Day & Night Map vs Daylights
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Day & Night Map
Visualize the Earth's day and night cycles on an interactive world map. Select any date and time to see current illumination, or create animated GIFs of changing light patterns.
- Real-time day/night map
- Selectable date and time
- Animated GIF creation
- Minute-by-minute updates
- Global illumination visualization
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Day & Night Map shows you exactly which parts of Earth are in daylight and which are in darkness — right now, or at any date and time you choose. Watch the terminator move across the globe as hours and days pass. Explore sunrise, sunset, and twilight around the world. Perfect for travellers, astronomers, photographers, teachers, and anyone curious about time on our planet. KEY FEATURES • Live world map of day and night • Move through time with intuitive date and time controls • Jump back to the current moment with one tap • Pinch to zoom and pan across the map • Full-screen map view • Home Screen widgets in multiple sizes (including Extra Large on iPad) • Configurable widgets: sun, moon, moon phase, twilight, icon size, and more • Show sun and moon positions on the map • Display the current moon phase • Twilight zones: smooth shading or separate civil, nautical, and astronomical twilight • Equator and tropics lines • Show your current location on the map (optional) • Display time in local time or UTC • Light, dark, or system appearance • Share a map image by email, message, and more • Create animations over a chosen time range • Export animations as animated GIFs ANIMATIONS Pick a start and end date, set the step interval and speed, and watch the day/night line move over hours or days. Play the animation in the app or create an animated GIF to share. HOME SCREEN WIDGET Add the widget to your Home Screen and keep the current day/night map at a glance. Customize what is shown and how it looks directly when adding or editing the widget.
Daylights
Visualize daylight and night hours globally with three distinct styles. Explore how time zones and daylight saving changes affect your location's light cycles.
- Global daylight visualization
- Three distinct visualization styles
- Explore polar night and midnight sun
- Daylight saving time impact simulation
- Time zone shift simulation
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Daylights is your calendar for daylight and night-dark hours around the year, all over the globe. It offers three alternative daylight visualization styles, allowing you to choose whichever feels the most intuitive to you: • The Classic: the 12-hour clock alternates between daylight and night-dark, whichever is shorter. • The Light: the 12-hour clock always shows daylight, overlapping with itself when necessary. • The Magic: a 24-hour clock shows the full day, and highlights the "magic hours" around sunrise and sunset! You can pick any location on the planet to look at the interplay of the polar night and the midnight sun at the big latitudes. And finally, you can see how the light and dark hours would shift in your hometown if daylight saving time became the permanent state of things or was removed altogether, or if they decided to move to the next or previous time zone.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ratings volume: Day & Night Map at 1.4K against Daylights's 55. Day & Night Map also leads on review sentiment (78% vs 67%). Daylights's advantage is iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.0). On price, rating, 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Day & Night Map against 4.7 for Daylights. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Day & Night Map has 1.4K ratings behind it against 55, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 78% of Day & Night Map's written reviews are positive against 67% of Daylights's.
Day & Night Map ships an update every 8 months, Daylights every 6 months. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and September 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Day & Night Map | Daylights |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (1.4K ratings) | 4.7 (55 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 78.0% of reviews — better | 66.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1.4K — better | 55 |
| Update frequency | Every 8 months | Every 6 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPod, Apple Watch |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 48 MB | 10 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Volker Voecking Software Engineering | Janne Käki |
Customer experience
Day & Night Map
Daylights
Bugs and requests
Day & Night Map
Reported bugs
2 issues- Moon position not displayed on iPad
- Daylight savings time not working properly
Requested features
4 requests- Option to keep noon at center and have map move
- Show analemma and sun position on it
- 24-hour clock setting for widget
- Improve moon position display on iPad
Daylights
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Day & Night Map
No in-app purchases
Daylights
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Day & Night Map free?
Is Daylights free?
Which has better reviews, Day & Night Map or Daylights?
Do Day & Night Map or Daylights have ads?
Which is updated more often, Day & Night Map or Daylights?
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