Comparison

Sun vs SunNow

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Sun

Features
Read full description

Sun-Dog is a clean, focused weather app built on open data. Hourly trends for temperature, rain, sunshine and wind, a combined 14-day overview and all the important details show you the sky at a glance. Weather Windows find suitable times for walks, exercise, barbecues, beach trips, stargazing and more. Smart highlights call out important weather changes and significant rain or wind peaks. A sundog – also called a parhelion – is a real atmospheric phenomenon. When conditions are right, Sun-Dog quietly reminds you to look up. • Hourly charts for temperature, rain, sunshine and wind • Combined 14-day forecast with detailed hourly values • Weather Windows for activities and special times of day • Current conditions including feels-like, wind, humidity, pressure, UV and cloud cover • Rain radar and severe-weather alerts • Favorite places, widgets and Apple Watch complications • For iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch, in light and dark mode • Powered by Open-Meteo – free, open weather data. No account, no tracking.

About

SunNow

Features
Read full description

# 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

Sun4 screens
SunNow4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: SunNow at none against Sun's 3. SunNow also leads on iOS requirement (14.0 vs 26.0). 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Sun sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. SunNow asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard2 real differences · 4 level
Sun versus SunNow: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSunSunNow
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeks—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS26.014.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size21 MB96 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMichael Lauernonono LLC

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Sun

One-time3
  • Small Tip$1.99
  • Medium Tip$3.99
  • Large Tip$6.99
None

SunNow

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Sun free?
Sun is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is SunNow free?
SunNow is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Sun or SunNow have ads?
Neither Sun nor SunNow shows ads.

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