Comparison

SunNow vs Sunlane

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

Head to head
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.

About

Sunlane

Features
Read full description

Sunlane tells you when direct sunlight actually reaches a spot — after the buildings, trees and hills in front of it. Point your iPhone at a window, balcony, garden bed or campsite. Hold the button and sweep along the rooftops and treetops. The sun's path is drawn over the camera view, and it goes dark wherever the skyline blocks it. You get the answer at once: how many hours of direct sun today, and exactly when. WHY IT'S DIFFERENT • Your real skyline, not a map. Other sun apps show the theoretical path; Sunlane uses the tree across the street and the tower next door. • Align with the real sun. Compasses drift. Put the sun in the ring and tap once to correct the heading. • Honest about what it knows. Directions you didn't sweep count as open sky, and the result shows how much you traced. FREE • Today's sun path over the camera • Skyline tracing and today's direct-sun hours and windows • One saved place • UV today: a clear-sky UV estimate for your spot, plus an SPF reapply timer (1 a day) SUNLANE FULL — ONE PAYMENT, NO SUBSCRIPTION • Any date, including the winter solstice • Direct-sun hours for every month of the year • Unlimited saved places • Unlimited SPF reapply timers • Moon and Milky Way core above your skyline • A share card for a landlord, partner or client Great for flat hunting, gardening, solar panels, photography and camping. Everything is calculated on your iPhone. No account, no server, nothing uploaded. Sunlane computes geometry — it does not forecast clouds.

Screenshots

SunNow4 screens
Sunlane4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: SunNow at none against Sunlane's 1. SunNow also leads on device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (14.0 vs 26.0). On price and ads 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. Sunlane sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. SunNow asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard3 real differences · 3 level
SunNow versus Sunlane: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSunNowSunlane
PriceFreeFree
Update frequency—Every 2 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS14.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size96 MB9 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developernonono LLCJIYULMOM

In-app purchases

None

SunNow

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Sunlane

One-time1
  • Sunlane Full$9.99

Questions

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

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