Comparison

Backtick vs QRowl

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

Head to head
About

Backtick

Transform your home and lock screens into a functional terminal. Display real-time data like calendar events, weather, and system status, or integrate with your GitHub and focus sessions. Customize with various themes and interactive widgets.

Highlights
  • Functional terminal display
  • Live data integration (calendar, weather, GitHub)
  • Full-page and console widgets
  • Interactive widgets with tap actions
  • Customizable themes
  • Lock screen and StandBy support
  • Shortcuts and Siri integration
Features
Read full description

Backtick turns your home and lock screen into a terminal. Not a picture of one — a working one. Panels drawn with hairline rules, a tab bar you actually tap, a cursor that genuinely blinks, and your real life inside it: calendar, reminders, weather, steps, battery — and now your GitHub, your focus sessions and anything your automations want to say. FULL-PAGE WIDGETS (iOS 27) The Terminal fills an entire home screen page — now, next up, tasks, weather and system as one live session. The Console goes full page too, with bit idling above the menu. THE WIDGETS — 35 OF THEM • Terminal — five panels switched by tapping tabs on the widget; small, medium, large and full page • Console — a navigable menu: arrows move, enter selects, esc backs out, without opening an app • git log — your GitHub contribution graph, streak and recent activity • focus — one tap starts a timer, with a Live Activity on your lock screen and Dynamic Island • curl — any number from a JSON endpoint you choose, with a sparkline of recent values • echo — shows whatever you send it from Shortcuts; build automations that write to your home and lock screen • Weather — current, hourly and forecast; the small one pages when you tap it • Clock — a live 7-segment face with ticking seconds, zero battery cost, 12h or 24h • Countdown — days to a date you pick; ticks live on the final day, counts up after • Daylight — sunrise to sunset as a gauge, golden hour, light left • Year Progress — every day of the year as a dot; watch it fill • Elapsed — day, week, month and year as block gauges • Month — the full month with event markers • Timeline — upcoming events with durations drawn to scale • Steps — today's count and distance, with the week as bars • Disk — storage as a block gauge • Moon — tonight's phase as a dot matrix • motd — a daily line from bit, free • bit — a resident terminal creature. It has moods, it types little lines, its heartbeat blinks, and it reacts when you poke it. Bond over time. LOCK SCREEN Nine rectangular widgets (next up, tasks, weather, forecast, hourly, elapsed, battery, daylight, echo), six circular gauges, and inline status lines. STANDBY Charge your phone on its side and the Terminal, Weather, Clock and bit widgets switch to big, glanceable layouts you can read from across the room. THEMES Six full terminal palettes — Dracula, Gruvbox, Nord, Solarized, Catppuccin and Tokyo Night — or classic true black with one of five accent phosphors. Every widget follows instantly. SHORTCUTS, SIRI & CONTROL CENTER • "Set Backtick Message" puts any text on the echo widgets — when you arrive at work, when your battery runs low, whenever • Start or stop a focus session from Siri, Shortcuts or Control Center • Tick your top task, poke bit, or jump to your agenda from Control Center or the Action button BUILT LIKE A TOOL • Tick reminders off from the widget — writes straight to Apple Reminders • Tap a section to open YOUR apps: choose which calendar, reminders and weather apps widget taps launch • Battery, weather and steps refresh in the background through the day • Live clocks, countdowns and a blinking cursor with zero widget refreshes • True black. Made for OLED and dark home screens. PRIVATE BY CONSTRUCTION • No account, no sign-in, no Backtick server — there isn't one • Calendar, reminders, steps and device stats are read on-device via Apple's frameworks • Weather comes from Apple Weather using your approximate location • git log and curl talk only to the addresses you give them; an optional GitHub token stays in your phone's keychain • Nothing is collected. There is nowhere to collect it to. FREE / PRO The Terminal widget, Next Up, the inline status line, motd and the classic amber theme are free forever. One purchase unlocks everything else — every widget, every palette — no subscription, no upsell treadmill. — Privacy policy: https://backtick.app/privacy.html Terms of use: https://backtick.app/terms.html

About

QRowl

Features
Read full description

Put the QR codes you use in widgets. QRowl lets you create or import QR codes, keep them in a private personal library, and place them in widgets on the Home Screen, in Today View, or in StandBy, where a code stays scannable while the iPhone charges on its side, even in the red Night Mode. Create codes for text, websites, Wi-Fi networks, phone numbers, email, messages, contact cards, and calendar events. You can also scan with the camera or import QR codes from photos and PDF documents. Add an optional center logo from a photo or SF Symbol, choose foreground and background colors, and search your library when you need a code. Share a code as what it is, a link, a contact card, or a calendar event, together with its image, or print it large on a single page with its name as the title, big enough to scan from across the room. Attach an optional circular location and QRowl can notify you when you arrive, carrying the code in the notification so you can pull it down and scan it without unlocking, or tap it to open the preview. A File code carries a whole file of up to 1 MB, such as a PDF, an image, or a document. It plays as an animated sequence of QR codes in the preview, another iPhone or iPad running QRowl scans it back with the camera and saves the file, and you can share the file itself or export the animation as a movie. Your library stays private. Codes and saved locations are stored on your device and can sync between your devices through your private iCloud account. Whether a device sends location reminders is a local setting. Widgets use locally generated previews and never access CloudKit directly. No separate account. No ads. No tracking. No analytics.

Screenshots

Backtick4 screens
QRowl4 screens

Verdict

The call

Backtick and QRowl are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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. Backtick sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and QRowl sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and November 1, 2026 respectively.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Backtick versus QRowl: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBacktickQRowl
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (5 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings5 — better—
Update frequencyWeeklyWeekly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details — not scored
Size4 MB19 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperElvis Mederoswerk01

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Backtick

One-time1
  • Pro$4.99
1 purchases

QRowl

One-time1
  • QRowl Pro$4.99

Questions

Is Backtick free?
Backtick is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is QRowl free?
QRowl is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Backtick or QRowl have ads?
Neither Backtick nor QRowl shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Backtick or QRowl?
Backtick ships an update weekly, and QRowl weekly. Most recently, Backtick was updated on October 31, 2026 and QRowl on November 1, 2026.

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