network connection. Astronomy calculations happen on your device. Your location, saved places, display settings, and alarm rules are stored on your device. The app does not require registration or login, and it does not need to upload your location for its core calculations. You can grant location permission so SunNow can obtain latitude, longitude, and altitude automatically. You can also deny location permission and manually select a place. ## Who SunNow Is For SunNow is for people who care about natural light. It is useful for people living at high latitudes, where daylight length changes dramatically through the year. It helps outdoor workers, early runners, photographers, campers, hikers, commuters, moon watchers, stargazers, and anyone who wants to return their schedule to the sun. If you only want to know when the sun rises today, SunNow can answer that. If you want to understand why the light changes the way it does, SunNow can help you see it. SunNow is an offline astronomy app that uses Earth, the sun, the moon, and your location to show sunrise, sunset, daylight, twilight, moon phases, clear-sky radiation, and solar alarms that adjust with the seasons.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: SunNow at none against Solis's 1. SunNow also leads on iOS requirement (14.0 vs 17.6). On price, ads 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
Both are free to download. Solis sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. SunNow asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | Solis | SunNow |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 1 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 days | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPhone, Apple Watch | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.6 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 36 MB | 96 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Jiajia Zhang | nonono LLC |
In-app purchases
Solis
- Solis Full$4.99
SunNow
No in-app purchases









