Trigger vs Cairn
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Trigger
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Understand your skin — one day at a time. Trigger is a personal skincare tracker that helps you spot the patterns between your daily habits and how your skin looks. Instead of guessing what's behind a breakout, log what you do and let Trigger surface the possible connections over time. HOW IT WORKS • Log daily in under a minute — skin status, food, shaving, stress, sleep, and more. • Add weekly photos and get an AI skin-score estimate to track visible change over time. • See possible triggers ranked by how often they line up with your breakouts. • Build a barrier-first routine and check product ingredients as you go. WHAT YOU CAN TRACK • Daily skin status and barrier symptoms • Food, supplements, shaving, sleep, stress, and workouts • Weekly photos with per-zone AI estimates • Your skincare routine, with ingredient flagging • Local weather (humidity, UV) as an environmental factor BUILT AROUND YOUR PRIVACY • Your logs and photos are private to your account. • No ads. No third-party analytics or tracking. • Export all of your data or delete your account anytime. A CLEARER PICTURE Trigger uses AI to estimate skin scores and surface correlations from your own logs — giving you a clearer picture to bring to your own routine or your dermatologist. Trigger is a tracking and educational tool. It does not provide medical advice or diagnosis. Always consult a qualified dermatologist for medical concerns. Trigger offers an optional auto-renewing subscription, Trigger Pro: • Monthly — $6.99 (with a 7-day free trial) • Annual — $49.99 Trigger Pro unlocks AI trigger analysis, AI photo scoring, weekly AI briefings, derm-ready PDF reports, and guided elimination tests. Payment is charged to your Apple ID. Subscriptions auto-renew unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the period; manage or cancel anytime in your Apple ID settings. Terms of Use: https://trigger-legal.netlify.app/terms.html Privacy Policy: https://trigger-legal.netlify.app/privacy.html
Cairn
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Cairn is a calm, forgiving habit tracker for daily routines, built on one image: the small stone towers that mark mountain trails. Every habit is a trail you are walking. Every time you do the thing, you stack a stone, and today's cairn grows. Count habits, like drink water eight times or do three sets, grow the cairn stone by stone. Your history becomes a trail of small cairns receding into the distance. Missed a day? It is just flat ground. There is no guilt grid and no broken chain to punish you. The trail simply continues. WHAT YOU CAN TRACK - Once-a-day trails that take a single stone. - Counted trails that grow stone by stone toward a daily target. - Keep-clear trails for something you want to stop: log only a slip, never a failure, and keep walking. THE CLIMB Every stone you stack lifts you ten metres up a real mountain. Summits are climbed in order, from Floyen to Everest, and each one you reach earns a dated passport stamp. It is a quiet long game that turns everyday consistency into a genuine expedition. COMPANIONS Share your six-letter trail code with a friend and become companions on the trail. See each other's cairns rise through the day and toss a pebble when someone could use a nudge. Companions are entirely optional. Cairn works fully offline, and no habit names, schedules, or history ever leave your device. WIDGETS Keep today's cairn on your home screen. Stack a stone straight from the widget without opening the app, or pin a single trail to a large one-tap counter. DESIGNED TO BE CALM - A warm, quiet interface with light and dark themes. - Gentle haptics and small celebrations when a trail crosses a milestone. - Local reminders, set per trail, with no accounts required to begin. - A shareable JSON backup you can export and restore at any time. Cairn is about steady, forgiving progress. Stack a stone, mark the trail, and let the days add up.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Cairn at none against Trigger's 2. Trigger's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 3 months). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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. Trigger sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $6.99 per month. Cairn asks for nothing beyond the download.
Trigger ships an update weekly, Cairn every 3 months. Both last shipped on October 24, 2026.
| Parameter | Trigger | Cairn |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better | — |
| Number of ratings | 1 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 | 15.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 49 MB | 38 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Surya Palsam | LUKAS ANDREAS NILSEN |
In-app purchases
Trigger
- Trigger Pro Monthly7 Days trial$6.991 Month
- Trigger Pro Annual7 Days trial$49.991 Year
Cairn
No in-app purchases









