Flow vs Focus Hour
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
Flow
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Make space for deep focus with a timer that adapts to the way you work. Flow is a calm, flexible focus system for work, study, reading, writing, meditation, and everything in between. Create routines that fit your day, keep the countdown visible across your Apple devices, and turn each completed session into useful progress. FOCUS YOUR WAY - Create custom timers with your own name, icon, color, focus duration, break length, and rounds - Build Pomodoro-style routines for deep work, study sessions, reading, writing, or mindful breaks - Pause, skip, restart, or stop a session whenever your plans change - Choose light or dark appearance to match your space STAY FOCUSED EVERYWHERE - Follow your session from iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch - Keep the timer close with widgets, Dynamic Island, and Live Activities - Choose focus music and control Apple Music playback without leaving the timer SEE YOUR PROGRESS - Earn reward points and build streaks as sessions add up - Compare routines and review focus time, completion patterns, and your most productive hours - Use Focus Coach for practical guidance based on your focus history - Compare Flow focus time with Apple Health mindful-minute summaries REFLECT AND IMPROVE - Record your mood and distractions after a session - Add a short note about what worked or what got in the way - Search your history by routine, note, or date - Return to past sessions to spot patterns and make your next focus block better FLOW PRO only for $0.99 for Lifetime! Unlock Extensions, unlimited Custom Timers, the full History archive, advanced Insights, Focus Coach, Apple Health comparison, and Apple Music controls, Widgets, Live activity, Dynamic Island. Whether you are protecting time for a demanding project, studying for an exam, reading without distraction, or building a steadier daily rhythm, Flow gives you a clear place to begin. Find your flow, one focused session at a time. https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Focus Hour
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Focus Hour is a task manager, a day planner and a focus timer in one app. No account. No sign-up. No email. No ads. Open it, plan tomorrow, and start. PLAN THE DAY, THEN DO IT Lists, folders and headings for structure. Tags, saved filters and search for everything else. Subtasks, checklists, markdown notes and photo attachments on any task. Due dates, defer dates, durations, recurrence, and reminders with buttons you can act on straight from the notification. TYPE IT, DON'T TAP IT Quick add reads what you write. "Draft the report friday 2pm #work !2" lands dated, tagged and flagged without touching a single picker. A PLANNER THAT KNOWS YOUR CALENDAR Your tasks and your existing calendar events on one timeline, so the plan reflects the time you actually have. Auto-plan drops the backlog into the gaps. Calendar events are read-only and never leave your device. FOCUS, PROPERLY A real Pomodoro cycle โ focus, a short break, and a longer reset after a few rounds โ with every duration configurable. Or a plain stopwatch. Synthesised ambient beds to work under: rain, waves, fire, and three kinds of noise. Start a session on a task and the time is logged against it. BUILD THE HABITS Daily, weekday or times-per-week habits, with count goals, streaks and notes. SEE IT WITHOUT OPENING THE APP Home Screen widgets for today's list โ with checkboxes that work right there โ and for the running timer. Lock Screen widgets for what's next and how long is left. An Apple Watch app to tick things off, log habits and run a focus session from your wrist. And a share sheet that sends a link, a screenshot or selected text from any app straight to your Inbox. MADE TO LOOK LIKE SOMETHING Three skins โ Ink, Carbon and Terminal โ with hard rules, a grotesk display face and monospaced figures. Not another rounded grey list. ALSO IN THE BOX An Eisenhower matrix, a weekly review, project templates, XP levels and badges, and focus statistics by day, list, task and hour. BUILT BY ONE PERSON I built Focus Hour for myself, in a year when AI finally made something like this achievable alone โ then kept building whatever people asked for. No team, no investors, and no roadmap written by anyone but the people using it. And no subscription: your own to-do list shouldn't be rented back to you month after month. Your tasks, notes and photos stay on your iPhone, and your calendar is read-only and never leaves the device. No tracking of you across other companies' apps or websites, and nothing shared with data brokers. TELL ME WHAT TO BUILD See something in another to-do app that you wish this one had? Email mark@vibecode.review. I read every message and I build what people actually ask for โ that is how most of this app got here. Install it and plan tomorrow tonight.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Focus Hour at every 2 days against Flow's every 5 weeks. Focus Hour also leads on iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.2). On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Flow sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and Focus Hour sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Flow ships an update every 5 weeks, Focus Hour every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 3, 2026 and October 18, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Flow | Focus Hour |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks | Every 2 days โ better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch | iPhone, iPod, Apple Watch |
| Requires iOS | 17.2 | 15.1 โ better |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 11 MB | 52 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Neerav Kothari | Meng-Yi Hsu |
In-app purchases
Flow
- Monthly Pro7 Days trial$1.991 Month
- Yearly Pro7 Days trial$14.991 Year
- Weekly Pass$0.99
Focus Hour
- Unlock All Apps I Built$5.99
- Unlock Focus Hour$9.99
- Unlock Focus Hour$12.99









