Comparison

StepQuest vs RunOn

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

Head to head
About

StepQuest

Features
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Your hero is only alive while you keep walking. StepQuest exists to make a daily walking habit something you actually keep. Not with another streak badge or a reminder you learn to ignore, but by turning your step count into a roguelite RPG where a character's survival is the thing at stake. -= How It Works =- You pick a daily step goal, and it locks in for the whole adventure, so you set your own difficulty. Every day you hit it, your character earns XP and levels up. Every day you miss, you lose a heart. Run out of hearts and the run is over. Steps come straight from Apple Health, so there is nothing to log by hand. You walk, the game keeps score. -= Missing a Day Is Survivable, Not Free =- Six days in a row earns a rest day, and your next miss is forgiven automatically. A full seven day streak regenerates a heart. Blue hearts, earned only from the hardest quests, absorb a missed day as a last resort. Use all of it and a run can last months. Ignore it and five bad days end everything. -= Death Is Not a Reset =- When the last heart goes, your level resets, but your gold and your avatar collection are permanent. You cash out gold based on how long you survived, spend it on cosmetics, and start the next run with everything you have collected. A bad run costs you progress, never your collection. -= Your Steps Are the Currency =- More than 140 avatars across five styles: standard, casual, edgy, fantasy, and cyberpunk. Every one of them is priced in gold, and walking is what earns it. The rarest take real distance to reach, so your character ends up wearing the ground you covered. -= Quests Worth Chasing =- Daily, weekly, monthly and legendary quests. A perfect month. Half a million steps in a single run. A hundred consecutive days. -= On Your Wrist and Home Screen =- An Apple Watch app, a Watch complication, Home Screen widgets and Lock Screen widgets keep today's steps and your remaining hearts one glance away, so you always know how close the day is to costing you a heart. Raise your wrist or glance at a locked phone, no need to open the app. No accounts. No sign up. Just your steps. Disclaimer: StepQuest is free to play and shows ads. Optional in-app support tiers grant bonus gold and remove ads. Nothing you can buy affects your hearts, your step goal, or your progress.

About

RunOn

Features
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Run On is a minimal running log: real map routes, live pace, and a route card or video after every run. No ads, no subscription, no sign-up. BEFORE YOU RUN โ€” A CLEAR ANSWER Live weather and air quality feed a daily Run Index that answers two things in one line: should you run today, and what should you wear. No squinting at humidity, wind speed and PM2.5 to decide. WHILE YOU RUN โ€” EVERYTHING AT A GLANCE Real map route, live pace, distance, duration, calories and heart rate, read from Apple Watch via HealthKit rather than estimated. Pedometer calibration keeps distance honest. Take photos mid-run, pause any time, and lock the screen to stop accidental taps โ€” a Live Activity keeps your progress visible on the Lock Screen while the route keeps recording. AFTER YOU RUN โ€” A CARD AND A SHARE Your real route is drawn automatically with kilometre markers and photo pins. Pick a map template (frosted glass, minimal, midnight) and export a card in one tap โ€” or turn the whole route into a video replay with music. Share straight to WeChat, Moments and Xiaohongshu. YOUR MILEAGE BUILDS ITSELF Total distance, run count, calories, weekly chart, weekly goal progress, full history and a badge wall. Milestone badges and personal-best tiers unlock as you go (1K under 9:00 / 7:00 / 5:00 / 4:00 / 3:00, and 3K / 5K / 10K / half marathon / marathon across five tiers). IT CLOSES THE LOOP Every finished run is written to Apple Health โ€” distance, duration, calories and heart rate count toward your Fitness rings, with no manual entry. IPHONE + APPLE WATCH Apple Watch can record a run on its own and sync it back to your phone. A home screen widget shows whether you have run today. WHY PEOPLE SWITCH - No splash ads, no pop-ups - No subscription, no in-app purchase - No social feed to distract you - No account required; data stays on your device - Dark, full-screen interface built for one thing PRIVACY No account, no upload of workout data, no ads, no third-party analytics SDK, no profiling or tracking. Location and workout data are stored on your iPhone and Apple Watch by default; with iCloud sync on, they live in your own private Apple cloud space, which we cannot access. Policy: https://murphy-zhu.github.io/runlog-privacy/ Support: https://github.com/Murphy-zhu

Screenshots

StepQuest4 screens
RunOn4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: RunOn at none against StepQuest's 5. RunOn also leads on ads (none vs shown). On price, update cadence, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

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

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. StepQuest sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. RunOn asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

StepQuest ships an update every 3 days, RunOn every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 10, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences ยท 4 level
StepQuest versus RunOn: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterStepQuestRunOn
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 3 daysEvery 2 days โ€” better
AdsYesNo โ€” better
In-app purchasesYesNo โ€” better
DevicesiPhone, iPod, Apple WatchiPhone, iPod, Apple Watch
Requires iOS15.1 โ€” better15.6
Further details โ€” not scored
Size60 MB76 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAdam Golczak็މ็ง‹ ๆœฑ

In-app purchases

5 purchases

StepQuest

One-time5
  • Toss a Coin$1.99
  • Tavern Round$2.99
  • Squire's Tribute$4.99
Show 2 more
  • Royal Benefactor$9.99
  • Legendary Patron$19.99
None

RunOn

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is StepQuest free?
StepQuest is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is RunOn free?
RunOn is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do StepQuest or RunOn have ads?
StepQuest shows ads; RunOn does not.
Which is updated more often, StepQuest or RunOn?
StepQuest ships an update every 3 days, and RunOn every 2 days. Most recently, StepQuest was updated on October 10, 2026 and RunOn on October 14, 2026.

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