Anchor vs Brae
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Anchor
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Anchor helps you focus on what actually matters. Start a timed focus session, automatically block the apps that distract you, and prove you really showed up by tapping an NFC tag at your desk or study spot. Anchor turns intention into a habit you can see. FOCUS SESSIONS • Choose a simple countdown or the Pomodoro method. • Set your own duration and daily focus goal. • Stay locked in until your session ends. BLOCK DISTRACTIONS • Pick the apps you want to shield during a session. • Opening a blocked app shows a calm reminder until you finish. • Get back to work without the pull of notifications. TAP TO BEGIN • Scan an NFC tag to verify you're physically where you meant to be. • A small ritual that makes starting feel intentional. SEE YOUR PROGRESS • Track focus streaks, focus hours, and a daily focus score. • Review your history and weekly trends. • Get personalized AI insights and smart suggestions on when you focus best. STAY ON TRACK • Optional reminders to start a session and protect your streak. • Sync sessions to your calendar so focus time lives alongside your day. Anchor is built for students, professionals, and anyone who wants to reclaim their attention. Stay anchored to what matters.
Brae
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Brae is a local-first AI assistant for daily work and personal notes. It gives you a calm place to chat, capture ideas, review meetings, and keep useful context on your device. Use Brae to: - Chat with an on-device assistant for everyday questions and drafts. - Talk in Live mode, with typed fallback when speech is unavailable. - Use See World to ask about what the camera sees, powered by an on-device vision model when available. - Capture Meeting Notes, edit the transcript, and save it to your Library. - Review saved notes, call records, imported files, and generated artifacts in Library. - Keep Today focused on local follow-ups from your own notes and calls. - Manage local models in Model Setup, including downloads you explicitly choose. - Control privacy-sensitive features from Settings. Brae is built around local-first behavior. There is no account, no analytics, no advertising, and no tracking. Your chats, transcripts, notes, files, memory, and settings stay on your device by default. Brae does not operate a Bubustudio backend that stores your content. Network use is explicit and user-initiated: - Model downloads happen only when you choose to download a local model from Hugging Face. - Location, nearby-place, destination, and route lookups use Apple MapKit and Core Location only when you ask. - Optional iCloud sync is off by default and, when enabled, uses your private CloudKit database. - Optional web search is off by default. When enabled, Brae sends the search query to DuckDuckGo’s keyless Instant Answer API so results can be returned.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Brae at every 2 days against Anchor's every 4 days. Anchor's advantage is iOS requirement (16.0 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Anchor ships an update every 4 days, Brae every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 28, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Anchor | Brae |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 4 days | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 29 MB | 33 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Nourin Awad | Haosheng Li |
In-app purchases
Anchor
No in-app purchases
Brae
No in-app purchases









