Aura vs One Big Widget
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Aura
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Make your home screen yours. Aura brings aesthetic widgets for your home screen and lock screen, plus wallpapers, icon art and home-screen kits that match. Widgets on your iPhone • 12 styles: clocks, countdowns, calendars, daily words, an anniversary and a photo frame • Add Aura from your home screen's widget gallery, then pick your design with Edit Widget • Small, medium and large on the home screen, plus lock screen widgets (iOS 17 or later) • Countdowns for your own event and date, updated every day • Daily Words brings a new quote each day • Live editor: font, colour, gradient and size, with an instant preview Home-screen kits • Six kits, each an Aura art wallpaper, widgets styled to match and an icon pack • Save kit puts the wallpaper and the icons in Photos and adds the widgets to Aura in your widget gallery • A checklist shows what each step did Wallpapers sized for your iPhone • 20 wallpapers, including eight Aura art pieces, two of them made for OLED screens • Saved to Photos in one tap; set it from there for your lock screen and home screen • Rendered at your screen's own resolution Icon art for your home screen • Five styles: pastel, neon dark, clean line, 3D glossy and minimal mono • Icons save to Photos; use one with the Shortcuts app, and Aura shows you how Made for browsing • Search across every widget, wallpaper, icon pack and kit • Favourites and your saved designs in Mine • Local backup and restore, widget photos included Private by design Your designs stay on your device. No account, no sign-up. An internet connection is only used to show ads. Premium packs unlock for good with one short, optional video, or all at once with Aura Pro.
One Big Widget
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Put any web page on your Home Screen. Pick a site, crop to the part you actually care about, and the widget keeps a fresh snapshot of it. A price, a scoreboard, a headline, a launch countdown, an RSS feed, a dashboard you check ten times a day. Kept fresh in the background, and refreshed every time you open the app. That is the Web Widget, and it is why most people install One Big Widget. The rest of the app is a full widget builder with no subscription trap: a genuinely generous free tier, and a one-time unlock if you want everything. AT A GLANCE One smart widget that shows what matters right now: your next event, reminders due today, a severe weather alert, an upcoming birthday, or a low battery warning. It ranks them by urgency so you only see the one that counts. Everything is gathered on your device. THE BUILDER Pick a template. Tap a few colors. Drop it on your home screen. Three taps to something beautiful, with a deeper editor underneath when you want to control every detail. WIDGET TYPES - Photo widgets in every size - Countdown widgets that update to the day, hour, and minute - Digital and analog clocks - Custom text and bundled quotes - Gradient backgrounds with multi-color blends - Animated GIFs straight from your photo library - Lock Screen widgets: circular, rectangular, and inline EVERY SIZE Small, medium, large, and extra large, plus Lock Screen. All from the same builder, with no upsell to unlock the size you actually need. THE FREE TIER, ACTUALLY FREE - Unlimited widgets, no count cap - Every widget size - 82 of the 127 designs - Custom colors - No ads in the editor, ever UNLOCK EVERYTHING A one-time purchase unlocks all 127 designs, including the Web Widget and At a Glance, plus every future addition. Pay once, yours forever. PRIVACY No accounts. No tracking. No analytics. No third-party SDKs. Your photos, calendar, reminders, and contacts never leave your device. The only thing that ever leaves is feedback you type and send us from Settings — nothing about your widgets goes with it. Built by Hello Good Day. Terms of Use (EULA): https://hellogoodday.com/onebigwidget/terms Privacy Policy: https://hellogoodday.com/onebigwidget/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is iOS requirement: Aura at 15.0 against One Big Widget's 17.0. 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. Aura sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and One Big Widget sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Aura ships an update every 3 weeks, One Big Widget fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on November 7, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Aura | One Big Widget |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 77 MB | 16 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Gunawan Santoso | Hello Good Day LLC |
In-app purchases
Aura
- Aura Pro$4.99
One Big Widget
- Lifetime Unlock$9.99









