Pocket Stoa vs Liminal
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Pocket Stoa
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Feel calmer in 1 to 3 minutes, and get to know yourself. Pocket Stoa gives you guided breathing and short exercises for stressful moments, quick quizzes that show how your mind works, and an AI chat to talk things through. For heavy days and good days. Every calming exercise is free. HELP ON A HEAVY DAY (1–3 MINUTES) Tap how today feels: good, okay or heavy. On a heavy day, pick what's weighing on you: worried, drained, stuck, on edge, low, or can't switch off. You get one short exercise for that feeling, with nothing to read first: slow breathing, sorting what you can control, shrinking a big task, or setting tomorrow's worries aside until morning. Every exercise is free, every time. BREATHING, ANY TIME Five guided breathing exercises: calm down fast, steady and focus, fall asleep, a longer calm, and cool down. Each says why it works. Breathe in one of six painted places. SLOW DOWN Nothing to read, nothing to get right. Paint a place with a tap, watch a slow window, or read one of 18 short picture stories. GOOD DAYS TOO Keep a good moment so it stays with you. Send good news to someone who'll be glad. KNOW YOURSELF Three quick everyday moments a day, like "After a party, you replay a chat with someone new." Pick what you'd do, and see the habit of mind behind it, like the spotlight effect. 54 patterns, each from published research. Your profile fills in as you go: your patterns, values, and what helps you. After about 5 days of answers, see which of 8 schools of thought you lean towards. A new dilemma on Today every day shows a little more. Your day's painting fills in as you go, and your good days light up a little painted world. QUICK GAMES Spot It: spot 5 thinking traps in 60 seconds. Would You?, This or That, Who Said It? (100 quotes), the Trolley (180 hard choices), a values auction, and 25 famous thought experiments. TALK IT THROUGH (AI CHAT) It listens, asks one question at a time, and ends with one line worth keeping. Or practise a hard conversation, or ask a great thinker. Replies come from an AI, Anthropic's Claude, and the app says so. It isn't a therapist. GO DEEPER: PHILOSOPHY 8 short courses, from the Stoics and Aristotle to Plato, Kant and the Buddha, 5 to 8 minutes a lesson. Plus the Meditations, the Enchiridion, 30 of Seneca's letters and 62 classic books. LITTLE THINGS A home-screen widget to check in with one tap. Soft sounds you can turn off. A weekly goal instead of a streak: miss a day and nothing resets. Milestones, and a look back at your month. FREE, AND PRO Free: every exercise, every time; 3 daily moments and their patterns; one "Why?" a day; your profile and your school; the games, with Spot It once a day; one AI talk a week; the first lesson of every course; two lives of The Last Day. Pro: every course, all the way; AI talks every day; every "Why?"; how you're changing, week by week; every Spot It deck; all 180 Trolley choices; all of The Last Day, a guided reflection on what matters to you. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Your check-ins and the moments you keep stay on your phone. After a help, you can tell us anonymously if it helped. No ads, no tracking across apps, and we don't sell your data. Start without an account. Sign in to back up and to talk, and delete your account in Settings at any time. FOR EVERYDAY STRESS Pocket Stoa isn't therapy or medical care, and not a substitute for professional help. "I'm not okay" is always one tap away, with support lines for your country. SUBSCRIPTION Pocket Stoa Pro is an auto-renewing subscription, monthly or yearly. The App Store shows the price in your currency, and any free trial, before you confirm. Payment is charged to your Apple ID at confirmation of purchase, or when a free trial ends. It renews automatically unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel in your App Store account settings. Privacy Policy: https://pocketstoa.com/privacy Terms of Use (EULA): https://pocketstoa.com/terms
Liminal
Engage in thoughtful conversations with AI reconstructions of great minds. Explore philosophical concepts through interactive games and unique encounters designed for quiet reflection. Many features are available offline and free to use.
- AI reconstructions of great minds
- Interactive philosophical games
- Poetry generation
- Question and answer sessions
- Thought experiments
- Offline play
- No ads or tracking
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Liminal is a quiet game about thinking. You arrive in the Atrium — a hall of doors. Behind each door is a great mind, reconstructed from their writings to think *with* you: Albert Camus on the café terrace, Nietzsche at altitude, Rumi turning toward the Beloved, Kafka in the unmarked office, the Stoic Marcus Aurelius, and more than a dozen others. Choose a voice, choose how you want to be met — challenged, accompanied, or left mostly to silence — and play. THE GAMES • Words for the Sea — offer a handful of words and receive a short poem in the thinker's voice. • Ask anything — put a real question to a real mind and hear a considered reply. • The Descent — one question, then deeper, and deeper still. • The Dilemma — a classic thought-experiment that branches to a reflection with no clean answer. • The Fork, The Reframe, Agree or Disagree, The Mask, A Minute of Silence — short games that read you back to yourself. ENCOUNTERS — where the voices meet • Two Voices — ask two thinkers one question and watch the second answer the first. • The Symposium — a panel answers, and a neutral narrator names the sharpest disagreement. • Philosophers' Football — draft two sides from the roster and let the eternal match be narrated. • The Oracle, The Gift, The Mirror — smaller rooms for fortune, reflection, and a parting tool to carry. QUIET BY DESIGN No ads. No tracking. No feed. Liminal asks nothing of you but attention. Many games work offline, for free. A NOTE ON THE VOICES The thinkers in Liminal are AI reconstructions written in each mind's spirit — they are not the real people, and nothing they say is professional advice. Liminal is for reflection, not counsel. Live, in-character answers are generated by Anthropic's Claude. The thinkers in Liminal are AI reconstructions — not the real people, and nothing they say is professional advice. Every line is original, written in each voice's spirit — never a verbatim quote from any author. Liminal is for reflection, not counsel. Live, in-character answers are generated by Anthropic's Claude. Sign in with Apple to carry your account and credits across devices. A handful of live answers are free; more are available as a small in-app purchase.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is device support: Liminal at 4 against Pocket Stoa's 1. On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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. Pocket Stoa sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per month and Liminal sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Pocket Stoa ships an update every 5 weeks, Liminal every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and November 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Pocket Stoa | Liminal |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Number of ratings | — | 2 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | — | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.4 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 75 MB | 10 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Thanh Nguyen | Hessam Zahedi |
In-app purchases
Pocket Stoa
- Pocket Stoa Pro (Monthly)$5.991 Month
- Pocket Stoa Pro (Yearly)7 Days trial$39.991 Year
Liminal
- 25 Credits$2.99
- 100 Credits$9.99
Questions
Is Pocket Stoa free?
Is Liminal free?
Do Pocket Stoa or Liminal have ads?
Which is updated more often, Pocket Stoa or Liminal?
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