Comparison

ShowNest vs Rabbit Ears

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

Head to head
About

ShowNest

Features
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ShowNest always tells you which episode to watch next: follow your TV shows, tick off what you've seen and find out when new episodes arrive. YOUR WATCHLIST • The next episode of every show you follow, with its title. • Shows you're caught up on count down the days to the next episode. • Sort by recently watched, recently added, newest episode, title or episodes left. • Hide finished shows you've completed, without losing them. MARK EPISODES YOUR WAY • One episode at a time, a whole season or the entire show. • Mark them as watched today or on the day they aired. • Undo the last episode you marked with one tap. MY SHOWS • Your library split into Coming Up, In Progress, Not Started and Completed. • Archive finished shows: they leave your lists but stay in your stats. FIND SOMETHING TO WATCH • Trending, Popular, Top Rated and Airing Today. • Shows like the last one you added, and more from the genre you follow most. • Search the whole TMDB catalogue, watch the trailer and discover similar titles. YOUR STATS • Total time, episodes watched and shows completed. • Your year in review, month by month, compared with the year before. • The day you watch most, your streak and your record. • Favourite genres, most-watched shows and a history of everything you've watched. ALERTS AND SYNC • A notification on the day a new episode of your shows airs. • Your library and watched episodes sync with iCloud across iPhone and iPad, with a page that shows how sync is doing. • Shows you've already opened stay available offline. MAKE IT YOURS • Light, dark or system theme and six accent colours. • The app in seven languages, even one different from your device's. • On iPhone, a tab bar or a compact menu. ShowNest is free, with no ads, no subscriptions and no account. Data provided by The Movie Database (TMDB). This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.

About

Rabbit Ears

Features
Read full description

Rabbit Ears keeps track of the shows you watch and tells you when the next episode airs. That's the whole idea. No feed, no account, no algorithm trying to hold your attention. Add a show and it appears in four places at once: your library, a three-week calendar, a watchlist of everything still to see, and a Home Screen widget. WHAT IT DOES • Next episode, in your time zone. A late-night US drop shows up on the day you can actually watch it. • A calendar of the next three weeks, grouped by day, with a picker for looking further ahead. • A watchlist that groups what's waiting by show, so you can tick episodes off as you go or mark a whole season at once. • Time to catch up. "Forty episodes" is a shrug. "Thirty-one hours" tells you whether you'll make it before the new season starts. • Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets, showing upcoming episodes or your watchlist. • Rate episodes to influence your discover page over time. • An optional daily digest notification, at a time you choose, naming the shows airing that day. • Discover, which suggests series based on what you actually watch. The shows you stick with, and who made them, rather than one genre label. • Spoiler-safe mode hides episode titles and summaries for anything you haven't seen, while still showing you when it airs. • Pause a show to set it aside. It keeps its ratings and history but drops out of your queue, calendar and widget until you come back. YOUR DATA STAYS YOURS There is no account to create and no server to sign in to. Everything you track syncs privately through your own iCloud account, across your own devices. Nothing is collected, nothing is sold, and there are no analytics or third-party trackers of any kind. OFFLINE Airdates are known in advance, so a cached schedule stays useful for days. Show data, air dates and artwork come from TVmaze, used under CC BY-SA.

Screenshots

ShowNest4 screens
Rabbit Ears4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: ShowNest at 17.0 against Rabbit Ears's 26.0. On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS

CostPrice Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Ads Ā· Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

ShowNest ships an update fortnightly, Rabbit Ears every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference Ā· 5 level
ShowNest versus Rabbit Ears: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterShowNestRabbit Ears
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyFortnightly — betterEvery 3 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS17.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size8 MB5 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperEmanuele SpagnoliLong Rest Studios Limited

In-app purchases

None

ShowNest

No in-app purchases

None

Rabbit Ears

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is ShowNest free?
ShowNest is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Rabbit Ears free?
Rabbit Ears is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do ShowNest or Rabbit Ears have ads?
Neither ShowNest nor Rabbit Ears shows ads.
Which is updated more often, ShowNest or Rabbit Ears?
ShowNest ships an update fortnightly, and Rabbit Ears every 3 weeks. Most recently, ShowNest was updated on October 31, 2026 and Rabbit Ears on November 6, 2026.

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