Comparison

Trigger vs Cairn

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

Head to head
About

Trigger

Features
Read full description

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

About

Cairn

Features
Read full description

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

Trigger4 screens
Cairn4 screens

Verdict

The call

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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Trigger sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $6.99 per month. Cairn asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Trigger ships an update weekly, Cairn every 3 months. Both last shipped on October 24, 2026.

Scorecard2 real differences · 6 level
Trigger versus Cairn: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterTriggerCairn
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyWeekly — betterEvery 3 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPod
Requires iOS15.115.1
Further details — not scored
Size49 MB38 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperSurya PalsamLUKAS ANDREAS NILSEN

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Trigger

Subscriptions2
  • Trigger Pro Monthly7 Days trial$6.991 Month
  • Trigger Pro Annual7 Days trial$49.991 Year
None

Cairn

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Trigger free?
Trigger is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Cairn free?
Cairn is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Trigger or Cairn have ads?
Neither Trigger nor Cairn shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Trigger or Cairn?
Trigger ships an update weekly, and Cairn every 3 months. Most recently, Trigger was updated on October 24, 2026 and Cairn on October 24, 2026.

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