Luminous Living vs Neaptide
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Luminous Living
This app provides a gentle approach to building self-care routines across physical, mental, spiritual, and rest categories. It features a unique scoring system that reflects overall well-being without judgment and celebrates small wins to encourage consistency.
- Build routines across four areas: Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Rest
- Customizable practices and flexible scheduling
- Radiance Score for holistic well-being reflection
- Streak system that avoids shame and guilt
- Celebrate and track small wins
- Guided reflections and mood check-ins
- Free affirmations library
Read full descriptionHide full description
Luminous Living is a warm, non-judgmental self-care companion for anyone who keeps putting themselves last — people living with ADHD or burnout, busy caregivers, or anyone who simply wants a fuller life. Most habit apps are built for people who never miss. This one is built for real life. FOUR PARTS OF A WHOLE PERSON Build a routine across Physical, Mental, Spiritual and Rest. Start from a library of small, doable practices or add your own, set a cadence that fits your week, and reorder anything at any time. Editing is meant to be easy, because a routine you can't change is a routine you'll abandon. YOUR RADIANCE GEM One glowing gem answers the only question that matters: how am I tending my light this week? Your Radiance Score blends how evenly you're caring for all four areas, how consistently you show up, the wins you've celebrated recently, and how you've been feeling. It's a gentle reflection, never a grade. A STREAK THAT NEVER SHAMES YOU Miss a day and your streak freezes instead of resetting. Only two in a row starts you over. No guilt, no starting from zero, no all-or-nothing spiral. CELEBRATE THE SMALL WINS Capture any small victory in seconds and watch it bloom. Recent wins lift your Radiance, because progress compounds. REFLECT AND CHECK IN Write freely or follow rotating prompts drawn from gratitude, self-compassion and small-wins research. Take a two-tap mood check-in and see your trend over time. AFFIRMATIONS, ALWAYS FREE A full, categorised affirmations library with a fresh affirmation each day. Read, save your favourites, share the ones that land. This is never behind a paywall. GROUNDED IN REAL RESEARCH The scoring borrows the positively-worded shape of the WHO-5 Well-Being Index, the repetition-over-perfection finding from habit-formation research, and the Never Miss Twice principle. Every claim is cited in the app. FULL RADIANCE (optional subscription) The entire daily loop above is free forever. Full Radiance adds computed depth on top: - Your weekly Radiance Report, with one kind focus for the week ahead - Mood x self-care insights that show what actually lifts you - Full history and 30-day Radiance trends Monthly or annual, with a 7-day free trial. Payment is charged to your Apple ID at confirmation; the subscription auto-renews unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the period ends, and you can manage or cancel it any time in your Apple ID settings. A NOTE ON WHAT THIS IS Luminous Living is a self-care and habit-tracking tool for everyday well-being. It is not a medical device, and nothing in it is medical, psychological or therapeutic advice or a substitute for professional care. Your Radiance Score is not a health assessment, a diagnosis, or a measure of your worth. There's a diamond inside you, already glowing. Let's tend the light. Privacy Policy: https://preview.apppublishing.ai/legal/473/privacy Terms of Use (EULA): https://preview.apppublishing.ai/legal/473/terms
Neaptide
This app offers guided breathing exercises and sensory re-entry techniques to help manage feelings of being overwhelmed. It intelligently suggests a session based on how you hold your device, with options to easily adjust or switch techniques.
- Adaptive session selection
- Settle and Surface modes
- Adjustable techniques
- Screen-off mode
- Lock Screen widget
- Apple Watch app
- Offline functionality
Read full descriptionHide full description
Neaptide opens to one thing: a circle. Hold it for a few seconds and a session starts. That is the whole interface. Most calming apps open with a menu, a questionnaire, or a sign-up. That is a reasonable design right up until the moment you actually need one — because when you are overwhelmed, deciding is the first thing that stops working. Forty exercises in a list are useless exactly when it matters. So Neaptide decides, and lets you overrule it in one tap. TWO DIRECTIONS Not everyone who feels bad needs to slow down. Some people are running fast: racing thoughts, clenched jaw, cannot sit still. Others are running slow: flat, foggy, numb, stuck. Telling someone who is already shut down to breathe more slowly points them further down. Neaptide reads which way you are going from how you held the screen, then picks accordingly. Settle — for wired. Long exhales, the physiological sigh, orienting, cold contact. The screen cools and darkens. Surface — for numb. A sharper rhythm, movement, bilateral tapping, sensory re-entry. The screen warms and lifts. Two words stay on screen the whole time: slower and brighter. If the read is wrong, one tap fixes it mid-session without losing your place. And if a technique isn't right for you, "try another" swaps it for a different one in the same direction — same place, same clock. THE READ IS A GUESS, AND SAYS SO It is three rough signals — how still you held it, how far your thumb drifted, how quickly you first tapped. A sensible default, not a measurement. The app tells you that in plain words on the screen where it matters, and you can overrule it at any point. NOTHING TO KEEP UP WITH No streaks. No scores. No "day 4". No log, no history, no chart. Miss a month and nothing is waiting for you when you come back. NO ACCOUNT, NO INTERNET No sign-up, no email address, no cloud. Nothing you do in Neaptide leaves your phone, because there is nowhere for it to go — there is no server. It works in airplane mode, on the Underground, and on a phone with no signal. WHY EACH ONE IS HERE Every reset carries a plain-language note about what the technique is generally used for, shown after the session rather than during it. Neaptide describes; it does not diagnose. WHAT YOU GET Thirteen resets across both directions. Unlimited sessions. Haptic pacing you can follow with the screen face-down. A screen-off mode that goes dark and keeps pacing you. Your own session length. A Lock Screen widget. An Apple Watch app that keeps pacing you with your wrist down. One payment. No subscription, ever. Every future update included. Neaptide is not treatment, and not a substitute for care from a professional. If you are in crisis, contact your local emergency number.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Luminous Living at Free against Neaptide's $0.99. Luminous Living also leads on iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). Neaptide's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2) and rating (5.0 vs 4.8). On review sentiment, ratings volume, update cadence 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
Luminous Living is free to download; Neaptide costs $0.99 up front. Luminous Living sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Neaptide asks for nothing beyond the download.
Neaptide holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 4 and 5 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
Luminous Living ships an update monthly, Neaptide fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Luminous Living | Neaptide |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $0.99 |
| Rating | 4.8 (4 ratings) | 5.0 (5 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 4 | 5 — better |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Freemium — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, Apple Watch |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 38 MB | 2 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Carol Ho | Bertie Allen |
Customer experience
Luminous Living
Neaptide
In-app purchases
Luminous Living
- Full Radiance Monthly7 Days trial$3.991 Month
- Full Radiance Annual7 Days trial$23.991 Year
Neaptide
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Luminous Living free?
Is Neaptide free?
Which has better reviews, Luminous Living or Neaptide?
Do Luminous Living or Neaptide have ads?
Which is updated more often, Luminous Living or Neaptide?
Other comparisons















