Roundups
Ranked lists where every entry has its downside written underneath it
A roundup that puts the author's own app first every time is an advert with a number on it. So these have a rule: every pick carries a catch, including ours, and where something else is genuinely the better answer it goes at the top. On six of these ten pages, Tock is not number one.
For heavy sleepers, an alarm with a dismissal task beats a louder tone. For tracking without a wearable, a phone-only app is honest about estimating rather than measuring. For a free alarm, the iPhone Clock app wins and nothing here beats it. For white noise every night, a hardware machine outlasts any subscription.
- Roundups
- 10RoundupsFrom heavy sleepers to shift work
- Where Tock is not first
- 6Where Tock is not firstIncluding one where it is last
- Of picks with a catch listed
- 100%Of picks with a catch listedOurs included
What makes a roundup worth reading
Two things, and neither of them is the number of apps in the list. The first is whether the criteria are stated before the ranking, so you can tell whether the author was optimising for the same thing you are. The second is whether any entry has a downside written next to it. A list of five products with five sets of advantages is a list somebody was paid to write.
If you want the one-on-one version instead, the alternatives hubgoes product by product, and the compare hub covers pairings that do not involve us at all.
- The best alarm apps for heavy sleepers5 picksTock is the best alarm app for heavy sleepers: it rings on AlarmKit, so it gets through silent mode and a Focus, and it keeps ringing until you finish a small task. Alarmy is the real rival and the better pick if you want the widest set of dismissal tasks or a free tier to test the idea on.
- The best sleep trackers that don't need a watch5 picksTock is the best sleep tracker without a watch. Leave the phone on the nightstand and it uses the microphone and accelerometer all night, classifies snores, coughs and sleep talking on device, and hands you a report plus the audio in the morning. SleepScore is the strongest alternative if you would rather nothing listened to the room.
- The best alarm clock apps for iPhone5 picksFor most iPhone owners the best alarm clock app is the one already installed. The Clock app is free, reliable and enough. Tock is the upgrade worth paying for once the Clock app stops working, which usually means you dismiss it without remembering or you wake up feeling wrecked every morning.
- The best sleep apps for students5 picksFor most students the best answer is free: the iPhone Clock app, a wake time you keep at weekends, and Alarmy's free tier if you sleep through things. Tock is the paid pick worth the money once you have tried that and still miss 9am lectures.
- The best snoring apps, ranked by what they're for5 picksSnoreLab is the best dedicated snoring app: recording and scoring your snoring is its only job, and its remedy tracking is more deliberate than anything else here. Tock is the better pick if you want snoring in context, inside a night that also carries your sleep, your alarm and playable audio of what the room actually sounded like.
- The best white noise apps, and when a fan beats all of them5 picksIf you want one sound forever, a hardware noise machine or a cheap fan beats every app here and costs less over two years. If you want to change what you sleep to, layer sounds together and have the same app wake you up in the morning, Tock is the better pick.
- The best smart alarm apps, and what smart should mean5 picksTock is the best smart alarm app on iPhone. It watches the 30 minutes before your alarm using two signals, movement and sound, rings early if it catches a lighter moment, and falls back to your set time no matter what. Sleep Cycle is the long-established alternative, and Pillow is the better pick if you already wear an Apple Watch to bed.
- The best free alarm apps for iPhone5 picksThe best free alarm app for iPhone is the Clock app that came with it. It is free forever, it rings through silent mode and a Focus, and it has never failed. Alarmy is the best free option if you need an alarm that is hard to turn off. Tock is not free and is listed last for that reason.
- The best sleep apps for iPhone, sorted by what you're fixing6 picksFor iPhone, the best sleep app depends on the problem. Tock is the best all-round pick when the alarm and the morning are what is broken, Apple Health Sleep is the free place to start, Calm is for people who cannot fall asleep, AutoSleep is for Apple Watch owners, Rise is for sleep debt and SnoreLab is for snoring.
- The best alarm apps for shift workers5 picksFor shift workers the most reliable alarm is still the iPhone Clock app, because it makes no assumptions about your schedule and lets you keep a saved alarm for every shift pattern. Tock is the better pick if you also sleep in the daytime and need something that will not let you turn it off half asleep at 4pm.
Questions people ask
What is the best sleep app for iPhone?
It depends which part of the night is broken. If the mornings are the problem, an alarm that moves into a lighter moment and asks for a task is the thing that helps. If falling asleep is the problem, an audio library is. If you want measured stage data, you need something on your wrist rather than an app on the nightstand.
Is there a good free alarm app?
The one already on your phone. The iPhone Clock app is free, reliable and enough for most people. Tock is not free, and the roundup on free alarm apps says so in the first line rather than burying it.
How were these lists put together?
By what each product is actually built for, using only claims that hold up over time. No prices, no star ratings and no download counts appear anywhere, because those change monthly and a page that asserts them is wrong within a quarter.
Elsewhere on the site
Different corner of the same problem.
- Wake tonesGentle alarm soundsA gentle alarm works when it catches you at a light moment and fails when it lands in the heaviest part of your night, which is a timing problem rather than a volume one. Tock watches movement and sound across the 30 minutes before your alarm and rings early at a lighter moment if it finds one, with your set time as the fallback.
- Head to headSleepScore vs SnoreLabIf snoring is the complaint and you want to find out whether the mouthguard made a difference, SnoreLab. If you want the whole night measured without wearing anything, SleepScore.
- FeaturesSleep scoreThe sleep score is a single number for a night, sitting at the top of that night detail view. Underneath it are the parts that produced it, and across nights the insights cover 21 metrics in 7 groups plus long-run measures like sleep regularity and sleep debt.
- Sleep soundsDistant stormFar-off thunder helps at the start of the night because the slow rolling swells give your attention something easy to follow while it lets go, and it hurts later because every roll is a change in level, which is exactly what surfaces a light sleeper. Tock treats it as a fall-asleep aid and fades it out after half an hour by default.
- Tock for youNew parentsYou do not wake up to an alarm any more, you wake up to a small person, three or four times, and then you have to be a functioning adult by seven. The night is not so much short as it is in pieces.
- AlternativesTock vs RiseChoose Rise if planning your day around energy peaks and a running sleep debt is what actually changes your behaviour. Choose Tock if you want the alarm itself to be smarter, the night recorded from the phone, and a coach that can talk about what it heard.
The alarm is the part worth changing first
Everything else about your sleep is slow to move. The moment you get woken is the one thing you can fix tonight.