Comparison

Groups vs Cling

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

Head to head
About

Groups

Easily send emails to entire contact groups without individually adding each recipient. Create, edit, and manage contact groups for efficient communication.

Highlights
  • Create and edit contact groups
  • Send bulk emails to groups
  • Automatically adds group members to email
  • Edit group titles
  • Launch from Contacts app
  • Safeguards to protect existing contacts
Features
Read full description

While IOS allows you to create a group and put contacts in to it, you cannot then use the group name to send an email to everyone in that group. You have to add each person to the email individually; this is where @Groups comes in. @Groups is a very simple application that enables you to build and edit standard contacts Groups. This contact group can then be added to an email and it will automatically include the email address of each contact in the group. @Groups will automatically use the first email address found in the contact, so if your contact has more than one please ensure the one you want included in the group is the first one listed in the contact. You can edit a group's title by simply tapping the name on the top bar while in Group Detail view. We have also placed a convenient link inside the Contact Group's to that you can launch @Groups to edit a contact group from the normal contacts App, as well as via the normal Icon on your springboard. Safeguards have been placed in @Groups to ensure it cannot edit or delete your existing contacts. It can only edit and delete Contact Groups that it has created. If you have any suggestions or in the unlikely event of a problem please contact us via the Icons at the bottom of the groups list (Email, Twitter, Facebook, WWW). We cannot reply to comments left in the ratings on here, but we can assure you that you will receive a swift personal reply to any comments you send us via the Application.

About

Cling

Features
Read full description

Cling is a save layer for your iPhone. Anything you need to keep in view goes into Cling, and you decide how loudly it shows up: parked permanently in the Dynamic Island, taking its turn in the live rotation, or saved quietly in the app until you need it. SAVE ANYTHING Cards: a loyalty card, boarding pass, gig ticket, membership or gift card, scannable from the lock screen Notes: a line of text, a link, or a photo you need to keep at hand Reminders: a dated alert with the notification lead time you choose Timers: a labelled countdown to zero Countdowns: days until a birthday, a trip, a deadline Locations: where you parked, the hotel, the restaurant, the bus stop, with an optional note and photo Clocks: an analog dial, a digital readout, or a running stopwatch Dates: weekday, day, month, full date, or the Chinese lunar date Progress: how far through the day, week, month, or year you are Status bars: a modular readout of battery, time, Wi-Fi, text and symbols Decorations: a glyph in the house style, there to dress the island CARDS, PASSES AND TICKETS Scan a card's barcode or type the number, and Cling puts it on the lock screen and in the Dynamic Island, full width and big enough for the till, the gate, or the door. No unlocking, no digging through apps, no turning the brightness up. Tickets and passes track their date, so yours is already waiting before the event. Add a note like "Row F, seat 12", style the card face, and mark any card sensitive to keep it private. PRIVACY: YOUR CARDS STAY YOURS A wallet feature is only as good as the trust behind it, so here is exactly what happens to your cards. Your card numbers never leave your iPhone. They are never sent to our servers. There is no Cling account and no card database on our end. There is nothing to leak, because nothing is ever uploaded. Your cards are encrypted at rest with AES-256. The key lives in your device Keychain, marked This Device Only: it never syncs through iCloud Keychain and never travels in a backup. Sensitive cards, payment cards included, are hidden by default. Their number and barcode are masked everywhere outside the app: not on the lock screen, not in the Dynamic Island, not in widgets. You decide what each card shows. THREE LANES, YOUR CALL Every saved item sits in one of three lanes, and you drag between them on the board. Static stays parked in the Dynamic Island. It is always there. Dynamic joins the live rotation and takes its turn with everything else. Dormant is saved and out of the way. It stays off your widgets unless you say otherwise. Nothing surfaces without your say-so. Move an item between lanes whenever it stops mattering, or starts. EVERYWHERE YOU ALREADY LOOK Saved items appear in the Dynamic Island, on the Lock Screen, and in home screen widgets. The Quick Pins widget puts one-tap starting points for your most-used types on the home screen, so saving a parking spot or starting a timer never needs the app opened. SAVE FROM ANYWHERE The share sheet extension takes text, links and images from any app straight into Cling. Siri and Shortcuts can save a parking spot or start a countdown by voice or as a step in an automation, so Cling fits into routines you have already built. COLLECTIONS Group saved items into collections that match how you think about them: a trip, a move, a project, a week. Collections keep a long list navigable without forcing you to delete things you might still want. MADE TO LOOK LIKE IT BELONGS Pick an accent colour and an appearance per item. Cling follows the system's visual language rather than fighting it, so a pin in the Dynamic Island reads as part of iOS, not as an advert for an app. ON DEVICE Your saved items live on your iPhone. No account, nothing to sign up for. Open it and start saving. REQUIRES iOS 17.2 or later. The Dynamic Island features need an iPhone with a Dynamic Island; on other iPhones, saved items appear on the Lock Screen and in widgets.

Screenshots

Groups4 screens
Cling4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Cling at Free against Groups's $0.99. Cling also leads on update cadence (every 3 days vs every 3 months). Groups's advantage is iOS requirement (12.0 vs 17.2). On ads, in-app purchases and device support 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Cling is free to download; Groups costs $0.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Groups ships an update every 3 months, Cling every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 4, 2026 and October 9, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Groups versus Cling: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGroupsCling
Price$0.99Free — better
Rating4.2 (5 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews33.3% of reviews—
Number of ratings5 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsEvery 3 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS12.0 — better17.2
Further details — not scored
Size1 MB15 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperKevin MarshallWilliam Whitehouse

In-app purchases

None

Groups

No in-app purchases

None

Cling

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Groups free?
Groups costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Cling free?
Cling is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Groups or Cling have ads?
Neither Groups nor Cling shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Groups or Cling?
Groups ships an update every 3 months, and Cling every 3 days. Most recently, Groups was updated on October 4, 2026 and Cling on October 9, 2026.

Other comparisons